Screening Phase

Review these resources to guide your application review process:

Assessment and Evaluation Plan

Guide to Redacted Applications

Candidate Materials Screening Form

Interviews present an opportunity to learn about candidates and for candidates to learn about you and the organization. When successful, interviews assess a candidate’s qualifications while providing an authentic and positive experience with the hiring unit. Review the Interview Guide to learn more about interview preparation, interview best practices, virtual interview best practices, types of interview questions, and interviews do’s and don’ts. 

Consider how you will communicate with those who are evaluating candidates and how they should share their evaluations or comments. The Interview Evaluation Form is to be completed by the interviewer to rank the candidate’s overall qualifications for the position for which they have applied. It’s also important to consider how you will be introducing your candidate to stakeholders within the hiring unit; this is of particular importance for leadership searches. An option for the committee chair to track interview summaries is the Interview Summary Tracking Tool.

Once you’ve collected all of your feedback and evaluations, it’s time to make your selection. Depending on your search and screen model, this may involve deeper conversations with the search committee and other stakeholders. It’s important to thoroughly review all of the feedback from each stage of the review process. If candidates may not have preferred qualifications or other knowledge, skills, and abilities, consider whether these gaps can be bridged through the training and onboarding process.

Information from references will prove very useful in evaluating a candidate’s skills, training, experience, and ability to perform position duties. Use the Guide to Reference Checks to learn more on how to conduct a reference check, reference check questions and more. We generally advise only performing reference checks for your chosen finalist. We’d only recommend reference checks for multiple candidates when you’re choosing between two, and you feel that additional information from these checks would help in that decision-making. We recommend working with HR if you’re considering doing this.

When making a offer to hire, we recommend working with HR and reviewing our guide to determining a starting salary. We also recommend thinking about other non-salary benefits that may make your offer more enticing. Some benefits to consider include a hiring bonus, professional development funding, reimbursement for certification/licensure, information on Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness.

If a selected finalist declines the offer, we’d recommend asking what went into their decision to do so. You can let them know they’re not obligated to answer, and you’re mainly asking to improve your internal processes. It’s important to emphasize that their answer won’t impact their candidacy for other positions at the University. Work with HR on how to operationalize this feedback, including adding it to the Applicant Tracking System

Once you’ve confirmed who you’re going to hire, it’s important to let the other candidates know that they’re not moving forward. Consider personalized language about what went into your decision for candidates further along in the process, and provide feedback when they ask for it. Encourage them to apply for other campus openings, and keep a list of particularly compelling non-select candidates (bronze/silver medalists) for future openings within your unit.

Once your chosen finalist has accepted, we’d recommend you review the UW Madison Onboarding Toolkit with HR to start planning what their first days/weeks with your hiring unit will look like.