A short advisory video (YouTube) by John Jonas arguing that shortlisting candidates from resumes is ineffective—especially on OnlineJobs.ph—because posted resumes may belong to employed, unresponsive workers. He recommends casting a wide net, contacting many applicants or 20–30 prospective workers, and then shortlisting only from those who reply so you hire the best available person. The piece closes with a call-to-action to use OnlineJobs.ph.
Chapters
Don't shortlist candidates. Here's why. I often have people tell me I'm currently shortlisting candidates or I'm bookmarking candidates looking for the one, or I found the right person and they're not available. Now what? Trying to find the person you want by looking at profiles is the wrong way to approach this. Here's why. Number one, OnlineJobs ph is a place for Filipinos to post their resumes and also a job board. Just because someone posts a resume doesn't mean they're available for work right now. Which leads me to number two, Filipinos are extremely loyal. They're loyal to their current employer, which means if the person you shortlisted already has a job, they're likely not even going to respond to your job offer. This is super frustrating if you're trying to shortlist people, but super awesome after you've hired someone. So what's the right approach? Start by casting a super wide net, then recruit people who you know are available because they respond to you. So here's how I do it. If I'm posting a job, I post a job, I see who applies, then I start interviewing people and shortlisting people based on who applied. Simple. If I'm contacting workers, rather than shortlist them up front, I'm going to contact like 20 to 30 workers. Then I'll start interviewing those who reply and I can shortlist from there. The key here isn't to find the best person out there, it's to find the best available person. Often if you cast a wide net, that available person is actually the best person. And this is why you don't shortlist candidates up front. I'm John Jonas and I created onlinejobs ph. Now go hire someone.
