Home < Managers and Supervisors < Employment Services < Screening Candidates and Requesting Work Samples

Screening Candidates and Requesting Work Samples

Screening and/or Selection Committees
Requesting Work Samples

The goal of screening is to determine the best qualified applicants to interview. All interviewees need to meet all posted requirements. When you receive a notification that the position has been taken off the web, you login to the Classification and Applicant Tracking System (CATS) to conduct an initial screening for applicants who meet all the posted requirements. In CATS you review each candidate's application, resume and cover letter online.

• A Hiring Manager can use the temporary statuses (Reviewed - Yes, Reviewed - No, Reviewed - Maybe) to indicate a preliminary sorting of the applicants, and/or guide Screening/Selection Committee members to see the Reviewed - Yes applicants. (If a Committee needs an offline worksheet to review applicants against the posted requirements and discuss as a group, you can use the Applicant Evaluation Matrix.)
• Guest Users - Anyone who needs to review resumes for a position and doesn't already have access to a requisition can be given a Guest User username and password in CATS to review the resumes online. This Guest User access is set up by the person who initially submits the requisition, and Guest Users do not need a CATS account. Guests Users can view only the applications and documents on the requisition for which they are given the password, and they have read-only access so they cannot change the status of any of the applicants.
• If the applicants do not meet all the posted requirements you change their Status to "Not Qualified." Then their application becomes Inactive, and does not show up on the initial view of applicants. To see inactive applicants you click on Inactive and "refresh" the screen.

From this initial screening you determine if there is a sufficient applicant pool to interview or if you need to repost the position on the web. If there are qualified candidates who are eligible for preferential layoff or recall, you need to interview them before other candidates in the pool.

Once you decide whom to invite for interview, you change the status of those applicants to Selected for Interview in CATS. For applicants who met all the posted requirements but are not interviewed, you give reasons for non-selection. Please see the Reasons for Non-Selection guideline for more information. At the end of the selection process when you "fill" a position, e-mails will be sent to non-interviewees. E-mails will not be sent to interviewees so you will need to notify them separately. If an applicant withdraws, does not show up for an interview, or declines an offer, and their status is changed to reflect this action, they will receive a notification as soon as the new status is saved. See Applicant Notifications for details on when applicants receive notifications."