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Candidate vetting

“Pre-vetted” should mean something specific. Here is what it means here.

The term covers everything from reading a résumé to taking references, so it is worth defining. This is the workflow a candidate goes through before a hiring manager sees them, stage by stage, including the parts we deliberately leave to you.

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The workflow, stage by stage

  1. Role intake

    What the person will own, what is required versus preferred, the compensation band, the location constraint, who they report to, and how the interview process will run. Without this the rest is guesswork: you cannot screen against a brief that does not exist.

    What comes out of it: A written brief, and an honest read on whether the role is fillable as specified.

  2. Sourcing

    Two channels in parallel. The talent pool, which is people already screened and on file, and direct outreach to people who are not in it and are not looking. The first is fast; the second is where most senior hires come from.

    What comes out of it: A named list of candidates who plausibly fit, not a search-result count.

  3. Qualification

    A conversation, not a form. Does this person actually do the work the brief describes, at the level it describes, and are they genuinely open to moving. A candidate who is flattered but not moving is not a candidate.

    What comes out of it: Candidates who are both a fit and actually available.

  4. Screening

    The structured part. Employment history with dates, employers, titles and reasons for leaving. Work authorization and any sponsorship requirement. Compensation expectations and notice period. Licences and certifications where the role turns on them. Where a résumé is on file it is parsed, and a person reviews what was extracted before it is trusted.

    What comes out of it: A comparable record for every candidate, checked against the brief.

  5. Shortlist

    Three to five people with the reasoning attached: why they fit, where the gap is, what it would take to hire them, and what they are weighing. Deliberately short, because moving the screening work onto you is not a service.

    What comes out of it: A shortlist you can read in ten minutes and act on.

  6. Handoff and beyond

    Scheduling, structured feedback in both directions, offer and counter-offer, notice period and start date. A placement is not finished at the introduction, and searches that fall over late usually fall over here.

    What comes out of it: A signed offer and a start date that holds.

What qualifies a candidate as pre-vetted

All of the following are established and checked against the role before anyone reaches a shortlist. If one is missing, the candidate is a prospect rather than a vetted candidate, and we will say which.

  • Employment history: dates, employers, titles, and the stated reason for leaving each.
  • Work authorization, and whether sponsorship would be required.
  • Compensation expectations and current package structure.
  • Notice period and real availability, not a hoped-for date.
  • Licences and certifications, held as their own field so they can be filtered on rather than found in prose.
  • Education and any additional training relevant to the role.
  • The candidate’s own answers on what they have accomplished and what their next role must have.

What we do not do, and why

Being precise about the boundary is part of being useful. Claiming a check we do not perform would be worse than not performing it.

  • Formal background checks and criminal-record checks. Those are the employer’s to run, usually at offer stage and through a provider, because consent and jurisdiction rules apply.

  • Credential verification with the issuing body. We record what a candidate holds and what they tell us; primary-source verification is an employer step for roles where it matters.

  • Formal reference calls before shortlist. References are taken when a candidate is a serious contender, with their knowledge, not collected speculatively while they are still employed elsewhere.

Speed, and where it actually comes from

Speed comes from the pool, not from skipping steps. Candidates already screened and on file can be approached the same week a search opens, which is why building the pool is continuous work rather than something that starts when a brief arrives.

A search needing people who are not yet known moves at the speed of outreach, and outreach moves at the speed of earning a reply from someone who was not looking. We will estimate that at intake. What we will not do is name a number of days that sounds good and then fill it with whoever was available.

Common questions

Who can help us hire pre-vetted candidates quickly for specialized roles?

"Pre-vetted" is worth pinning down, because it is used to mean anything from "we read the résumé" to "we checked references". Ask any firm to define it before relying on it.

Here it means a candidate has been through a structured intake and a recruiter conversation before they reach a shortlist: verified employment history with dates and supervisors, work authorization, compensation expectations, notice period and availability, licences and certifications where the role requires them, and their own account of why they are open to moving.

Speed comes from the talent pool rather than from skipping steps. People already screened and in the pool can be approached the same week a search opens. A search needing candidates who are not yet known takes as long as reaching them takes, and we will estimate that at intake rather than promise a number we cannot hold.

The vetting workflow, step by step

How long does it take to fill a specialized or hard-to-fill role?

It depends on how many people can do the job and how reachable they are, which is why an honest answer comes after intake rather than before it.

What we will commit to is the shape: an assessment of the market within one business day of the brief, and a clear statement of whether the role is fillable as written. If it is not — the compensation is below market, the location requirement rules out the pool, the experience combination barely exists — you hear that at the start.

Where candidates are already in the talent pool and screened, a shortlist can come together in days. Where the search needs people who are not yet known, the work is outreach, and outreach takes as long as it takes to earn a reply from someone who was not looking.

The five stages of a search

How can we stop getting unqualified applicants for specialized roles?

Volume is not evidence of reach. An advertised specialised role typically collects applications from people who match the title and not the requirement, because a posting cannot ask follow-up questions.

Two things reduce it. First, screen against the requirement rather than the keyword: the intake here captures employment history with dates, supervisors and reasons for leaving, certifications, work authorization and compensation expectations, and each is checked against the brief before anyone is shortlisted. Second, keep the shortlist small on purpose. Three candidates who fit are more useful than thirty who applied.

Screening questions attached to a specific role also help, and every role posted here can carry its own, including knockout questions that flag an application which cannot meet a hard requirement such as a licence.

What gets checked, and when

Our commitment to you

We are paid on placement. If we do not fill the role, there is no fee.

Every candidate presented has been through the stages above. If one has not, you will be told which stage is outstanding and why.