More employers are turning to pre-screening tools to help them streamline their hiring process, according to a national workforce study that recruiting and staffing firm Spherion Corp. released in June.

Finding qualified, skilled workers and keeping employment costs under control will be small companies’ top two HR concerns over the next few years, according to the study, which found that more big and small employers are turning to tools to help them screen potential job candidates more efficiently.

In fact, 51 percent have increased their use of pre-screening programs in the past five years, and 60 percent have upped their use of assessment programs.

The findings are based on phone and online interviews conducted between March 21 and April 27, 2005, with senior human resource executives at U.S. companies.

“Changing demographics, shrinking supplies of qualified workers and the growing importance of retaining top talent are just some of the reasons employers are re-evaluating their approach to the screening, interviewing and hiring process,” Spherion President and CEO Roy Krause said in a press release.

A survey from Challenger, Gray & Christmas this year found that 66 percent of HR executives said it is becoming more difficult to find qualified candidates and/or retain them because of the tightening job market.

“More and more human resource executives are coming to the realization that they can no longer drag their heels on hiring decisions,” Challenger CEO John A. Challenger said in a press release.

“If they do, it is increasingly likely that the candidate will be off the market before the offer is made.”

Employers cannot afford to spend time and money interviewing unqualified candidates, and hiring managers risk losing talented workers who won’t be available in the market for long, Spherion’s Krause noted.

The typical hiring manager interviews an average of eight people for a position, and 42 percent of employers think that their hiring managers interview too many people to find qualified candidates, according to Spherion.

Companies with $1 billion or more in annual revenue, though, are less inclined than smaller organizations to think that they interview too many people. The most innovative organizations, Krause said, use pre-screening and assessment tools to find good job candidates quickly.

Overall, 93 percent of employers surveyed for the Spherion study use some type of screening tool, a big increase from 48 percent five years ago. Background checks appear to be the screening tool of choice for some or all of the jobs at 79 percent of organizations. That’s up from 51 percent in 2005.

Other tools they use include:

• Non-specified pre-screening programs, 57 percent; up from 51 percent in 2001.

• Skills testing, 56 percent; up from 48 percent.

• Behavioral interviewing; 54 percent, a slight dip from 56 percent.

• Drug tests, 50 percent; down from 54 percent.

• Behavioral assessments, 34 percent; down from 60 percent.

• Credit checks, 33 percent; down from 55 percent.

Employers that are more successful financially and have stronger employee growth because they use HR best practices—dubbed “emergent” employers—are more inclined to use pre-screening and assessment tools in their hiring process, Spherion said.

For example, 69 percent of emergent employers vs. 51 percent of traditional employers use skills testing; 78 percent vs. 40 percent use behavioral interviewing; 65 percent vs. 46 percent use pre-screening programs; and 55 percent vs. 24 percent use behavioral assessments.

Some employers even are looking at profiles on social networking sites to research and screen job candidates, the National Association of Colleges and Employersfound.

Among employers participating in Purdue (Indiana) University job fairs and on-campus recruiting, 50 percent of 114 employers surveyed in the past academic year use some sort of online technology to screen candidates who had already applied for a job. Those employers were going online to look at social networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster, MySpace and LiveJournal; personal websites, blogs and search engines. Another 7 percent said they do not use online screening methods but plan to start.

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