My goal usually is to be able to shortlist 10 applicants for any posting in order to provide them with a test.

Filter 1: Pre-Determined Skillsets, Expected Pay and Location

Most recruitment sites let you filter applicants by criteria and oDesk will let you define the skills and attributes you want in advance and then you can click on “Hide candidates who don’t match your preferred qualifications”.

In doing this I have reduced those 86 candidates down to just 13.

Filter 2: Ability to Follow Instructions

I never invite applicants to a personal interview until they’ve been shortlisted. All job postings specifically explain what will happen during the selection. Generally we’ll email some candidates a test for them to return. Only after that do we begin to spend personal time with the lucky shortlist.

Although I’m sure they believe they’re being enthusiastic, if we get eager candidates who contact us on messenger asking to have their interview now, it usually shows that they’ve not read the posting properly.

Filter 3: A Sincere Application

I always specifically post that we expect applicants to reply sincerely and that we’ll ignore replies that are generic. I’m not sure how successful the approach might be to applicants but some just send a stock “Hello sir, I understand what you want to do and can do it very well” message. Maybe the law of averages works in their favor but with 85 competitors for my position these people don’t stand a chance.

We’ve removed the author of this letter from the shortlist …

“Thanks for viewing my bid,I completely understand your requirements and interested in performing this job.” Looking forward to hearing from you and working on you valued Project.

We are impressed if an applicant makes specific reference to software or websites that we’ve mentioned in the posting, even if it’s to state they don’t have experience with it.

A pet peeve of mine is when a person forces a huge portfolio of work in front of me and they expect me to go through it all.

Filter 4: Spelling and Grammar

It might not be important for every job but it’s a good indication of how communications are likely to be. I’ve had instances in the past where programmers make mistakes when adding small sentences to sites which reflects badly on me.

Filter 5: Previous Experience

I’ll certainly give a lot more credit to people who have done the exact job before because it’ll save me a few hours of training material.

Filter 6: Hourly / Per-Job Rate

This is less important that other criteria if all bids are within a comfortable range. If, like today our shortlist contains 13 applicants though and we need to eliminate 3 then we’ll sometimes reject the most expensive provider. We might also reject bids that seem too cheap. One lady has bid $1.67 an hour and I’m cynical as to whether they’ll be motivated to do this job in the long-term.

My current job posting (for customer service staff now has a 1st shortlist of 9 applicants.

I’ll be contacting them today once I’ve designed a suitable test for them.