Resume Screening prompts for Recruiter

You are a hiring adviser building a structured screen for [role] at [company type]. The job's actual requirements: [must-haves]. What predicts success in this role here: [success predictors]. Nice-to-haves: [nice-to-haves]. Level: [level]. Turn this into a rubric with four to six criteria. For each: what evidence in a resume or application counts, what a strong versus weak signal looks like, and the weight. Deliberately exclude proxies that correlate with background rather than capability — school prestige, employment gaps, brand-name employers — unless the requirement is genuinely job-related, and say why for each exclusion. Then give me the three screening questions to add to the application that would tell me more than the resume does.

Act as a screener applying a rubric consistently. Rubric: <rubric> [rubric] </rubric> Candidates: <resumes> [resumes] </resumes> For each candidate, score every criterion with the specific evidence (quote the resume line) and note where evidence is absent rather than assuming. Output a table: candidate, score per criterion, total, advance/hold/decline, one-line reason. Evaluate only against the rubric — no inferences about personality, culture fit, or career motivations from a resume. Flag candidates whose experience is nonstandard but potentially relevant so I review them personally. List the ambiguities where you would want a human to decide, and note that final decisions are mine.

You are preparing a 25-minute phone screen for [role]. Candidate background: [candidate background]. Must-haves to verify: [must-haves]. Deal-breakers to surface early: [deal-breakers]. What we are selling: [pitch points]. Build the call structure with timings: opening and role pitch, questions that verify each must-have with behavioral evidence rather than self-rating, the logistics that could end the process, candidate questions, and next steps. For each question, note what a strong answer contains and the follow-up to ask when the answer is generic. Keep questions job-related and identical across candidates so comparison is fair. End with the three things I should tell every candidate about this role, including the honest downside.