How to Shortlist Candidates (With a Worked Scoring

To shortlist candidates, decide how many people you will interview before you read a single CV, sift every application against the essential criteria, then score the ones that pass against weighted desirable criteria and take the top scores. Write a reason for every decision as you go, so you can explain the shortlist to the hiring manager, and to any candidate who asks.

Most guides stop at "set clear criteria and use a scorecard". Below is the whole process, plus a filled-in grid for six real-looking CVs. It shows where the hard calls fall: a tie at the cut-off, and a candidate whose CV doesn't answer an essential question.

Screening vs shortlisting

Screening removes applications that cannot do the job: they miss an essential criterion. Shortlisting ranks the applications that remain and picks who gets an interview.

Keeping the two steps apart stops a common mistake. Teams rank everyone together and leave out a strong candidate over a nice-to-have, while someone who misses an essential gets through on charm.

Step 1: Fix the shortlist size first

Work back from your interview slots. If you have one day of first interviews, NCVO's guidance is to shortlist up to five or six applicants per interview day.

Decide the number before you read. Otherwise the shortlist grows to fit the candidates you happen to like.

Step 2: Split essential from desirable criteria

Take the criteria from your person specification. Each one is either:

Essential: without it, the person cannot do the job from day one. Pass or fail.
Desirable: makes someone better at the job. Scored and weighted.

Keep the essential list short: two to four items. Every extra essential is another reason to reject someone who could do the job. If a criterion is vague ("good culture fit"), rewrite it so a CV can show evidence for it. Our guide to fair CV screening criteria has four tests for this.

Step 3: Agree the scoring scale and weights

Use a small scale that two reviewers will apply the same way:

Score	Meaning
0	No evidence on the CV
1	Some evidence, or indirect evidence
2	Clear, specific evidence (what, how big)

Then weight each desirable criterion by how much it matters to the role: 3 for the core of the job, 1 for a bonus. Agree the weights with the hiring manager before reviewing CVs, not after you've seen a candidate you want.

A worked example: Customer Success Manager

Here is the grid for a fictional Customer Success Manager role at a B2B software company.

Essential criteria (pass/fail)

E1: At least two years managing a portfolio of business customers
E2: Can work from the Manchester office two days a week

Desirable criteria (scored 0–2, then weighted)

Criterion	Weight
D1: Owned renewals or expansion revenue	×3
D2: Ran customer onboarding or implementations	×2
D3: Built CRM reports (HubSpot, Salesforce)	×1
D4: Written customer content (guides, QBR decks)	×1

The maximum score is 14: (3 + 2 + 1 + 1) × 2.

Six applications, scored

Candidate	E1	E2	D1 ×3	D2 ×2	D3 ×1	D4 ×1	Total	Decision
A	Pass	Pass	2	1	2	1	11	Interview
C	Pass	Pass	2	2	1	0	11	Interview
B	Pass	Pass	1	2	0	2	9	Interview
E	Unclear	Pass	1	0	2	1	6	Ask first
F	Pass	Pass	0	1	1	2	5	Decline
D	Fail	Pass	–	–	–	–	–	Decline

The interview list has three places. A, C and B take them.

D fails E1: one year managing accounts, then retail roles. We stopped there and didn't score D's desirable criteria. Scoring a failed application only invites second-guessing.

F passes both essentials but has no evidence of renewals, the most heavily weighted criterion. F could still be a fit for a more junior role.

The tie at the top

A and C both score 11. Here the tie doesn't matter, because both make the cut. If the cut had fallen between them, use a tie-break you agreed in advance: first the higher score on the heaviest criterion (here both have 2 on D1), then a joint re-read of both CVs by two reviewers.

UK employers can also use positive action as a tie-break, but only between candidates who are as qualified as each other. You need a reasonable belief that people with a protected characteristic are under-represented or disadvantaged, and you can't apply it as a blanket policy (Equality Act 2010, section 159). Take HR or legal advice before you rely on it.

The candidate whose CV doesn't answer the question

E's CV says "Account Executive, 2022–present" but doesn't say whether that meant managing existing customers or selling to new ones. That's the difference between passing and failing E1.

Rejecting E on a gap in the CV, rather than a gap in experience, loses candidates who just write short CVs. Ask E one specific question by email: "In your Account Executive role, did you manage existing customer accounts? Roughly how many?" A yes with numbers puts E on the grid properly. Here E would score 6 and still miss the cut, but now that's a decision you can explain.

Step 4: Record a reason for every decision

Write one line per candidate: what decided it. For example, "Fails E1: one year of account management" or "Interview: strongest renewals evidence (D1 = 2)".

This matters for two reasons. Candidates can request their shortlisting notes under UK GDPR. And a job applicant who believes they were rejected for a discriminatory reason generally has three months to bring a tribunal claim (Equality Act 2010, section 123). Keep the grid at least that long, and state the retention period in your candidate privacy notice. Our GDPR CV screening guide covers retention in more detail.

Step 5: Calibrate with a second reviewer

Before you finalise the list, have a second person score three of the same CVs without seeing your scores. Pick one near the top, one at the cut-off and one below it. If the two of you are more than a point apart on any criterion, the evidence rule for that criterion is unclear. Rewrite it and re-score that column for everyone.

Step 6: Tell everyone, including the people you declined

Send interview invites first, then decline the others promptly, so nobody waits weeks for an answer. Our rejection email templates include a version for candidates declined after shortlisting.

Where software helps, and where it shouldn't decide

A spreadsheet works for six CVs. At 200, the slow part is reading every CV carefully enough to score it on the same evidence rules.

Marxel runs this same process. You turn the hiring brief into criteria, mark the must-haves and weight the rest, and your team reviews and edits the criteria before any CV is processed. Each CV is then evaluated against them, with the CV evidence behind every criterion. Recruiters see a Best match band (Strong, Good or Partial) next to which must-haves were met. Candidates like E, whose CVs don't answer a question, get suggested follow-up questions instead of a silent rejection. Your team still makes every shortlisting decision. You can see what one result looks like in this example candidate assessment.

FAQ

How many candidates should be on a shortlist?

As many as you can interview properly. Work back from your interview slots and decide the number before you read the CVs. NCVO suggests up to five or six applicants per interview day.

What is the difference between essential and desirable criteria?

Essential criteria are pass or fail: without them, someone cannot do the job. Desirable criteria make someone better at the job, so you score and weight them to rank the candidates who pass.

Should every reviewer use the same scoring grid?

Yes. Reviewers should use the same criteria, scale and weights, agreed before anyone reads a CV. Then calibrate on a few CVs so everyone reads the evidence the same way.

How to Shortlist Candidates (With a Worked Scoring Grid)