Hiring advice
Why a shortlist of five beats a longlist of fifty
Volume looks like effort. It is usually the opposite — a signal that nobody has done the work of judging who is genuinely worth your interview slots.
When an agency sends fifty CVs, they have moved the screening work onto you. The hours your hiring manager spends filtering are hours not spent on the product.
What a good shortlist contains
Four to six candidates, each with a written rationale covering why they fit, what the risk is and what they expect on salary and notice. That is enough for a hiring manager to make decisions in ten minutes.
The trade-off
A short shortlist requires the recruiter to have an opinion, and to be wrong in public occasionally. That is the job. We would rather defend five choices than hide behind fifty.