How Shortlist Works: 3 Minutes to Your First Shortlist

Shortlist was designed around a single idea: hiring teams should be able to go from "I need to fill this role" to "here are my top candidates" as fast as possible. The entire workflow takes three steps, and setting up your first job takes about three minutes.

Start by creating a job. Give it a title, add a brief description, and set your screening questions — the questions candidates will answer on video. You can write your own or use AI-generated suggestions tailored to the role. Most teams use two to four questions, things like "Walk me through a project you're proud of" or "Why are you interested in this role?" Keep them open-ended. The goal is to hear candidates think, not to quiz them on trivia.

Once your job is live, you get a shareable link. Post it on your job board, include it in your LinkedIn listing, email it to applicants — anywhere you'd normally send candidates. When they click the link, they land on a clean application page. No account needed, no app to download. They see your questions, record their video answers one at a time (one take each, to keep things authentic), review their recordings, and submit. The whole process takes candidates five to ten minutes.

As applications come in, they appear on your dashboard in a kanban-style pipeline. Each card shows the candidate's name, email, and a thumbnail of their video. Click to watch. You'll see their responses to each question, one after another. Most reviews take two to three minutes per candidate. As you watch, drag candidates between columns: "New" to "Reviewing" to "Shortlisted" or "Archived." By the end of a review session, you have a clear shortlist of who to bring in for real interviews.

That's it. No complex setup, no integrations required, no training needed. Create a job, share the link, watch the videos, build your shortlist. The whole point of Shortlist is to remove the busywork between "applications received" and "I know who I want to talk to." Three minutes of setup saves you hours of phone screens — and you end up with better candidates in your pipeline.