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On this page: What should screening call notes for the planner include? · How do you ask about shifts in a screening call? · Why does a screening call note like this work? · Which screening call note mistakes should you avoid? · What does this look like on a screening call? · How Radius helps · FAQ
What should screening call notes for the planner include?
Shifts, start date and doubts, in the candidate's own words. A screening call note is the short record a recruiter (in Dutch agencies, the intercedent) writes during the first call (the phone screening), for the planner who books the candidate into shifts at a client site.
1. Which shifts they can work, one by one. Early, late, night, weekend: whatever your site actually runs. A "yes" or "no" for each, in the candidate's words.
2. The start date they can make. The real date, not "available now". If they have a notice period, write when it ends.
3. Any doubt they raised. A pause, a "for now", a "depends on". Write what they said, not what you think it means.
That is all the planner needs from this call. Documents and what to bring on the first day belong to later steps. The note is one part of a fuller recruitment handover template that travels with the candidate. To make it a habit, end every screening call note with the same short block:
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Shifts | Each shift the site runs, with the candidate's answer in their own words |
| Start date | The date they gave; if a notice period applies, the date it ends |
| Doubts | Anything they hesitated over or said "for now" about, in their words |
| Open point | What the planner should check again, and when |
Illustration built for this article, not client data.
How do you ask about shifts in a screening call?
Name each real shift with its hours, and record the answer. Ask about the early shift, giving its start time, rather than asking "Are you flexible?". A named shift with a time gets a yes or a no that the planner can use. The candidate also learns what the job actually asks, which is the point of telling candidates about the 05:30 start.
The same goes for nights and weekends. You can ask about night shifts in a screening call: name the shift, give its hours and record the answer. Ask about the job's demands and the candidate's experience of similar work, never about health or medical conditions.
This is about what you record and pass on, not about how you select. If you want every candidate asked the same job-related questions and rated the same way, see how to run structured interviews at high volume.
Why does a screening call note like this work?
Because it is written for the planner, not for the recruiter. Radius Hire's 2026 research paper on frontline hiring handoffs names the problem as one of five places candidates get lost: a ten-minute phone call becomes a one-line note, and the detail that would have warned you about a no-show disappears. That is the paper's view, not a measured result.
The paper's fix for its example hire is exactly this block: ask about availability per shift during the screening call, in the candidate's own words, so the planner gets an answer, not a task. In that invented example, the note just says "flexible". After her client interview, the candidate goes four days without news before the planner confirms her availability, and her doubt about night shifts never reaches the planner. A wait like that is where good candidates can drop out.
Hospitals found something similar. In the I-PASS study, medical errors fell after junior doctors used a standard structure for handovers, with training alongside it (Starmer and colleagues, 2014). It was not a recruitment study, but the lesson carries: agree in advance what the receiver needs to find.
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Which screening call note mistakes should you avoid?
Writing "flexible". The word carries everything the recruiter heard and nothing the planner can use. Fix: one line per shift.
Asking "Are you flexible?". It invites a quick yes that tells the planner little. Fix: name the shift and its hours.
Recording your reading, not their words. "Not keen on nights" is a judgement the planner cannot check. Fix: write "paused before saying nights were fine".
Recording more than planning needs. If a family circumstance explains a doubt, a short note is enough. Fix: write "nights may change when school starts", and keep personal detail to what the candidate chose to share and the shift plan depends on.
Assuming the note arrived. No reply does not mean "received". Fix: the planner confirms they have the note and says what is missing.
What does this look like on a screening call?
Thursday afternoon at a staffing agency. A recruiter is on a screening call for an order-picker job at a site that runs three shifts. The candidate says early and late are fine. When nights come up, she pauses, then says nights are fine too. A minute later, she mentions that her child starts school next month.
The recruiter types: "available full time, flexible". Here is the same call, recorded two ways.
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| available full time, flexible | Early shift: "yes, any day". Late shift: "yes". Night shift: "that's fine", after a pause. Said her child starts school next month. |
| available now | Can start: the exact date she gave, not "now". |
| (nothing) | Open point: check nights again before school starts. |
This scene is a composite, not a documented case.
The second version takes a little longer to type. It can save the planner a phone call, and it tells the planner which shifts to offer first.
How Radius helps
Radius Hire is an AI hiring platform for frontline roles, built in Amsterdam for staffing agencies and employers who hire for the work floor; it is built to source, interview and verify applicants, while a person makes every hiring decision. The AI Interviewer is built to give every applicant a structured voice interview as soon as they apply, day or night, in their own language, with a recording, a transcript and a summary your recruiter reads. The Radius ATS is built to keep WhatsApp and email threads, notes and the interview on one candidate record, so the planner can see what the candidate already said.