Once you have a pool of applicants, the next step is to select the best candidates for the job.
This usually means whittling down the applicant pool by using screening tools: tests, assessment centres, and background and reference checks.
Then the prospective supervisor can interview likely candidates and decide who to hire.
Selecting the right employees is important for three main reasons: performance, costs, and legal obligations.

Performance

First, the performance of a company always depends in part on the perfomance of its employees. Employees with the right skills will do a better job for the company. Employees without these skills or who are abrasive or obstructionist won’t perform effectively, and the firm’s performance will suffer. The time to screen out undesirables is before they are in the door, not after.

Cost

Second, it is important because it’s costly to recruit and hire employees. Hiring and training even a clerk can cost $5,000 or more in fees and supervisory time. The total cost of hiring a manager could easily be 10 times as high once you add search fees, interviewing time, reference checking, and travel and moving expenses.

Legal Obligations

Third, it’s important because of two legal implications of incompetent hiring. First, equal employment laws require nondiscriminatory selection procedures for protected groups. Second, courts will find the employer liable when employees with criminal records or other problems use access to customers’ homes (or similar opportunities) to commit crimes. Lawyers call hiring workers with such backgrounds, without proper safeguards, negligent hiring.