A phone prefix is not evidence. It is an assumption dressed up as a selection criterion.
A recruiter recently posted the following advice on X:
If you are new to Switzerland and your phone number does not start with +41, you should expect to be rejected.
The reasoning was that obtaining a local number demonstrates that a candidate is making an effort to integrate. According to the recruiter, a foreign prefix creates a “minus” that can turn a 50:50 decision into a rejection.
Let’s be brutally honest:
This is not professional screening.
It is guessing.
A telephone prefix tells you where a number was registered. It does not tell you whether someone can perform the job, whether they intend to stay in the country, whether they are committed to the employer, or whether they will become a strong employee.
The bigger problem, however, is not this one rejection criterion. The bigger problem is the philosophy behind it. You can screen candidates in two fundamentally different ways:
- Look for reasons why someone is not a fit.
- Look for evidence that someone could be a fit.
Those approaches may sound similar, but they are not.
The first creates exclusion by default. The second creates a fair route into the process. And the difference starts with what you believe screening is supposed to accomplish.
Screening Is Not a Hunt for Reasons to Reject
Recruiters deal with volume.
I understand the pressure. When you have hundreds, or even thousands, of profiles to review, you need signals. You cannot interview everyone. You need a reliable way to reduce the applicant pool. But pressure does not turn a meaningless signal into a valid one.
When the objective becomes “find a reason to reject this person,” recruiters start inventing shortcuts:
- The wrong phone prefix.
- The wrong postcode.
- A career gap.
- An unfamiliar university.
- A job title that does not match exactly.
- Too many short roles.
- Not enough years in the same industry.
- A profile that does not “look local.”
- A candidate who has not yet moved to the country.
- A CV that does not follow the expected format.
Each shortcut may appear harmless when considered individually. Together, they create a process in which candidates are removed for failing to resemble the recruiter’s mental picture of a safe applicant.
That is not evidence-based selection, that is pattern matching. And pattern matching becomes dangerous when the pattern has little or nothing to do with performance in the role.
The Phone-Prefix Argument Falls Apart Immediately
Let’s test the logic.
The claim is:
A candidate without a local telephone number has not made enough effort to integrate.
That conclusion is built on multiple assumptions. Perhaps the candidate is looking for a job before moving. That would be completely rational. Moving to another country without employment, housing, or income is not evidence of commitment. It may simply be evidence of poor planning.
Perhaps obtaining a local contract requires a local address, bank account, residency document, or other administrative step the candidate cannot complete yet. Perhaps the candidate already has a perfectly functioning international number and sees no reason to replace it before securing a role.
Perhaps the person is exploring opportunities across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, or a broader European region. Should that candidate obtain a separate telephone number for every country before applying?
Apparently, according to this logic, yes. Otherwise, they may never reach the shortlist. None of this tells us anything about whether the person can do the job. A recruiter has taken an administrative detail and converted it into a psychological assessment:
Foreign number → limited integration effort → questionable commitment → weaker candidate.
Every arrow in that chain is an assumption. There is no demonstrated relationship between the prefix and the candidate’s ability to perform. That should end the discussion.
“It Is Only a Small Minus” Is Not a Defence
The response in the discussion was that nobody is rejected solely because of the prefix. It is merely a minus. A question mark. Something that might turn a 50:50 decision into 51:49 against the candidate.
That defence makes the problem worse, not better. If two candidates are genuinely equal on everything that predicts performance, why would you use an irrelevant characteristic to make the final decision?
You are admitting that the deciding factor has nothing to do with the job. And these “small minuses” accumulate:
One candidate has a foreign number.
Another has a career gap.
Another lives slightly too far away.
Another studied at an unfamiliar university.
Another has a name the recruiter does not immediately recognize.
Another has moved countries several times.
Another has not used the exact job title written on the vacancy.
None of these points necessarily predicts poor performance. But each can become a convenient reason to reduce the workload. That is how systematic exclusion enters recruitment without anyone deliberately designing a discriminatory process.
Nobody needs to say, “Reject this group.” You only need enough apparently harmless proxies that disproportionately remove certain people before their ability is ever assessed.
Then the Argument Moved to Language
The recruiter doubled down by arguing that learning the local language is another proxy.
Proxy for what?
That is the question that matters.
If the language is required to perform the role, it is a legitimate selection criterion. A customer-facing position may require German, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, or another specific language. The recruiter should define the required proficiency level and assess it consistently.
That is job-related. But when language is not required for the role, using it as a general test of commitment creates the same reasoning failure as the phone number.
It transforms:
Does this person speak the language needed to perform the work?
into:
Has this person behaved in the way I personally associate with integration?
Those are completely different questions. The first is recruitment, the second is a personal judgment about how someone should live.
Switzerland Makes the Language Argument Even More Absurd
The original discussion concerned Switzerland. Switzerland has several national languages, including German, French, Italian, and Romansh. Which language proves that a candidate has made an effort to integrate depends heavily on where the person will live and work.
Consider two applicants.
An Italian candidate already speaks Italian fluently but has made no new effort to learn a language.
A Dutch candidate has spent a year learning basic German but remains far less fluent.
Who has demonstrated more willingness to integrate? The Dutch candidate made more effort. The Italian candidate has stronger local-language capability. Which proxy are we using now?
Effort?
Fluency?
Geography?
Personal intention?
Length of stay?
The model collapses because it was never a valid model. It was a personal belief converted into a hiring filter.
The same problem appears in internationally oriented labour markets. Many people live and work successfully in countries without speaking the dominant local language at a high level, particularly when their role and workplace operate in another language.
Again, the relevant question is not whether you personally approve of that choice. The relevant question is whether the person can perform the job.
A Candidate Does Not Need to Promise Forever
Another hidden assumption is that candidates must demonstrate an intention to settle permanently.
Why?
Companies do not offer lifetime employment. Employees are not required to promise that they will remain in one country forever. Someone may plan to return home eventually and still contribute exceptional value for five, ten, or twenty years. Someone else may arrive claiming they want to stay forever and leave after six months.
Intentions change.
Relationships change.
Companies restructure.
Roles disappear.
Families move.
Markets shift.
A candidate’s future length of stay is influenced by whether they find meaningful work, whether they are treated fairly, whether they can grow, and whether the employer gives them a reason to remain.
Rejecting someone because they have not already demonstrated permanent commitment reverses the relationship. You are asking candidates to prove loyalty before the organization has given them anything to be loyal to.
The Fundamental Choice: Rejecting Out or Selecting In
This is the real philosophical issue.
Approach 1: Search for reasons why someone is not a fit
The recruiter opens a profile and asks:
- What is missing?
- What looks unusual?
- What makes this person risky?
- Why might the hiring manager reject them?
- What shortcut allows me to move on quickly?
This mindset produces exclusion and encourages the reviewer to treat difference as risk and familiarity as quality. It also rewards weak job definitions. When nobody has defined what predicts performance, recruiters fill the gap with assumptions.
Approach 2: Search for evidence that someone could be a fit
The recruiter asks:
- Which required skills are visible?
- Which competencies might transfer?
- What evidence suggests the person can perform the work?
- Which accomplishments are relevant?
- What should we investigate during screening or interviewing?
- Does the person meet the minimum success drivers defined for the role?
This mindset creates a route into the process, though it does not mean interviewing everyone. It means rejecting people only when they do not meet criteria that are genuinely connected to the role.
That is a far higher professional standard.
Your Job Description May Already Be Creating the Problem
Many recruiters will agree with the principle and then continue screening on:
- Years of experience.
- Education level.
- Previous job titles.
- Employment history.
- Specific employers.
- Industry tenure.
- CV format.
That means nothing has changed. You are still screening primarily for reasons why someone does not match the traditional profile and use a job description built around credentials produces credential-based screening.
A job description copied from the previous vacancy produces backward-looking screening and a vague kickoff produces subjective screening. When recruiters and hiring managers have not defined what makes someone successful in the role, irrelevant proxies rush in to fill the vacuum. And to be clear, there is not ‘a change this happens’, this ‘always happens’!
This is why the job kickoff is not an administrative meeting, it is the foundation of the entire selection process. As we have argued before, the job intake should define what great performance looks like and reverse-engineer the hiring process from that outcome. It should not revolve around CV checkboxes such as years of experience, education, and previous titles.
Interesting read: Why the Job Kick off is the linchpin of great hiring
Merit-Based Hiring Gives You a Better Alternative
Merit-Based Hiring means evaluating candidates based on demonstrated abilities, skills, knowledge, accomplishments, behaviour, and potential to contribute successfully in the role. It replaces irrelevant assumptions with role-related evidence.
At the Recruiting Excellence Foundation, we have developed a practical Merit-Based Hiring Framework that can be applied to operational roles, professional positions, specialist hiring, and executive recruitment. And it does not require you to destroy your existing hiring process and start again. The framework introduces four connected checkpoints that need to be met throughout your hiring process.
1. Job Kickoff: Define the Success Drivers
You do not start with the existing job description, you start with the work. The job kickoff defines what someone needs to succeed across three categories.
Skills and competencies
What must the person know or be able to do?
This could include:
- Problem-solving.
- Technical capability.
- Stakeholder management.
- Presentation skills.
- Commercial judgment.
- Planning.
- Data analysis.
- Leadership.
- Customer communication.
The point is not to create the longest possible list. The point is to identify the capabilities that genuinely affect performance.
Behaviour
How must the person handle the daily work and the difficult situations associated with the role?
For example:
- How do they respond when priorities conflict?
- How do they make decisions with incomplete information?
- How do they manage resistance?
- How do they communicate under pressure?
- How do they handle repetitive work?
- How do they recover from mistakes?
Behaviour must also be role-related. “Would I enjoy having a drink with this person?” is not a behavioural criterion.
Future potential
What do you actually expect from the person over time? We divide this into three broad expectations:
- Execute: You need someone who can perform the role consistently and may remain in it for a long period.
- Improve: You need someone who will perform the work and continuously improve how it is done.
- Grow: You expect the person to succeed in the role and move into a larger or different position within a defined period.
This distinction matters as too many organizations say they want “ambitious” people for every role and then complain when those people want to move after eighteen months. You need to define the future expectation honestly.
2. Scorecards: Translate Requirements Into Evidence
The success drivers from the job kickoff are translated into a scorecard.
Each item should include:
- A clear definition.
- The expected level.
- Evidence that would demonstrate it.
- A consistent rating scale.
- Example questions to assess it.
Our approach provides five example questions for each success driver, helping interviewers assess topics such as problem-solving, communication, learning agility, or presentation capability consistently.
Now the hiring team is no longer discussing whether someone “felt convincing”, they are assessing defined evidence. This is what converts a job requirement from an opinion into a usable selection criterion.
3. Structured Interviews: Decide Who Assesses What
The success drivers are assigned across the interview process.
Each interviewer knows:
- Which criteria they own.
- What those criteria mean.
- Which questions they can use.
- What evidence they need to record.
- How the response should be scored.
Interviewers should use at least two of the prepared questions for each assigned area. This produces comparable information across candidates, it also stops every interviewer from repeating the same conversation and then giving a general impression.
Structured hiring models that link competencies to predefined questions create greater consistency, clarity, and fairness across interviewers and roles.
Interesting example of competency based hiring: Inside ‘MHPS a Porsche Company’ bento box a real world example of scaling structured competency based hiring
4. Hiring Decision Meetings: Compare Evidence, Not Personal Opinions
A structured process can still collapse during the final meeting.
One interviewer says:
“I just didn’t feel it.”
Another says:
“I’m worried they might leave.”
Someone else says:
“They don’t seem local enough.”
And suddenly the scorecards disappear, a structured hiring decision meeting prevents this from happening. Candidates are compared only against the success drivers that were defined and assessed. This creates a situation where interviewers bring evidence, ratings are discussed, contradictions are examined, and unmeasured or on defined assumptions are easy to challenge.
The final decision is based on what the role requires, not on who made the strongest subjective argument in the room. Structured decision-making ensures that the rigour used during interviews continues into the final choice rather than being replaced by hierarchy, emotion, or personal preference.
You Control Which Type of Recruiter You Become
You can be the recruiter who rapidly removes profiles because something looks unfamiliar, or you can be the recruiter who creates clarity about what predicts performance and then assesses people against it.
Both approaches reduce an applicant pool, but only one is professionally defensible. The purpose of screening is not to discover everything that could possibly be wrong with a candidate. It is to determine whether there is enough relevant evidence to continue assessing their potential fit for the role.
- A foreign phone number is not negative evidence.
- An unfamiliar career route is not negative evidence.
- A different postcode is not negative evidence.
- Not speaking a language that the job does not require is not negative evidence.
These are assumptions unless you can demonstrate a direct, role-related reason for using them. And when recruiters repeatedly turn assumptions into rejection criteria, the consequences are not harmless.
Good candidates disappear before anyone examines their ability, certain groups are excluded disproportionately, hiring teams receive narrower shortlists, organizations repeatedly hire familiar profiles, and recruiters mistake fast rejection for professional judgment.
Final Thought: Every Rejection Criterion Must Survive One Question
Before rejecting someone during initial screening, ask:
Can I explain how this criterion affects the person’s ability to perform successfully in this specific role?
- Not whether it feels relevant
- Not whether another recruiter uses it.
- Not whether it saves time.
- Not whether it supposedly signals commitment.
- Can you establish a credible connection to performance?
If the answer is no, remove it from your screening process. Talent Acquisition has a responsibility to protect the quality of the hiring decision, not contaminate it with assumptions.
Stop searching for irrelevant reasons to reject people and atart selecting for evidence of what could make them successful. That is how you build a fairer process and more importantly, it is how you make better hires.
We have helped dozens of organizations globally introduce the Merit-Based Hiring Framework and put Talent Acquisition back in control of high-quality, structured hiring decisions.
In its simplest form, implementation starts with one practical workshop.
Interested in replacing subjective screening with a defensible, merit-based process? You can find more information: Merit Based Hiring Workshop or Reach out to us.