Saving and sharing a shortlist

Once you have a shortlist worth acting on, saving and sharing it well is what turns your work into someone else’s decision, rather than a list of names they have to interrogate from scratch.

Save the search, not just the names

Saving a shortlist in ProFinda keeps the underlying search criteria attached to it, not just the four names you selected. This matters because a requester or colleague reviewing the shortlist later can see why each person is on it - which skills, availability, and location criteria produced the result - rather than taking your word for it. It also means you can return to the shortlist in a week, re-run the same search, and see immediately if anyone’s availability has changed.

Share the reasoning, not just the list

A shortlist sent as four names with no context forces the requester to ask the same questions you already answered when you built it: why these four, what makes them fit, what their availability looks like. Include the one-line reason each name is there - the same sentence you used to justify including them - so the requester can act on the shortlist immediately rather than opening a back-and-forth.

Remember it is a snapshot

A saved shortlist reflects availability and skills at the moment you saved it. If a week passes before a decision is made, someone on the list may have been staffed elsewhere in the meantime. Before a shortlist is actually acted on - not just reviewed - it is worth a quick re-check of availability on the names still under consideration, rather than assuming nothing has moved.

Handled this way, a shortlist is a decision-ready document, not a starting point for another round of questions.