Selecting Flatmates - Your 6 Step Selection Guide

With your phone ringing off the hook and email messages piling up, are you still trying to decide how to select your new flatmate? If you are, don’t worry, it’s just a matter of getting organized and putting together a flatmate selection process that suits you.

The key to successfully choosing a new flatmate is to start planning how you will select your flatmate before you begin your search. Creating a flatmate selection process lets you become more organized which allows you to focus on choosing the right flatmate. This means you can make the right choices without needing to worry that you may be choosing the wrong flatmate.

The ideal flatmate selection process involves 6 distinctive steps. The advantage of breaking down the process into steps is that it allows you to concentrate on each part individually without being overwhelmed by the “big picture”. So, what does the selection process to find your perfect flatmate involve? Let’s take a look at each of the 6 steps in detail.

Plan Questions for Initial Enquiries

You will need to decide on 4-5 questions you would like to ask during initial telephone and email enquiries. This way you can find out more about a person and decide if you like to invite them to a flatmate interview.

Create a Short List and Schedule Interviews

Putting together a short list shows you which people closely match the profile of your perfect flatmate and would be good candidates to become your new flatmate. When scheduling interviews, it’s a good idea to meet with potential flatmates a few hours apart, so that you don’t need to cut interviews short due to the lack of time.

Interview Potential Flatmates

Flatmate interviews can be formal or informal and can be held at any place, for example, you could hold casual interviews over coffee in a local Café. Before you start interviewing, you should decide which questions you would like to ask each potential flatmate. These questions will help you decide whether a person is the right flatmate for you. Here are some sample questions.

Select a Flatmate

After interviewing all potential flatmates, you will need to discuss and select with all existing household members a new flatmate. You can do this by comparing each flatmate against your perfect flatmate recipe.

Check References

Talking to people who have lived with your chosen flatmate will help you decide if that person will be the right flatmate for you. If they haven’t lived with flatmates before, try speaking to their friends or family as they can help you discover any hidden surprises. To learn more, take a look at our reference checking article.

Ask Your New Flatmate To Move In

Before asking your new flatmate to move in, it’s a good idea to sleep on your decision overnight. If you still feel confident about your choice in the morning, it’s a good sign you’ve made the right choice.

These 6 steps give you the flexibility to create your own selection process by giving you the power to decide how to conduct interviews and select flatmates while still working within a framework. Just remember, by getting organized and creating a flatmate selection process, you too, will soon know how to handle all of those messages and choose the flatmate that’s right for you.

Good luck and enjoy flatmate hunting!