Save time with screening questions

Add screening questions to your job postings to get a sense of who your applicants are before the interview. Questions can help introduce your company values, highlight the best match candidates for the role, and even auto-reject applications that have dealbreakers.

Questions are also one of the main components within the fit scores you see on your Applications dashboard. That means when you add a few choice questions to your jobs, the scores you see on your applications will more closely reflect your hiring criteria!

We offer a library of common questions – or you can create your own using the guide below.

💡  Screening question tips

More info is great, but pick your battles! Too many job questions can affect your application completion rate (or how many people actually submit an app once they start it). Our advice?

• Keep your questions short and to the point.
• Ask relevant questions. What do you really need to know now vs. in an interview?
• Go with 6 or fewer questions for each job (so you don't see applicants drop off!)
• Consider using multiple choice or yes/no questions, especially for BOH roles.
• Don't use more than one short-answer question for non-management roles.
• Never ask for personal identifying information (like DOB, SSN, driver’s license #).
• Make sure your screening questions don't include URLs or external links.

Double-check that your questions are legal and could not be seen as discriminatory or unethical. For example, if you need to ask about age, don't ask, "How old are you?" Instead, try, "Are you 16 or older? (Yes or no)" For specific questions or concerns, we recommend contacting a lawyer or HR expert familiar with the laws of your country, state, or province.

🚫  Save time with auto-reject questions

Have a hiring dealbreaker? Set up a knockout question to automatically weed out applications that don't meet your dealbreaker criteria. Knockout questions help reduce the amount of time you spend manually reviewing applications that you know you won't be able to move forward with.

For instance, maybe you have a food truck and you are unable to consider applicants without a driver's license. Setting up a knockout question like, "Do you have a valid driver's license?" will automatically reject any candidate that responds, "No."

Those applicants will be automatically assigned the status "Auto-rejected" and their fit score will be automatically reset to 0. You can still see these auto-rejected applications on your dashboard, but you can always archive them. For reporting purposes, the auto-rejected status is treated the same as a normal (manual) rejection.

The candidate does not see a difference between a knockout question and a regular screening question. Regardless of which answer they choose, they are still prompted to finish their application as normal.

✋ Don't over-do it! We recommend using one or two knockout questions at most so you don't eliminate otherwise strong candidates. You can always adjust the weight of your fit score categories to help dial in which candidates rise to the top.

To set up a knockout question, follow the steps in the section below. Select single-choice as your question type and make sure one of your answer options is labeled auto-reject.

✍️  How to create a new question

To add a new screening question to a job or template, open it and navigate to the Questions tab. Click on +Add question.

1. Choose between three question types:
   
   • yes/no
   • single-choice (applicant picks one of multiple options)
   • text-based (applicant writes a short answer)
2. Write your question in the blank space below.
3. Label your "good" answer. Which response option is ideal?

Let's say the job is Delivery Driver and you added the yes/no question, "Do you have a valid driver's license?" Your "good" answer would be "Yes."

Or say a job requires 3 years' experience and you added the single-choice question, "How many years of experience do you have?" Your desired answer might be "3+ years" or "more than 2 years." Then, for any less ideal options, use the labels "bad" or "auto-reject."

4. Lastly, set your question's importance. How much do you want this specific question to factor into the fit score for this role?

Once your question has been saved to a job or template, it becomes part of the application flow for all associated, published jobs.

Here's what it looks like to review an application for a job with screening questions:

NEW! Change your mind or catch a typo? You can now edit existing questions from the Questions tab within a job or template!