The use of pre-screening (or knockout) questions on the application saves time for the recruiting team by easily identifying top-rated candidates and preventing the need to review each application.
Recruiting users can define pre-screening questions presented to the applicant at the point of application. These questions can be used to gather information, score the applicant, and automatically disqualify applicants who do not meet certain criteria.
Pre-screening questions cannot be auto-populated on a requisition; they must be set up individually on each requisition. If a requisition is copied, the pre-screening questions are part of the data copied over to the new job requisition.
Only a user with proper permissions is able to add pre-screening questions on the job requisition.
Note
Adding Pre-Screening Questions to the Job Requisition
Pre-screening questions can be added to the job requisition by one of the following methods:
- Selecting from the Central Question Library available to all users - a question library can be uploaded in Admin Center as a comma-separated value (.csv) file. Uploading a .csv file is the fastest way to get numerous questions into the system.
- Selecting from commonly used questions from a personal My Saved Questions link. These must be added in advance by the person creating the requisition. These questions will become available on the requisition only to the user who saved them.
- Creating their own questions directly within the requisition - adding a question within the requisition directly does not update the library.
Central Question Library
A Question Library can be uploaded in the Admin Center as a comma-separated value (.csv) file. Uploading a .csv file is the fastest way to get numerous questions into the system.
When completing the file, the following information has to be entered:
| Column | Content Type | Details |
|---|---|---|
| A | Question Type | Only four question types are presently supported:
|
| B | Category | All questions must be placed in a category. Either a new or existing category can be used. The category value can be any alphanumeric string, preferably short. |
| C | Parent Question | This is optional; only use when you intend to set this row up as a child question in a set of cascading questions. If used, specify the exact name of a question that already exists in the instance or is defined as a new question earlier in the file. |
| D | Name of Question | Any alphanumeric string. |
| E | Description of Question | Any alphanumeric string. |
| F | Valid Rating Scale ID | The exact name of a rating scale set up in the instance. |
| G | Answer Option | Use only for multiple choice questions. Specify a comma -separated list of values from which the applicant can pick. |
| H | Expected Right Answer | Use for the questions that have a right answer. Questions can only have a single right answer specified. |
| I | Expected Correct Answer Direction | For numeric and rating scale questions, it is possible to specify that the right answer is "x or higher" or "x or lower" Allowable values, therefore, are:
These should be lower-case when included in the import file. |
| J | GUID for the Question | Any alphanumeric value. Spaces and special characters should be avoided. |
| K | Locale in which this copy of the question is translated | Any locale enabled in Provisioning and Admin Center. If translated questions are desired, define the question multiple times in the import file, using the same GUID each time but specifying a different locale value on each import row. |
| L | Parent Response | This is optional; only use when you intend to set this row up as a child question in a set of cascading questions. If used, specify the answer the applicant needs to give to the parent question in order to reveal this row as a child question. A child question can only be tied to a single right parent answer. This means if multiple parent answers need to reveal the child question, the child question needs to be set up multiple times in the library, once per right parent answer. |
If you are working with multiple languages in the file, follow these tips:
- To import multiple languages, you need to update the locale column for the language.
- If your file contains special characters, that is characters for other languages, the best character encoding to use is UTF-8.
- Use Open Office instead of MS Excel. Excel strips off leading zeros and special characters are handled better by Open Office. Open Office is free and can be downloaded at: http://www.openoffice.org/download/
- If you see funky characters after importing (boxes, question marks, and so on), then the likely culprit is the character encoding.
Working with cascading questions
- Available in the job requisition Questions field
- Displayed based on the answer to the previous question
To set up cascading questions:
- Cascading questions can only be entered through an import.
- Use the standard question library import file and add two columns: Parent Name and Parent Response.
- Be sure to include the parent question in the import file.
- For your sub-question, put the parent question in the parentName column and the appropriate question answer in the Parent Response column.
- Complete the rest of the columns for the question content (type, category, question, and so on).
- Once the file is imported, you will be able to see your cascading questions when adding questions from the library in the job requisition Questions field.
Example of completed file with cascading questions
Questions can also be entered or edited individually through the Admin Center page.
Note
My Saved Questions
These questions must be added in advance by the person creating the requisition. Questions become available on the requisition only to the user who saved them.
To add question to "My Saved Questions":
- Go to Recruiting→Preferences→My Saved Questions.
- Choose Create More Questions.
- Enter the text of the question
- Choose Click to Set to select the format of answers, the answers themselves, and the correct answer.
- Multiple Choice: Define multiple answers from which the user can pick. The answers appear as radio buttons; applicants can select one answer. The recruiting user can define a single correct answer. There is no way to select multiple correct answers.
- Rating Scales: Select from a rating scale defined in the Admin Center. Correct answers can be specified as anything higher or lower than the selected value. This option does not provide true multi-select functionality, but does allow multiple correct answers to be specified.
- Numeric: Specify any number, five digits or less, decimals included. Correct answers can be specified as anything higher or lower than the specified value. No formatting constraints can be applied to the answer range; for example, there is no way to restrict the application to only enter a four-digit year.
- Free Text: Allow the applicant to write any answer they want. No correct answer can be specified.
- Choose Add.
- Choose Save.
Completing Pre-screening Questions on the Application
Pre-screening questions are presented to candidates at the bottom of the application page during their initial application.
