Screening questions

Kombo simplifies answering screening questions for each job as we provide a unified interface across all integrations to read questions and write answers. With our platform, you can effortlessly display your customers’ specific screening questions to candidates during the application process and ensure that candidates’ responses are submitted in the designated format. This streamlined approach allows your customers to conveniently review and evaluate candidate responses, making informed decisions about potential hires.

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Setup requirements

1. Read screening questions from jobs: We give you a unified format for all your customers’ screening questions. When reading jobs that include screening questions, simply create a customized form that displays these screening questions to your candidates during the application process.

2. Submit answers with applications: Applications need to be submitted with their answers to the screening questions in the designated format. Your customers can then access and review candidates’ responses, streamlining the candidate evaluation process and facilitating informed decision-making.

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Auto-answering required screening questions

If, by design, your product does not support screening questions, we provide you with the option to automatically answer these questions. This is necessary as some tools will validate and reject applications that do not have answers to the required questions.

When a candidate applies for a job, we will automatically answer any required screening questions that were not answered with default values. These default values are based on the question type and are as follows:

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Handling tool-specific logic

Some tools will include a score or disqualification value to a question. If these values can be read via API, we will ensure that the submitted answer does not disqualify the created candidate. Kombo will never try to manipulate or maximize a score.

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Display type

The display_type for screening questions contain information about the display and validation. For example a screening question of type TEXT can have an these display_type properties: SINGLE_LINE, MULTI_LINE, EMAIL and URL. EMAIL and URL have additional validation rules.

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Conditional screening questions

A conditional screening question is a question that should only appear based on the answer to another question. You will want to implement logic that only displays the conditional screening question to the applicant if this precondition is met. Answers to conditional screening questions may be required, although this requirement is only true if the precondition is met. An example of this could be:

Question 1: Do you have a valid driver’s license?

• Yes
• No

Question 2: How many years of driving experience do you have?

• Less than 1 year
• 1-2 years

For this example, you would only want to show the second question if the applicant answered Yes to the first question.

Kombo would return these questions on the Get Jobs endpoint as shown below. On the second question, the value of precondition_question_id is the id of the first question, and precondition_options includes the id of the Yes option of the first question.

"screening_questions": [
  {
    "id": "26vafvWSRmbhNcxJYqjCzuJg",
    "remote_id": "48b4d36a-1d4b-4c50-ada7-9519078e65b4",
    "title": "Do you have a valid driver's license?",
    "description": "Please state if you have a valid driver's license.",
    "format": {
      "display_type": "DROPDOWN",
      "type": "SINGLE_SELECT",
      "options": [
        {
          "id": "5KMj443ZBfzBkqFhDuvdoZJP",
          "remote_id": "59c5d36a-1d4b-4c50-ada7-9519078e65b4",
          "name": "Yes"
        },
        {
          "id": "H5benHrFr66wh9wU3RQegRRN",
          "remote_id": "61d6d36a-1d4b-4c50-ada7-9519078e65b4",
          "name": "No"
        }
      ]
    },
    "index": 0,
    "required": true,
    "precondition_question_id": null,
    "precondition_options": null
  },
  {
    "id": "9SmkUABUZnQdoPGeK83CdGnH",
    "remote_id": "21b4d36a-1d4b-4c50-ada7-9519078e65b4",
    "title": "How many years of driving experience do you have?",
    "description": "Please state how many years of driving experience you have.",
    "format": {
      "display_type": "DROPDOWN",
      "type": "SINGLE_SELECT",
      "options": [
        {
          "id": "AFN58qWqutLt4ZMZgykD483W",
          "remote_id": "11c5d36a-1d4b-4c50-ada7-9519078e65b4",
          "name": "Less than 1 year"
        },
        {
          "id": "6MHzLUCEaNmccbf6bP18466J",
          "remote_id": "66d6d36a-1d4b-4c50-ada7-9519078e65b4",
          "name": "1-2 years"
        }
      ]
    },
    "index": 1,
    "required": true,
    "precondition_question_id": "26vafvWSRmbhNcxJYqjCzuJg",
    "precondition_options": ["5KMj443ZBfzBkqFhDuvdoZJP"]
  }
],