Note: If you are a State Farm Agent, click here to learn about using prescreen questions.
Learn how to add prescreen questions to your jobs by following the steps below.
In this article:
- What are prescreen questions?
- Viewing an applicant's prescreen score
- Adding prescreen questions to a job
- Configuring prescreen questions
- Creating your own prescreen questions
- Reordering prescreen questions
- Scoring prescreen questions
- Preventing out-of-state candidates from applying to jobs
What are prescreen questions?
Prescreen questions are questions that applicants must answer in order to apply for your CareerPlug jobs. They can be configured and scored to help you screen applicants to find the best ones.
Viewing an applicant's prescreen score
The prescreen score is an average based on applicant responses to prescreen questions that you selected and configured when creating your job posting. To review an applicant's answers in detail, hover over the score on the Applicants page.
Adding prescreen questions to a job
You can set prescreen questions on individual jobs.
To add a prescreen questions, you’ll need to create a new job or edit an existing job. Navigate to the Applicant Evaluation tab. Click the Add Questions button, then click Select from library from the drop-down to open the Select Prescreen Questions drawer. You can type keywords in the search bar to find questions you might want to ask applicants. For any questions you like, turn on the toggle and click Save to add them to your job.
We strongly recommend including 3 prescreen questions, but you can have up to 5; including more than 5 will negatively impact applicant volume.
Configuring prescreen questions
Click the settings icon to edit responses to the prescreen questions and/or how each response is scored.
Each prescreen question response is assigned a score from 0% to 100%, and the results are averaged for the total score. When editing a prescreen question, you'll need to choose which percentile to use. Most clients choose either 10 or 4. The answers will be in 10% increments if you choose 10 and 25% increments if you choose 4. If you want to see scores of 60%, 70%, or 80% for certain responses, chose 10. If you would like to see scores of 25%, 50%, or 75%, then choose 4.
No matter which percentile you choose, keep it consistent across every prescreen question.
Creating your own prescreen questions
If you don't find any questions you like, click the Add Questions button, then select Create a prescreen question from the drop-down to add your own.
When you create a new prescreen question or edit an existing one, you will be able to edit the question, the question type (multiple choice, yes/no, open response, or multi-select), responses to the question, scores for each response, and an associated applicant status for each response within the Create Prescreen Question drawer. (Click the highlighted links to learn about applying a Fast Track or Disqualify status to a prescreen question response.) Be sure to click Save and Add to confirm your choices.
Reordering prescreen questions
Once you have added multiple prescreen questions, you have the option to reorder questions according to your preferences and/or priorities. To reorder questions, click the arrow icon to the left of the question and drag it up or down.
When you are finished adding and/or configuring prescreen questions and have no other changes to make to the job posting, click Update Job Post at the top of the page.
Scoring prescreen questions
Again, each prescreen question response is assigned a score from 0% to 100%, and the results are averaged for the total score. The total prescreen score can vary depending on the types of questions that you selected for your job posting.
An applicant who receives a D as their prescreen score answered one of your prescreen questions with an answer that disqualified them from moving forward in the hiring process. For instance, applicants may be asked whether they hold a Commercial Insurance license. An applicant who indicates "No" — that they do not have a license — will receive a D as their prescreen score since that is a disqualifying answer.
You may want to contact an otherwise strong applicant who receives a D as their prescreen grade to determine if the answer is negotiable.
Prescreen scores will also appear in a certain color. Each color corresponds to a range of scores. If the applicant's score is greater than or equal to 90, the score will be green; if the score is greater than or equal to 70, the score will be orange; if the score is less than 69, the score will be red.
Preventing out-of-state candidates from applying to jobs
Even though your jobs are posted in a specific zip code (unless they are remote jobs), job seekers are often looking for positions in different cities than the one in which they live. If you get applicants from out-of-state, this is likely not an issue with your CareerPlug job posting. Instead, you are likely getting applicants who are looking to relocate to your city.
If you're not willing to consider candidates from another state, you can add a prescreen question to your jobs that asks an applicant whether they live in the state (or even the city) in which the job is located.
You can set the "No" answer as a disqualifying answer. That way, when people apply who live out of state, they are marked with a red "D" for disqualified on your Applicants page. When you see the red D on an applicant's record, you can quickly deactivate them and send them a rejection letter.
Here's how to set up a prescreen question to disqualify applicants who live in another city or state:
On the Jobs page, locate the job you want to add a disqualifying prescreen question to and click the Edit button to the right.
Click the Applicant Evaluation tab at the top of the page.
Click the Add Questions button, then select Create a prescreen question from the drop-down menu.
A drawer will appear on the right side of the screen. Enter your prescreen question — something like “Do you currently live in [City, State]?” — and select Yes / No as the question type using the drop-down menu.
"Yes" and "No" will automatically be added as your two response options. Set the "No" response's Status to Disqualify using the drop-down menu.
Click the Save and Add button at the bottom of the drawer to add the question to your job.
Click the Update Job Post button in the top right corner of the page to save your changes to your job posting.
When someone applies and indicates that they live in a different state, they will automatically be sent to the Disqualified tab of your Applicants page and will be marked with a red D instead of a prescreen score.
Click the red thumbs-down icon to Deactivate this applicant and send them a rejection letter.