Describe your recruitment program and reporting needs. Makeform creates a separate equality monitoring form with voluntary demographic questions, purpose wording, and privacy guidance.
Send approved reporting data to Google Sheets, Slack, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the builder
Choose a prompt, adapt its categories, and review the generated structure before publishing.
Audience
Applicants completing a separate voluntary survey
Format
Anonymous multi-step questionnaire
Prompt size
290 chars
Example form structure
Anonymous multi-step questionnaire
What is your age range?
How would you describe your ethnicity?
How would you describe your gender?
Do you consider yourself disabled?
Religion, belief, and sexual orientation
Suggested reporting tags
Application stage
Role family
Reporting period
Keep this form separate from the job application and avoid name, email, candidate ID, or other direct identifiers when anonymity is promised.
Step 1
Explain
state the purpose, separation, and voluntary nature
Step 2
Collect
use inclusive choices without direct identifiers
Step 3
Restrict
limit individual-response access to approved staff
Step 4
Report
share grouped trends and protect small cohorts
Designed for trustworthy participation
Explain why you ask, keep participation voluntary, and design the data for grouped analysis.
Use a standalone form, avoid direct identifiers, and restrict raw submissions to the approved reporting team.
Use appropriate categories, with self-describe and prefer not to say choices where useful.
Use fixed options and broad tags so analysts can compare stages and periods consistently.
Common monitoring programs
Start with the reporting decision, then remove questions that do not serve it.
Send every applicant the same separate, voluntary questionnaire.
Compare broad application, interview, offer, and hire stages without candidate records.
Add optional first-generation education or broad socioeconomic measures.
Use broad department and seniority bands while protecting small teams.
Build the survey
Generate the structure, then review wording, access, and reporting with the responsible team.
Name the recruitment outcome and broad groups needed for analysis.
Adapt categories, make sensitive questions optional, and add prefer not to say.
Delete direct identifiers and check whether combined tags could reveal someone.
Test exports and confirm that analysts can protect small cohorts in reports.
Collection approaches
Decide what to collect, who can access it, and how results will be shared.
Field guide
These six sections turn a demographic questionnaire into a clearer collection and reporting process. Tailor the categories and notices to your organization and location.
Introduction
Explain why equality data is collected, how grouped results are used, and that participation is voluntary.
Core demographics
Use stable categories suited to the population, with self-describe and prefer not to say where useful.
Disability
Frame disability as a voluntary measure, separate from adjustment requests that need follow-up contact.
Additional characteristics
Add religion, sexual orientation, caring, or socioeconomic questions only when they serve planned reporting.
Privacy design
Anonymity depends on the whole dataset. Exact titles, tiny teams, and unusual answer combinations may reveal someone.
Reporting controls
Set a rule for low counts. Combine categories or suppress small cells to reduce disclosure risk.
Related tools
Keep applications, demographic research, and employee listening in purpose-specific forms.
Create a broader optional demographic survey for grouped research.
Open toolCollect voluntary self-identification with clear purpose wording.
Open toolSurvey employees about inclusion experiences and practices.
Open toolKeep candidate applications separate from monitoring answers.
Open toolGive reviewers a consistent assessment without demographic fields.
Open toolFAQ
Practical answers for HR and recruitment teams planning voluntary diversity data collection.
It is a voluntary questionnaire for understanding representation across applicants, recruitment stages, hires, or a workforce. It asks about characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, age, and disability. Results are reviewed in groups, not used to evaluate a candidate.
A separate form clarifies purpose and access. Configure the workflow so hiring reviewers do not receive individual monitoring submissions, then test notifications, exports, and permissions before launch.
Avoid names, emails, candidate IDs, exact titles, and tiny team labels. Use broad reporting tags only when necessary. Review metadata, integrations, notifications, and answer combinations that could reveal someone.
Include only fields you will analyze. A common core covers age band, ethnicity, gender, disability, religion, and sexual orientation. Some programs add caring or socioeconomic questions. Adapt options to relevant guidance and policy.
Prefer not to say lets people continue without disclosing. Make sensitive questions optional, and use self-describe where it improves accuracy. Monitoring should not become a condition of applying.
Small counts can make people recognizable. Set a review rule, then suppress cells, combine categories, or widen the reporting period when needed. Limit raw access to the responsible team.
Yes. Makeform supports unlimited free forms and responses, so you can generate, edit, publish, and collect responses without a form or response cap. The paid tier removes the Makeform badge.
No. The generator provides an editable structure, not a compliance determination. Requirements vary. Have the responsible privacy, HR, or legal team review the categories, notice, access, retention, and reporting process.
Make monitoring clear, voluntary, and useful.
