Describe the role and its essential criteria. Makeform creates a focused pre interview questionnaire for comparing experience, availability, work authorization, location, and expectations before scheduling interviews.
Route candidate responses to Slack, Google Sheets, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the builder
Choose a prompt, adapt it to your vacancy, or send it to the Makeform builder.
Audience
Applicants who passed an initial resume review
Format
Short technical screen with conditional follow-ups
Prompt size
347 chars
Example questionnaire structure
Short technical screen with conditional follow-ups
Years using TypeScript and React
Describe one production feature you owned
Location, time zone, and work authorization
Earliest start date
Interview availability
Suggested routing tags
Meets essentials
Needs review
Availability mismatch
Ask for one short example of directly relevant work instead of repeating every item already captured in the resume.
Step 1
Define
role essentials and practical constraints
Step 2
Collect
candidate evidence and expectations
Step 3
Review
consistent answers in one place
Step 4
Invite
qualified candidates to interview
Screen before scheduling
A structured questionnaire fills the experience and expectation gaps a resume leaves before calendars become involved.
Give every candidate the same essentials so recruiters can compare answers consistently.
Reveal skill, travel, or schedule follow-ups only when a previous answer makes them relevant.
Send responses to the hiring inbox, a shared sheet, or Slack for team review.
Adapt it to the vacancy
Start with real decision points and remove questions that will not affect the interview decision.
Ask for tools used, depth of experience, and one compact work example rather than a long unpaid assignment.
Capture team scope, operating context, and one relevant management situation in the candidate's own words.
Screen communication channels, workload, schedule coverage, and a brief scenario response.
Confirm process ownership, systems experience, location or shift constraints, and measurable responsibilities.
Questionnaire workflow
Give the generator a concrete brief, inspect the questions, then share the form after application review.
Name the seniority, core responsibilities, required experience, work location, schedule, and any practical constraint that genuinely affects eligibility.
Delete duplicate resume questions, make wording job-related, add answer guidance, and check that each item supports a hiring decision.
Show follow-ups for specific tools, schedules, or experience only when triggered, keeping the main path short for every candidate.
Send the link after an application review, compare structured submissions, record internal notes separately, and invite selected candidates to interview.
Choose the right screening method
Use the questionnaire alongside resume review and interviews where candidates can add context.
Field guide
Use six compact sections without turning the screen into another application.
Candidate basics
Ask only for identifiers needed to find and contact the candidate. Do not make them retype a resume.
Essential experience
Turn essential experience into specific questions, allowing adjacent experience where it may be relevant.
Evidence prompt
A short example reveals scope and judgment. State what context to include and keep it proportionate.
Work arrangement
State the job's location, shift, travel, and on-site expectations before asking about fit.
Candidate expectations
Share the compensation range, ask for expectations consistently, and capture notice periods and start timing.
Next-step logistics
Collect useful scheduling windows and a contact method, then explain what happens after submission.
Related recruitment tools
Build forms for applications, scheduling, feedback, and offers.
Collect the initial candidate details and materials before sending a focused questionnaire.
Open toolCapture structured candidate contact, role, and profile information in one place.
Open toolCollect availability and coordinate the next conversation after screening.
Open toolGive interviewers a consistent scorecard for post-interview evaluation.
Open toolRequest structured reference feedback later in the hiring process.
Open toolCollect the selected candidate's offer response and next-step details.
Open toolFAQ
Practical answers for recruiters designing a concise, role-relevant candidate screen.
It is a short form candidates complete before an interview. It gathers missing experience evidence and expectations such as availability, location, start date, and compensation, helping recruiters decide whom to invite.
Ask about essential experience, one relevant work example, schedule or location fit, work authorization when appropriate, start date, compensation expectations, and interview availability. Each question should support a hiring decision.
Five to ten focused questions is often more useful than a second application. Use conditional fields for details that apply only to certain answers and give response-length guidance for open questions.
No. Use the resume for career history and ask only for missing information. A targeted example, skill depth, or practical constraint adds value; re-entering every employer and date does not.
Yes. Adapt essential skills, evidence prompts, schedule, location, and expectations for each role. Support and engineering candidates should not receive the same generic screen.
Yes. Show skill follow-ups after relevant experience, travel details after availability, or schedule options by time zone. Branching preserves useful detail without showing everyone irrelevant questions.
Yes. Makeform provides unlimited free forms and responses, so you can generate, edit, share, and collect questionnaire submissions without a response cap. The paid tier removes the Makeform badge.
Define criteria before responses arrive, review the same fields for every candidate, and record each next-step decision. Treat the form as structured input for human review, not a substitute for judgment.
Make the first screen count.
