Using candidate surveys

Add custom candidate surveys for applicants to complete after they submit their applications. Candidate surveys are anonymous and optional. Surveys are most commonly used to:

• Collect demographic information from candidates based on the locations where you recruit.
• Collect diversity and inclusion data (DEI).

 

Overview

Surveys can be added, edited, and deleted by Super Admins from the Settings > Candidate Surveys page in your account. Once at least 10 candidates have responded to a survey, the anonymous results will appear on your Reports page in the Candidate Surveys report. Workable requires 10 responses to preserve candidate anonymity.

When creating or editing a survey, you'll be prompted to:

• Design it by adding questions, descriptions, and answer choices. Currently, Workable only supports multiple-choice (single-select) answers. 
• Preview it by selecting a Desktop or Mobile preview.
• Set the audience/locations for which the survey will be used. Note that only one survey can be used per location.

 

Creating a new survey

1. If this is your first time adding a survey, click Add the first survey. Otherwise, click Add a new survey in the upper right corner. 
   
2. Set an internal name for the survey. Candidates won't see the survey name. It will be used in Workable for reporting.
3. Write a short introduction to the survey, which candidates will see. We recommend letting candidates know why you're requesting this information and that their answers are anonymous. Their responses are not tied or traceable to their application.

Customizing questions and answers

Add questions and answer choices to the survey. Currently, Workable only supports multiple-choice (single-select) answers. Each question and answer has the option to include a description. The description can provide more clarification about the question/answer to help guide the candidate.

Each survey question is optional, but you may want to consider including answers like "Prefer not to say", "Other" or "Two or more of the above options". Note that all questions are optional so candidates can simply choose not to select any response for a given question.

Save and preview the survey when you're ready. You'll see what the candidate sees on both desktop and mobile, and you can go back and make changes at any time.

 

Setting the audience

Finally, continue and set the audience for the survey. While you can add multiple surveys to your account, only one survey can be used for a given job. Surveys are tied to job locations and are automatically connected to jobs based on all job locations.

One survey could be for an entire region, e.g., California, which would encompass jobs in specific locations throughout the state. A different survey could be for a specific location like San Francisco. The survey used for a job will be the one that best fits the job's locations.

For example, if a candidate survey is set up to be sent to candidates for jobs in the United States, then if any of the job locations are in the US, then the survey will be triggered.

 

Editing and disabling surveys

You can edit any part of a survey by clicking the three dots to the right of the survey in your account settings. If you reword a question or answer, any reporting about those fields will be updated. To best preserve your data when making major changes, we recommend creating a new survey and disabling the old one.

Flip the switch to the right of a survey to activate or deactivate it. An option to delete surveys appears in the three dots menu. We do not recommend deleting surveys. Reporting and responses will be deleted if this is done and are not able to be recovered.

 

What will candidates receive?

Candidates applying through the Workable application form will get to see this optional survey after applying, provided that any of the job's locations fit the survey audience. 

Candidates applying through a job board will receive the survey invitation via email instead. Currently, this email is not customizable.

Submissions are anonymous and optional. Questions can be skipped by candidates.

 

Viewing results

Once at least 10 candidates have responded to a given survey, you can find a tally of their answers in the Candidate Surveys report. The answers are filterable by pipeline stage and by candidate source.

Survey results can be shown for all jobs on which a particular survey was used or shown for a specific job.

 

FAQs

Is it possible to send candidate surveys at different stages of the hiring pipeline?

Currently, this feature is not available. Candidate surveys will be triggered automatically once their applications are submitted and there is no way to send surveys manually in other stages.