Capturing structured data around why candidates are rejected or drop from a job can help you improve your recruiting process by revealing market trends, recruiter biases or company policy blockers that are keeping you from making a hire.
Workable supports capturing this data as part of the disqualify action. As an account admin you can select whether you’d like to collect this data and whether you’d like to require your hiring team to provide it when disqualifying or collect it only in some cases.
❗Candidates won't be able to see disqualification reasons.
Disqualification reason account settings
Disqualification reasons are independently manageable through account settings. As an Admin user:
- Select your profile icon in the upper right of Workable.
- Navigate to Settings > Workflow.
- Go to the Disqualify Candidates section. Here, you will also find the setting to allow admins or all members to block candidates.
- Configure whether to ask team members to provide a reason for disqualifying a candidate and if providing a reason should be optional or required. By default, rejection reasons will be enabled and optional.
Important: When EEO/OFCCP settings are enabled, disqualification reasons become required for all your jobs (US and non-US) and cannot be set as optional for non-US jobs. For this reason, the related setting will be greyed out for you.
Capturing disqualification data
If disqualification reasons are enabled and mandatory, once team members click the red hand icon to disqualify a candidate, they will be required to select a reason from the list for the rejection or write their own custom rejection reason. If they don't select a reason, they won't be able to proceed with the disqualification action.
If disqualification reasons are enabled and optional, team members will have to click on the arrow next to the red hand icon to select a rejection reason for candidates they wish to provide a reason for. Alternatively, they can click on the hand icon and disqualify without providing a reason.
Before selecting a reason from the list, you can choose to add a note as part of disqualification. Just enable the Add a note toggle on the upper right and write your note in the box that will appear under the selected reason.
If you need to track a reason that is not covered by the default rejection reasons, click Write another reason at the bottom of the window to enter your custom reason and select the type of rejection reason.
Providing disqualification reasons is also available when you disqualify candidates in bulk. All selected candidates for disqualification will be assigned the same reason. Note that if disqualifications are enabled and optional, you will be presented with the selection dialogue but will be able to disqualify without selecting a reason.
If disqualification reasons are disabled, team members will not be able to select a reason when disqualifying a candidate.
Disqualification reason list
Disqualification reasons are categorized into two main types for easier selection:
- Candidate rejected
- Candidate withdrew
| Default rejection reason | Reason type |
|---|---|
| Doesn’t have required qualifications | Candidate rejected |
| Doesn’t have required experience | Candidate rejected |
| Area of speciality doesn’t match job | Candidate rejected |
| Doesn’t match job location | Candidate rejected |
| Job no longer receiving applications | Candidate rejected |
| Other candidates are more suitable | Candidate rejected |
| Salary expectations too high | Candidate rejected |
| Unsuccessful interview | Candidate rejected |
| Unsuccessful assessment | Candidate rejected |
| Doesn't meet timeframe for job | Candidate rejected |
| Could not be contacted | Candidate withdrew |
| Withdrew/declined interview | Candidate withdrew |
| Did not attend interview | Candidate withdrew |
| Rejected offer | Candidate withdrew |
| Not interested | Candidate withdrew |
| Other reason (not included in the list) | Choose the reason type that most closely aligns with your specific reason. |
Seeing disqualification reasons
You can quickly see why a candidate is disqualified without having to check their timeline. Here's how:
- Hover over the disqualified label of the profile header.
- Hover over the disqualified label on the candidate card on the Candidates page.
- Hover over the disqualified label in a past job in the "also in x other jobs" section.
Reporting on disqualification reasons
Data for disqualification reasons are available to view and export via the Disqualified Candidates report. Click on Customize data to choose any extra field you want to include in the report. The default data points that will be included in the report are:
- Candidate Name
- Job
- Stage
- Phone
- Disqualified At
- Disqualification Category
- Disqualification Reason
- Disqualification Note
If you add a custom reason, the reason column will display 'Other,' and your custom reason will appear in the note column.
EEO Reporting
When EEO/OFCCP settings are enabled, use the Compliance report for disqualification reasons. An Admin user can export the results per candidate by clicking the 'Export data per candidate to CSV' button in the upper right:
FAQs
- Can I modify the default rejection reasons?
- The default rejection reasons are not editable. If you wish to capture a more custom reason that's not on the list, scroll down to the bottom of the disqualification reason list, click 'Write another reason' and add your reason in the box.
- Can I edit a disqualification reason that I have already submitted?
- Yes, from the
menu of the disqualification action item in the candidate timeline, you can edit the reason and/or note you left when disqualifying the candidate.
- Can I edit a disqualification reason that another user submitted?
- No, you can only edit the reason of candidates you disqualified. For candidates another user disqualified you will need to revert and re-disqualify them in order to set a different reason (or note).
- What disqualification reason is used when a candidate is auto-disqualified?
- The reason "Minimum qualifications not met" is used including also a note with the knockout questions that resulted in their disqualification.
- How can I filter disqualified candidates by specific reasons?
- In your Candidates page, select one or more disqualification reasons when filtering results for Consideration: Disqualified.