Prescreening Candidates

Understanding the Prescreening Section in the Requisition

The Prescreening section in the requisition file may contain disqualification questions, prescreening questions, and competencies used to find the top candidates for a position. The combination of these three elements is referred to as ACE Prescreening because they help identify ACE or top candidates for a position.

A disqualification question is a single-answer question that contains the minimum requirements for a candidate to be eligible for a job. For example "Are you entitled to work in the United States?" When candidates apply for a job, it’s mandatory to respond to the disqualification questions. Answers to the disqualification questions decide if candidates move forward in the selection process or are automatically disqualified. When you create a requisition, you can't add disqualification questions. It's your administrator who creates and manages disqualification questions and also defines the context when the question is used. Disqualification questions are displayed in a requisition if the locations and job fields of the question matches the locations and job fields of the requisition.
You use a prescreening question to question candidates to learn more about their career goal, job preferences, knowledge, and more. For example you can ask "How good are your Java skills?". If the prescreening question is configured as mandatory, the candidate can't skip it while applying for the job. You can add questions to a requisition and you can alo create questions specific to a requisition.
You use competencies to gather proficiency levels and years of experience of a candidate. Competencies are supplied with the system. You can add competencies to a requisition.

Question and Competency Properties

When you define prescreening questions and competencies for a requisition, you need to consider several elements.

Apply Model

When you define competencies for a requisition, you can apply the predefined model of competencies and questions associated with the requisition. When you click Apply Model, competencies and questions that match one location or one job field of the requisition are added to the requisition.

Minimum Proficiency and Experience

When you add competencies to a requisition, you can specify the minimum proficiency level of the competency and the minimum years of experience required.

Your administrator decides if and how you can defne that info. These three configurations are possible:

Simple format: You can't select the minimum proficiency level of a competency.
Detailed format: You can can select the minimum proficiency level of a competency as well as the minimum years of experience required.
Simple or Detailed: You need to select the option "Modify the minimum requirements of proficiency and experience" before you can select a minimum proficiency level of a competency and the minimum years of experience required.

Required and Asset

When you add questions and competencies to a requisition, you can specify if the question or competency is required for the job or if it' an asset.

Required: The candidate must have the competency or the right answer to a question to be considered for the job. It's like the minimum requirement.
Asset: The candidate doesn't need to have the competency or the answer to a question to be selected for the job, but it would distinguish a candidate compared to others. It's like a strongly preferred or nice to have qualification.

Weight

Weight is a numerical value added to a required or asset competency or answer to a question to give it more consideration when prescreening candidates. The weight criterion is an optional third level filter. To use the weight feature, you assign a certain number of "points" to the answer you want to weight. Keep it simple, weighting is used to refine requirements and assets, so it should be used selectively.

Add Questions to a Requisition

You can add prescreening questions to a requisition to learn more about candidates career goal, job preferences, knowledge, and more. The prescreening questions are created in the Questions Library.

Go to the Requisitions tab.
Open the requisition.
Go to the Prescreening section and click the Edit icon.
Go to the Questions section and click Add.
Select one or more questions.
Click Add Questions.

The questions are added to the requisition. If you added several quetions, you can reorder them. Select an order number from the list and click the Reorder button. You can also define properties such as the minimum proficiency and experience levels, required and asset criteria, and weight.

Create a Question for a Requisition

You can create questions for a specific requisition. The question isn’t available in the Questions Library and for other requisitions.

Go to the Requisitions tab.
Open the requisition.
Go to the Prescreening section and click the Edit icon.
Go to the Questions section and click Create.
Enter the question in the Question field.
Select the type of answer:
- Single answer: The candidate selects one answer from a list of choices.
- Multiple answers: The candidate selects as many answers as applicable from a list of choices.
- Text answer: The candidate types a brief answer in response to a specific question. Use text questions sparingly; use them where they can allow for expansion of information asked in a previous question.
For a question with a single or multiple answers, decide if you want to display the answers with radio buttons or using a drop-down menu. Then provide possible answers to the question.
For a text answer, indicate the number of lines available for the candidates to provide an answer.
Click Save and Close.

Create a Question Based on a Library Question

You can copy a question from the Questions Library and use to create a question specific to the requisition.

Go to the Requisitions tab.
Open the requisition.
Go to the Prescreening section and click the Edit icon.
Go to the Questions section and click Copy from Library.
Select a question from the list.
Click Add Questions.
Click on the question and modify it to fit the requisition purpose.

Add Competencies to a Requisition

You can add competencies to a requisition to gather proficiency level and years of experience of a candidate to find the best candidate for a job.

Go to the Requisitions tab.
Open the requisition.
Go to the Prescreening section and click the Edit icon.
Go to the Competencies section and click Add.
Select one or more competencies.
Click Add Competencies.

The competencies are added to the requisition. If you added several competencies, you can reorder them. Select an order number from the list and click the Reorder button. You can also define properties such as the minimum proficiency and experience levels, required and asset criteria, and weight.