Getting started

Screening questions are added in the Design Assessment Plan step when you create a job in Alva's Hiring System.

When you generate the plan, Alva creates a Screening questions card with suggested knockout questions based on the role's employment requirements. You can review the questions, edit them, remove them, or add your own before publishing the job.

💡Note: You do not have to use screening questions. If you do not want to include them, simply remove the Screening questions card from your assessment plan.

How screening questions work

Screening questions help you check must-have requirements and collect candidate information in a consistent way.

There are two types of screening questions:

Question type	What it does	How it is used
Knockout questions	Check whether a candidate meets a hard requirement for the role.	Generated from employment requirements and used to flag candidates who do not meet the basics.
Other questions	Collect extra information that gives recruiters more context.	Added manually and reviewed during Screening for Readiness or on the candidate profile.

Knockout questions are essentially a pre-assessment. They help you identify candidates who may not meet basic requirements, such as work permission, location, language, certification, or other role-specific must-haves.

Candidates can still submit their application even if they do not give the required answer to a knockout question. This helps avoid candidates selecting an answer only to get through the application. Instead, candidates who do not meet the knockout requirements are filtered for review.

Setting up screening questions

To add or edit screening questions:

Go to the Assessment plan step when creating your job.
Find the Screening questions assessment card.
Click
Choose how you want to add questions:
- Create a new question from scratch.
- Add a saved question from your organisation's library.
Review, edit, reorder, or remove questions as needed.
Save your changes and continue setting up the job.

You can choose between these question formats:

Yes/No: Best for knockout questions with a clear required answer, such as "Do you have valid work permission?"
Open text: Best when candidates need to explain something in their own words.
Multiple choice: Best when candidates should choose from a fixed set of options.

💡Note: You can edit generated knockout questions without losing the connected employment requirement tags. If you delete the question entirely, the connection to that requirement is removed.

Using the screening questions library

The screening questions library lets you reuse questions across roles. This helps your organisation keep wording consistent and saves time when setting up similar jobs.

Use the library to:

Save questions for reuse across future roles.
Add existing questions to a job while setting up screening questions.
Keep answers comparable by using the same question wording for similar roles.

💡Note: To save a new question for reuse, add it directly in the screening questions library. The option to save questions from a job will be added in the future.

Viewing candidate answers

Once a candidate applies, you can review their answers from the candidate profile and during Screening for Readiness.

You can see:

The candidate's answers to all screening questions.
Whether the candidate passed or did not meet the knockout requirements.
Custom question answers that give extra context for recruiter review.

Candidates who do not meet knockout requirements are grouped in a review action card, so you can quickly review and move them in bulk.

Any Questions?

Use the chat in the bottom right corner to connect with a member of our support team.

Screening Questions