Screening Questions for Agencies

This article explains how ATS screening questions work in the Advanced Agency Portal and what limitations apply.

What are ATS screening questions?

When a candidate applies to a job directly, they are asked to complete screening questions as part of the application process. With ATS screening questions enabled, agencies are presented with these same questions when they propose a candidate to your job, so the answers are captured at the point of submission.

Screening questions are shown to agencies at the bottom of the Job page and during the candidate proposal flow.

How to enable screening questions

1. Go to Settings in your SmartRecruiters Environment

2. Scroll down to Agency Portal Settings.

3. Select Screening Questions.

4. Enable the setting.

Once enabled, screening questions will be pulled from your jobs in SmartRecruiters and presented to agencies when they propose a candidate.

What agencies see

The following question types are pulled from SmartRecruiters and shown to agencies:

• Default screening question sets (public + internal, depending on how the job is published)

• Job-specific screening questions added to the job (public + internal, depending on how the job is published)

• Internal screening questions (see limitations below)

The following are excluded and will not be shown to agencies:

• Diversity questions these are automatically identified and blocked by HirePort.

• Questions requiring additional attachments these cannot be answered via the agency portal due to API limitations.

Note: Additional documents (such as a Certificate of Conduct) can still be shared through the agency chat. See Step 4: Working with Agencies in the onboarding tour for instructions.

Known limitations

Private jobs

Screening questions cannot be retrieved for private job postings in SmartRecruiters.

If your job is set to private and you need agencies to submit candidates with screening questions, you will need to publish the job publicly or internally in SmartRecruiters and create job-specific questions for it under Settings > Screening questions in SmartRecruiters. Manually add the job-specific questions to the job afterwards through the usual process (open the job > click job ad > screening questions > select job specific questions > save).

Internal screening questions

Internal screening questions are included in what agencies see, if those questions are configured on the job.

If you use internal jobs and do not want internal screening questions forwarded to agencies, you can create a new job and publish it publicly, and create job-specific questions for it under Settings > Screening questions in SmartRecruiters. Manually add the job-specific questions to the job afterwards through the usual process (open the job > click job ad > screening questions > select job specific questions > save).

Additional attachment questions

Questions that ask candidates to upload additional files are not shown to agencies and cannot be answered through the agency portal. As a workaround, agencies can send supporting documents — such as certificates — through the agency chat.

Troubleshooting

Screening questions are not appearing for a job. Check whether the job is set to private in SmartRecruiters. Private jobs do not support screening question retrieval via the API. Switch the job to public if agencies need to see and answer screening questions.

Agencies are receiving internal screening questions. This is expected behavior. Internal questions configured on a job are returned by SmartRecruiters alongside other questions. If this is a concern, create a new public job without the internal screening questions, or remove the internal questions from the job before sharing it with agencies.

An additional attachment question is missing. Questions requiring file uploads are excluded from the agency portal by design, as file upload via the API is not supported. Use the agency chat to collect any required documents instead.

Diversity questions are visible to agencies. HirePort automatically identifies and blocks diversity questions from being shown to agencies. If you believe a diversity question is appearing incorrectly, contact HirePort Support.

Need help?

Contact SmartRecruiters support.