Screening Questions

Documentation Index

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Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

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Screening Questions

Screening questions are the core evaluation step in an interview. They are where you decide what Tenzo should ask candidates, how Tenzo should follow up, and how each answer should be graded. Use this guide with Interview Customization when you need a deeper understanding of the question step.

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How Screening Questions Are Used

Each screening question can affect three parts of the interview:

• Candidate experience: What the candidate is asked during the interview.
• Follow-up behavior: Whether Tenzo asks for more detail after the candidate answers.
• Evaluation: How the answer is graded and how much it affects the candidate’s score.

Review each question as both a candidate-facing prompt and an evaluation rule. The wording should be clear to candidates, while the settings and grading instructions should be precise enough for consistent scoring.

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Question Types

Question type controls how the question participates in the interview. Most questions are Normal, but the other types are useful when the question should be generated dynamically or graded differently.

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Normal Questions

Normal questions are asked directly during the interview. Use them for most screening topics: experience, work authorization, availability, certifications, commute, motivation, or role-specific skills. Normal questions can use any answer type.

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Grade Only Questions

Grade Only questions are not asked during the interview. Instead, Tenzo grades them from the conversation transcript after the interview is complete. Use Grade Only questions when you want an overall evaluation that should not be asked as a literal question. For example, you might grade how well the candidate’s overall experience aligns with the role after reviewing the full conversation.

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Resume Based Questions

Resume Based questions are generated from or grounded in the candidate’s resume. They let Tenzo ask about resume-specific details, such as the candidate’s most recent role or a project listed on the resume. Use Resume Based questions when the best question depends on the candidate’s background. The question generation instructions tell Tenzo what to look for in the resume and how to turn it into a candidate-facing question.

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Auto Generated Questions

Auto Generated questions are created dynamically during the interview based on earlier conversation context. They are useful for probing deeper into something the candidate already mentioned. Use Auto Generated questions when the exact question cannot be known ahead of time, but you can describe the kind of follow-up Tenzo should ask. For example, Tenzo can ask a technical deep-dive question about a Python technology, framework, or implementation the candidate mentioned earlier. Auto Generated questions are graded as their own questions. Use them when each dynamically generated question should receive its own grade.

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Answer Types

Answer type tells Tenzo what format to expect from the candidate. Choose the answer type that best matches how the answer should be evaluated.

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Text

Text answers are open-ended. Use them for experience descriptions, motivation, project walkthroughs, communication examples, or any answer that needs qualitative grading. If the question is informational, set its importance to Info and use summarization instructions instead of strict grading. This is useful when you want to collect context without penalizing the candidate.

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Number

Number answers are for measurable thresholds, such as years of experience, hourly availability, pay expectations, or number of certifications. Use the number grading settings to define:

• Target Value: The ideal or expected value.
• Units: What the number represents, such as years, hours, miles, or dollars.
• Min or Max: Whether the candidate must be above a minimum or below a maximum.

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Yes/No

Yes/No answers are best for binary requirements, such as work authorization, willingness to commute, required licenses, or availability for a shift. Set the correct answer to Yes or No so Tenzo knows which response should pass. If the answer is a hard requirement, raise the importance accordingly.

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Multiple Choice and Date

Multiple Choice questions are useful when the answer should be one of a known set of options. Each option can be marked as passing, failing, or informational. Date questions are useful for start dates, availability dates, certification expiration dates, or other time-based requirements.

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Follow-Up Questions

Follow-ups help Tenzo collect enough detail to grade an answer fairly. Enable follow-up when the initial answer may be too vague, too short, or too important to leave ambiguous. Use follow-up generation instructions to tell Tenzo what kind of additional detail to ask for. Good instructions are specific, such as asking the candidate to dive deeper into technical or architectural details for a project they mentioned. If a follow-up instruction is left blank, Tenzo uses the default behavior: it generates a clarifying question that asks the candidate to elaborate on their previous answer. Use a blank follow-up when you want a generic elaboration prompt, and write custom instructions when you want Tenzo to probe a specific topic. Follow-up answers are graded together with the original question. Use follow-ups when you want the candidate’s initial answer and follow-up responses to combine into one grade for a single topic.

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Follow-Ups vs. Auto Generated Questions

Follow-ups and Auto Generated questions both let Tenzo ask dynamic questions based on interview context. The difference is how the answers are grouped for grading.

• Use follow-ups when the extra question is part of the same evaluation. The original answer and follow-up answers are graded together under one question.
• Use Auto Generated questions when the dynamic question should receive its own separate grade. If you want multiple dynamically generated questions to produce separate scores, create separate Auto Generated questions.

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Grading Instructions

Grading instructions tell Tenzo how to interpret the candidate’s answer. They should be more specific than the question text. Good grading instructions explain:

• What a strong answer includes
• What is acceptable but not ideal
• What should be considered weak
• What should be considered disqualifying, if anything
• Whether equivalent experience should count
• Whether the candidate must meet an exact threshold

For text, Resume Based, Auto Generated, and Grade Only questions, grading instructions often look like a rubric with point values. For Yes/No and Number questions, the structured settings provide the primary grading rule, and custom grading instructions can add nuance. Best practice is to provide a rubric that allocates points across the parts of the answer you care about, with the total adding up to 100. This makes it clearer how Tenzo should trade off different signals, such as technical depth, recency of experience, communication quality, and role alignment.

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Generating Grading Criteria

The magic wand can generate grading criteria for a question. Tenzo uses the job description and any additional generation instructions you provide in the modal. Use this when a question is directionally correct but needs a clearer rubric. The best additional instructions describe what the rubric should emphasize, such as technical depth, communication, recent hands-on experience, or alignment with specific role requirements.

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Candidate Type

Candidate Type controls who should answer the question:

• Both: Ask applicants and sourced candidates.
• Applicants: Only ask candidates who applied.
• Sourced: Only ask candidates found through sourcing.

Use this when the candidate path changes what you need to ask. For example, sourced candidates may need a question about interest in the opportunity, while applicants may have already shown interest by applying. You might also ask a question only to applicants when you want to verify that they can discuss the resume they submitted. For example, an applicant-only Resume Based question can ask the candidate to walk through recent resume experience, with follow-ups that check whether they can explain what they actually worked on. This is useful when applicants may be applying with an enhanced resume or spamming applications and you want to confirm they can speak credibly about the experience listed. For sourced candidates, you may want different questions because they did not apply directly. A sourced-only question can ask about their current work situation, whether they are open to a new role, what would make them consider switching jobs, or what timeline they would need before making a move. These questions help establish interest and availability before evaluating deeper role fit.

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Importance

Importance controls how much the answer contributes to the candidate’s final score. Higher importance levels are weighted more heavily when Tenzo computes the final interview score.

• Info: Collects context without treating the answer as a scored requirement.
• Minor: Scored signal with less weight than a normal screening question.
• Normal: Standard scored screening question.
• Major: Scored signal with more weight than a normal screening question.
• Required: Critical requirement. If failed, the overall score will be set to zero.

Use Info for context you want recruiters to see but do not want to penalize.

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Review Checklist

Before activating an interview, review the screening questions and confirm:

• Every question maps to a useful hiring signal
• Question type matches how the question should be asked or graded
• Answer type matches the format you expect from the candidate
• Follow-ups are enabled where clarification matters
• Grading instructions match how your team evaluates candidates
• Candidate type targeting is correct for applicants and sourced candidates
• Importance reflects the real impact of the requirement

Screening questions are usually the highest-impact part of the interview. A small improvement to question wording, type, or grading instructions can significantly improve candidate evaluation quality.