How many questions are recommended that I have in my surveys?

In theory, you can add as many questions to a survey as you would like. Yet, to build the best and most effective surveys, we recommend that you follow our best practices described in this article to avoid respondent drop-off and low completion rates.

What mainly determines the amount of questions in a survey at a given stage is how far the candidate is in the recruitment process. In most cases, the futher they are in the process the more engaged they will be and therefore more likely to both answer and complete the survey. Which means that generally the father the candidate goes in the recruitment process, the more questions they will be asked. There are some adjustments to this underlying principle, at certain stages depending on different factors such as positivity and negativity biases.

Professional tip from Talenthub 🎓

Try to limit open-ended questions and comments to one or two in the survey. For improved response rates; place comment questions at the end of the questionnaire.

Career page widget: 4-5 questions

When visiting the career page, the candidate has a low level of commitment as they still haven't invested a lot of time applying for a role in your organisation.

This is why we recommend asking a maximum of 5 questions in career page surveys.

The drivers used here are: Ease of use | Attraction & Employer branding | Overall satisfaction

Job ad widget: 3-4 questions

Just like with the career page, candidate has a low level of commitment as they still haven't invested a lot of time applying for a role in your organisation.

This is why we recommend asking a maximum of 5 questions in the job ad survey.

The drivers mainly used here are: Informative | Communicative | Overall satisfaction

Confirmation email: 6-7 questions

Right after applying, many candidates are very motivated to share their thoughts and inputs. However, they are still not far in the process, so the overall positivity bias combined with how far they are in the process both weigh in, when it comes to determining the amount of questions asked.

We recommend asking 6-7 questions at this stage of the candidate's journey.

The drivers used here are: Informative | Ease of Use | Expectation setting | Attraction & Employer Branding | NPS

General rejection: 5-6 questions

Candidates rejected without participating in an interview are less engaged than those who moved through one or more steps in your hiring process.

Our studies have shown that you get the best completion rates if you ask a maximum of 6 questions at this stage.

The drivers used here are: Expectation setting | Duration of process | Transparancy | Overall satisfaction | NPS

Rejection after interview: 8-9

Candidates who have participated in one or more interviews tend to be much more engaged than other rejected candidates.

At this stage, you can ask as many as 8 questions without it decreasing the number of completed replies.

Hired: 8-9 questions

These candidates are highly motivated and have a significant positivity bias. They are also all the way at the end of your recruitment process which means they have very valuable insights in terms of the recruitment process as a whole.

At this stage, you can ask as many as 8 questions without it decreasing the number of completed replies.

Candidate withdrew: 3-4 questions

As candidates has chosen to withdraw from the process, the amount of questions asked here are very short and depending on when they withdraw from the process it can be difficult for them to evaluate a number of aspects in your recruitment process

Therefore, we recommend only asking 3-4 questions at this stage.

The drivers used here are: Attraction & Employer branding | NPS

Offer rejected: 9 questions

At this stage, although the candidate has decided to reject the job offer they have made it far in the recruitment process and most likely doesn’t have significant negativity bias’.

Therefore, we recommend asking up to 9 questions at this stage.