Pre-screen every form response automatically with knock-out questions and scores

Form evaluations take on the first round of pre-screening. You describe your knock-out questions and what a good answer looks like once, and every completed response is checked the same way: a criteria verdict, a score, a skill profile, a summary for your recruiter, or custom outputs. Your team still makes the decisions. This guide explains how to configure the evaluators, check their results, and resolve common setup problems.

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Choose what you need

You can enable one evaluator or combine several. For example, use Criteria to check a required qualification and Scoring to award points for relevant experience. A score does not replace the criteria verdict: review both when deciding what happens next.

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Set up an evaluation

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1. Enable the evaluator for the form

Open your form and select Evaluation, beside Content and Logic. Switch on the evaluators you need, then click an evaluator’s name to open its settings.

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2. Select and configure the questions

For Criteria, Scoring, and Skills, switch on each question you want to evaluate. Configure each selected question:

• Criteria: Choose Must-have for a knock-out (or killer) question, where the wrong answer means the candidate does not meet your criteria. Choose Nice-to-have for something that helps you decide who to call first without ruling anyone out. Then define the expected answer or AI instructions.
• Scoring: Set the question’s maximum points, then define when points are awarded. If you use AI, the maximum must be greater than zero.
• Skills: Add the skills you want to assess, then define which answers contribute to each skill and their weights. Add at least one skill before using AI assessment.

Summary works on the whole response and needs no question-level setup. For Generated fields, enable the evaluator and add at least one output using Create custom, Suggest with AI, or Data source.

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3. Choose answer rules or AI

Under How to evaluate?, choose:

• Use answer rules for fixed values or comparisons, such as a selected option or a minimum number of years. Rules return the same result for the same answer.
• Evaluate with AI when interpreting the answer matters, such as a free-text explanation. Write specific instructions about the evidence the AI should look for.

The AI instruction is shared across Criteria, Scoring, and Skills for the same question. Keep the instructions consistent across all evaluators using that question. For the full settings, see Criteria, Scoring, Skills, and Generated fields.

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Test your results

Open Test & Evaluate in the preview panel. Enter answers manually or use Autofill with AI to create a test response. Evaluation runs automatically when you enter or change an answer. Test answers that meet your requirements, answers that fail them, and unanswered questions. For scoring, also test values just below and at each threshold. Open the result panels and check the question-level detail:

• Criteria: Check which requirements passed or failed and, for AI evaluations, the reasoning.
• Scoring: Check the points awarded per question and the total percentage.
• Skills: Check how each answer contributes to the skill profile.

Review the summary and generated outputs against the original answers. If an output asks for information that may be absent, use Hints for the AI (optional) to explain how to handle missing information, such as leaving the output empty. See Test & Evaluate for the test scenarios and result panels.

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Understand the results

Criteria uses an ordered verdict. An answered must-have that fails returns Does not meet criteria. Otherwise, a missing answer to an evaluated question returns Incomplete. If all evaluated questions are answered, a failed nice-to-have returns Partially meets criteria; if everything passes, the result is Meets criteria. Check questions skipped by form logic when investigating an incomplete result. Scoring is based on total points. The percentage is earned points divided by the combined maximum points of the configured questions. An unanswered scored question contributes zero points but still counts towards the maximum. Matching rules add together, capped at that question’s maximum. Skills percentages show relative contributions. They describe each skill’s share of the total weight. A skill at 80% does not mean the respondent has achieved an 80% proficiency score. Generated fields run after Criteria, Scoring, and Skills. They can use the answers and those evaluation results to produce the outputs you defined.

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Troubleshoot an evaluation

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Use the evaluation results

Completed responses are evaluated and the results are stored with them. Use Export CSV or Export Excel in the builder’s three-dot menu to export results, including skill percentages and generated fields. To use a result in an automation, open Automation variables at the bottom of Test & Evaluate and copy the variable shown beside your test value. For example, the Criteria verdict uses {{form_response.evaluation.screening}}, with the values passed, passed_with_restrictions, rejected, or incomplete. Because every response is evaluated as soon as it is completed, an automation can follow up with each candidate straight away. For example, move the Match to the next stage when the result is Meets criteria, and send a short update to candidates who do not meet your criteria, so nobody is left waiting. For a worked example, see Screen and score applicants with a pre-screening form. If a result still looks wrong, contact support@hiredata.com with the form name, the evaluator and question involved, the answer you tested, and the expected and actual results.