The Screening Question Reference, Each Form Question With Its Reject Rule

This is the lookup to keep open when you are halfway through an application and a question could end it: work authorization, sponsorship, years per skill, location, license, self-ID. It is for people sending applications to many companies through many portals. It gives one row per question: how employers wire the reject rule, how to count your own facts against it, and what a rejection's timing tells you afterward. Salary boxes are covered in the Salary Box Entry Run and conviction questions in the conviction-box guide, so neither is repeated here.

Which application questions can auto-reject you?

A question can auto-reject you only when the employer has attached a rule to a specific answer, and only some question formats can carry such a rule. Six systems document one: LinkedIn, Indeed, Greenhouse, iCIMS, Taleo, and Workday.

A knockout question is a screening question where one answer is wired to reject, archive, or demote your application without a person reading it. Each system uses its own name for this:

• LinkedIn: a "Must-have qualification" checkbox on a screening question. The employer can also auto-archive candidates who fail it and send an automatic rejection email.
• Indeed: "required" screeners, formerly called "deal breakers". A failed answer moves you to the employer's Rejected list. Custom questions cannot be marked required. Only Indeed's pre-made questions can.
• Greenhouse: "Auto-Reject" application rules, available only on the Plus and Pro tiers. Only Yes/No and select questions can carry one. If an Auto-Advance rule and an Auto-Reject rule both fire, Auto-Reject wins. If two Auto-Reject rules fire, the older one applies.
• iCIMS: a per-answer "Do Not Qualify (DNQ)" checkbox, which puts you in an "Initial DNQ" status. iCIMS's own example puts a DNQ on a "0-1 years" experience band.
• Taleo: "disqualification questions". This comes from secondary sources only.
• Workday: "Automatic Stage Routing". This also comes from secondary sources only. What Workday and iCIMS show the candidate, and when, is not publicly established.

Not every system rejects on a single answer. The UN's inspira system, for example, requires an 80% threshold of satisfactory screening answers. So the same question can sit behind a hard gate in one portal and count as one point in a score in another.

Because of the plan layer, auto-reject depends on the employer's subscription, not on the brand. Two Greenhouse forms that look the same can behave differently. One may have no Auto-Reject feature at all.

Who sets these rules

Rules are written by recruiting operations staff and ATS administrators (an ATS, or applicant tracking system, is the software that stores applications and runs the rules). In Refolk's index of professional profiles, this is overwhelmingly a US job title.

US employers in that set include Plaid, Hudson River Trading, Susquehanna, Perplexity, and the US Air Force. When a company has a dedicated person whose job is configuring the ATS, assume its forms carry deliberate rules.

The same index shows which systems US recruiters say they work in:

Skills are self-listed, so treat this as a proxy, not a market-share figure. The practical point is that Workday shows up often in Refolk's index, and Workday is one of the systems where what the candidate sees after a rule fires is not publicly established. Expect more silence and fewer clean signals from those forms.

The question rows: what each one asks and how to count against it

Each row below names the question, whether a platform ships it as a preset, the fact you count against, and what to log. A preset is a question template the platform provides. On Indeed only presets can be marked required, and on LinkedIn the preset categories are Work Authorization, Visa Status, Location, Hybrid Work, Expertise with Skill, and Certifications.

Answer bands, meaning the options in a dropdown, are set by each employer. No public source establishes default bands, so read every option before you pick one. Treat any Yes/No or select version of a row as able to carry a rule.

Eligibility rows

For the sponsorship pair, use the status table in the next section. For clearance questions that turn into a full questionnaire, see the Clearance Questionnaire Run.

Location and schedule rows

Measure the radius as an actual route, not a guess. If a form asks whether you live within a set distance and you are slightly outside it, say so in free text if there is a box. Select questions get read by a rule, and free text gets read by a person.

Qualification rows

Consent and self-ID rows

"Not documented" means the dossier behind this guide found no platform preset for that question. It does not mean the question is safe. An employer can still build it as a custom Yes/No and attach a rule on any system that allows custom rules.

Will you now or in the future require sponsorship: how to answer by status

Answer the authorization question for today and the sponsorship question for the full window the wording covers, including "future". For most statuses the answer follows from whether your right to work depends on an employer. The status that gets misanswered most often is F-1 OPT and STEM OPT.

The reasoning for each row:

• Citizens and permanent residents answer Yes and No because their right to work does not depend on any employer.
• OPT and STEM OPT holders are authorized today, but OPT runs up to 12 months plus a 24-month STEM extension, and then it ends. Most sources advise answering Yes to "future" sponsorship, and one secondary source summarises NACE as saying students should answer Yes in almost all cases. One source advises No and disclosing after an offer. I side with Yes, for the reason given in the failure-modes section: a No can be treated as false once your EAD end date shows up.
• H-4 EAD holders are authorized now. Whether they need future sponsorship depends on how the form defines "future".
• H-1B, TN, and asylee or refugee EAD: I did not verify an answer for these against a USCIS primary source, so I will not give one. Ask your university's international student office or an immigration attorney, and use the H-1B Sponsor Read to check whether a given employer sponsors at all.

When the form gives you an "If yes, explain" box, use it. That box is free text, which on Greenhouse and Indeed cannot trigger an automatic rejection, and a person reading it gets a date instead of a guess.

Currently authorized to work in the US on F-1 STEM OPT, EAD valid through [Month DD, YYYY].
I will require H-1B sponsorship to continue employment after that date.

How to count years of experience on an application question

Count only the months you actually used the named skill, merge overlapping roles so no month is counted twice, and stop at a number your resume dates would support. Do not answer a per-skill question with your total career years.

Platforms ship this question as a preset. Indeed's reads "How many years of experience do you have in XYZ?" and LinkedIn offers "Work Experience" and "Expertise with Skill". iCIMS shows a DNQ attached to a "0-1 years" band, which tells you that the lowest band is a common place to put the rule.

What is not publicly established is how employers count part-time work, internships, contract work, or overlapping roles. No public source settles it, so do not assume either a generous or a strict reading. Use this method and you can defend the number either way:

1. List every role, contract, or project where you used the skill, with start and end months.
2. Merge overlaps. Two concurrent roles using SQL in the same month count as one month.
3. Count part-time and internship months separately, so you know both the full and the conservative total.
4. Divide by 12 and round down to the band your resume dates clearly support.
5. If the form has a free-text box, state the date ranges and the part-time portion in one line.

Save the result per skill on your answer sheet. You will hit the same SQL, Python, or Salesforce question dozens of times, and the answer should be the same every time, because inconsistent numbers across applications to the same employer look worse than a modest number.

This is where keeping your work history in one structured place pays off. Refolk writes your resume from your own history, so the date ranges behind each skill are already recorded when the years box appears. Refolk also tailors the resume to each posting, which keeps the number you type and the dates the recruiter reads in agreement.

Should I answer voluntary self-identification questions?

Answering or declining race, sex, and veteran self-ID is your call, and declining is a normal option on these pages. The disability self-ID page is different: its federal basis was removed. If you see one, screenshot it and log it.

Here is where each page stands:

• Disability: Form CC-305, in use since 2013, and federal contractors' duty to invite disability self-ID were rescinded by an OFCCP final rule published August 21, 2026 and effective September 21, 2026. OFCCP's reasoning is that a disability self-ID invitation, even a voluntary one, is an employer-initiated disability inquiry. Separately, the ADA bars disability-related and medical questions before an offer.
• Veterans: self-ID under VEVRAA (the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act) is unaffected.
• Race and sex: the EO 11246 regulations that underpinned contractor affirmative action were rescinded October 26, 2026. Whether race and sex self-ID is still collected under any federal requirement is not established here. Expect some employers to keep the page anyway.
• Age and date of birth: the ADEA does not prohibit asking, but the EEOC says such questions are "closely scrutinized". If a form asks for your birth date before an offer, answer it if it is required and log that it was asked.

The disability page disappeared for a legal reason, not because a form expired. That is why its continued presence is a signal, though not proof of wrongdoing.

To re-check the status of any of these rules later, read the agency's own page on pre-employment inquiries (the EEOC's guidance on disability inquiries) and a law-firm summary of the most recent OFCCP rule. Do not rely on what a form shows, because forms lag the rules.

Rejected minutes after applying: what the timing tells you

On LinkedIn and Indeed, a rejection within minutes did not come from the platform's own rule, because both schedule their messages about 3 days out. A fast rejection points to an employer ATS rule or a manual decision. On Greenhouse the recruiter sets the delay, so speed alone tells you nothing.

Two of the delays come from secondary sources quoting the platforms' help pages. I did not fetch those primary pages, so treat "about 3 days" as a strong pattern, not a guarantee. Greenhouse says over 50% of roles are set to email the candidate when an application is auto-rejected, which means many of the rest send nothing.

On recovery, the documented options are thin:

• Indeed: the employer can move a rejected applicant back. Indeed does not promise you anything.
• Greenhouse: auto-rejected candidates stay viewable to the recruiter, so a person can find you if asked.
• iCIMS: there is a "Self-Withdrew (Portal)" status (secondary source), which means a candidate-side withdrawal exists, but nothing documents re-entering.
• Any system: whether you can resubmit a corrected answer is not publicly established anywhere.

Passing the first screen is not the end of it either. On Workday, secondary sources report that decline rules can fire again at background-check or offer stage. That is why later forms have to repeat your earlier answers exactly.

The procedure: from a form question to a logged answer

Run this for every application. Steps 1, 2, and 4 to 6 take a few minutes per form. Step 3 is done once and reused, and steps 7 and 8 only run when a rejection lands.

Sources disagree on whether to disclose future sponsorship on the form or after an offer. The procedure above takes the disclose-now side because of the risk that an answer is later treated as false. If you choose otherwise, make it a deliberate decision and record it in your log.

How screening answers go wrong

Most screening losses come from seven repeatable mistakes, and almost all of them are about wording or counting, not about qualifications. Each item below says what the mistake looks like and what to check.

1. Reading the delay too literally. You get rejected in minutes and blame "AI". On Greenhouse the recruiter sets the delay, so speed alone does not identify the cause. Check: the sender domain against the portal you applied through.
2. Answering the sponsorship question for your current status only. An OPT holder answers No to "now or in the future" because they are authorized today. That answer can be treated as false once the EAD end date shows up. Check: the exact wording for the word "future".
3. Counting your whole career as years in one skill. You answer total career years to a per-skill question. Check: would your resume dates support the number if a recruiter added them up?
4. Skipping a question. A blank screener can work like a No and filter you out, especially where required screeners route straight to Rejected. Check: every field is filled before you press submit.
5. Treating silence as a decision. Greenhouse auto-reject emails are optional, so no email is not a verdict in either direction. Check: the log date, then follow up after 7 days.
6. Over-reading a disability prompt. A disability self-ID page after September 21, 2026 is no longer federally required, but it may be state-law compliance rather than a violation. Check: whether the employer holds state contracts.
7. Assuming a passed screen is final. On Workday, decline rules can reportedly fire again at the background-check or offer stage. Check: later forms repeat your earlier answers exactly, word for word where you can.

Two false positives are worth naming. A fast rejection is not proof you tripped a rule. A person may have decided quickly. And getting no rejection is not proof you passed. On systems where the candidate signal is undocumented, such as iCIMS and Workday, an Initial DNQ or a decline can sit in the employer's view while you see nothing.

Some platform behaviour is also unclear in the source material. LinkedIn's help says screening questions are "only available when collecting applications via e-mail", and the meaning of that line is not clear. When a platform's behaviour is ambiguous, rely on your own log, not on assumptions.

Keeping your answer sheet and log current

Your answer sheet goes out of date whenever a fact changes: a new EAD card, a renewed license, another six months of a skill, a move. Re-check it on those dates, and add a row to the log for every application so that timing reads and recovery requests have evidence behind them.

Set calendar reminders for the dated facts on the sheet: EAD end date, license and certification expiry, and the month each per-skill count goes up a band. When one changes, update the sheet first and the forms second.

Refolk's fit score helps here too. Because it scores how well you match each posting before you apply, a requirement you would fail shows up before you open the form, not as a rejection three days later.

Date and time submitted:
Employer:
Role:
Portal (LinkedIn / Indeed / Greenhouse / iCIMS / Workday / Taleo):
Authorized to work (answer as given):
Sponsorship question wording, verbatim:
Sponsorship answer and explain line:
Per-skill years answered (skill: number):
Radius / on-site days / shift / travel answered:
License or certification ID given:
Self-ID pages (answered / declined / disability prompt shown):
Screenshots saved (Y/N):
Rejection received (date, time, sender domain):
Timing read (platform schedule / employer rule / manual / silent):
Recovery request sent (date, to whom):