The Assessment stage type streamlines the employment screening process by having applicants complete customizable assessments during their application. With this stage, account Administrators can design assessments tailored to specific job requirements which evaluate candidates' skills and abilities. This enhances efficiency, accuracy, and fairness in candidate evaluation, enabling your recruiters to make data-driven decisions and find the best-fit candidates for the job.
Watch the overview video below for more information:
Adding the Assessment Stage
To add an Assessment stage to your Opening’s workflow, follow the steps below:
Click the Jobs tab at the top of any Fountain page. Then click Openings in the dropdown.
Find the Opening you want to add the stage to and click the 3 dots Action button to the left of the Opening’s name. Click Edit Workflow in the dropdown. Note: You can also add this stage when first creating a workflow after creating an Opening.
Click Add Stage in the top left corner. Then click Create New Stage in the dropdown.
Type a title for the stage, select Assessment in the Stage Type dropdown, and choose the placement of the stage.
Click Add Stage.
Assigning an Assessment
Assigning an assessment is required for the stage to be functional. Upon stage creation, you will be prompted to either assign an existing assessment or create a new assessment for the stage. Once created, assessments are available for reuse on any Assessment stage within any of your Openings.
To create a new assessment, follow the steps below:
Click the Create or manage assessment link or the Manage assessments button.
In the pop-up, click Create New Assessment.
On the Assessment Form Editor screen, type a name for your assessment. Make sure this is easy to remember in case you want to use this assessment in another Opening’s Assessment stage. You can also add an optional description.
If you want the applicants’ answers to these questions to be secure, check the Secure Form box. Only users with the Secure Data permission will be able to review these answers. It is important to note that the assessment secure setting is not enabled on the question level but on the assessment as a whole. When enabled, it applies to all responses.
Click Add Question to begin adding questions to the assessment. Similarly to the functionality of a Data Collection stage, you can begin typing to pull up a list of recently created assessment questions. You can also type a brand new question in the box. Hit enter on your keyboard when done.
Once the question is added, determine the answer type by clicking the Multiple Choice button. Answers for assessments can either be multiple choice or dropdown only.
Type the answer choices and select which answer is correct by clicking the check mark bubble. Whichever answer has the green checkmark bubble to the right of the answer, will be marked as the correct answer.
Enter a unique Data Key for the question. Remember, Data Keys must be all lowercase with no spaces (use underscores for spaces).
When all questions have been added, click Save in the top right corner of the Assessment Form Editor screen.
The newly created assessment will be assigned to your stage.
Once you have a few assessments created, they can be managed via your Assessment stage.
Click the Manage Assessments button to see a list of all of your created assessments.
Click the pencil icon to the right of the assessment to edit the questions.
Click the name of an assessment to assign that assessment to the stage. Once a new assessment is selected, the new assessment title will be displayed on the Assessment Form section of the Workflow Editor and is indicated as the “active assessment” in the Manage Assessments pop-up box.
Assessment Stage Rules
If using an Assessment stage, a minimum of one rule is required for the stage to work correctly. The condition for each rule is predefined as “Assessment form score” and is compared against the numerical value of correct responses submitted by the applicant. The default action for when none of the applicant scores satisfy the rule settings is for the applicant to remain on the stage. However, this can be changed if you prefer to reject these applicants. Learn more about creating Rules by reviewing this Help Center article.
In this example, if an applicant submits 7 or more correct responses, they are advanced to the Approved stage.
Applicant Experience
Applicants will progress through an Assessment stage by completing the questions. Administrators can adjust the stage settings to show one question at a time or hide/show the stage in the applicant’s Portal Progress Tracker.
The applicant’s answers will not be saved until they are submitted. If an applicant navigates away from the assessment, any answered questions will not be saved. Once the answers are submitted, Hiring Managers can review the answers by clicking the green Assessment stage completed Status Label then Review Responses in the dropdown. Answers will be shown in a pop-up window and cannot be changed by the Fountain user.