{
  "name": "The application questions employers re-ask most, and how many ways they word them",
  "version": "2026-10-04",
  "measuredAt": "2026-10-04T06:14:00Z",
  "publisher": "JobShifu",
  "publisher_url": "https://jobshifu.com",
  "report": "https://jobshifu.com/blog/stop-rewriting-job-application-answers",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "citation": "JobShifu, \"The application questions employers re-ask most, and how many ways they word them\", measured 4 October 2026, https://jobshifu.com/blog/stop-rewriting-job-application-answers (CC BY 4.0).",
  "scope": {
    "summary": "Every open job posting in the JobShifu posting corpus whose application form was captured from a public ATS endpoint. One form per posting.",
    "postings": 152857,
    "employers": 7388,
    "capturedFrom": "2026-09-24",
    "capturedTo": "2026-10-04",
    "postingsByAts": { "greenhouse": 97829, "ashby": 29912, "lever": 23641, "rippling": 1466, "recruitee": 10 },
    "atsNotCaptured": "Workday, iCIMS, Taleo and SmartRecruiters. Results describe the systems listed, not the whole market.",
    "related": "https://jobshifu.com/blog/assets/application-questions-2026-10-03.json measures the same forms by ATS for knockout-style categories; category patterns differ slightly, so shares differ by a point or two."
  },
  "method": {
    "unit": "An employer-written question on an open posting's application form. Standard contact fields (name, email, phone, resume, cover letter), the separate voluntary self-identification (EEO) block and location widgets are excluded. Profile-link fields (LinkedIn, website, GitHub) are not counted as a family.",
    "classification": "Each question label is lower-cased and whitespace-normalized, then assigned to a family when it matches that family's pattern (case-insensitive regular expressions, a label can match more than one family). Patterns were checked by reading the most frequent and a random sample of matched labels per family before publishing; a small share of mismatches remains.",
    "ranking": "Families are ranked by the share of employers whose forms ask at least once, which keeps an employer with thousands of postings from dominating.",
    "wordings": "Distinct normalized label texts in the family. Labels that name the employer count as separate wordings, so this is an upper bound on meaningful variation. topWordingEmployerPct is the share of the family's employers that use its single most common wording.",
    "disclosureFloor": "A family is published only with at least 1,000 postings and 100 employers."
  },
  "families": [
    { "rank": 1, "family": "Visa sponsorship", "postings": 86170, "pctPostings": 56.4, "employers": 4576, "pctEmployers": 61.9, "wordings": 5527, "topWording": "will you now or in the future require sponsorship for employment visa status?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 4.2 },
    { "rank": 2, "family": "Work authorization", "postings": 74477, "pctPostings": 48.7, "employers": 4027, "pctEmployers": 54.5, "wordings": 3814, "topWording": "are you legally authorized to work in the united states?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 21.7 },
    { "rank": 3, "family": "Salary expectation", "postings": 47316, "pctPostings": 31.0, "employers": 3061, "pctEmployers": 41.4, "wordings": 4199, "topWording": "what are your salary expectations?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 14.2 },
    { "rank": 4, "family": "On-site, hybrid or commute", "postings": 23716, "pctPostings": 15.5, "employers": 2503, "pctEmployers": 33.9, "wordings": 6833, "topWording": "are you comfortable commuting to this job's location?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 0.5 },
    { "rank": 5, "family": "How you heard, or who referred you", "postings": 53190, "pctPostings": 34.8, "employers": 2477, "pctEmployers": 33.5, "wordings": 1856, "topWording": "how did you hear about this job?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 18.5 },
    { "rank": 6, "family": "Years of experience", "postings": 16862, "pctPostings": 11.0, "employers": 2247, "pctEmployers": 30.4, "wordings": 8591, "topWording": "how many years of relevant experience do you have?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 1.2 },
    { "rank": 7, "family": "Where you live now", "postings": 24391, "pctPostings": 16.0, "employers": 2188, "pctEmployers": 29.6, "wordings": 3850, "topWording": "where are you currently located?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 6.4 },
    { "rank": 8, "family": "Describe an experience (tell us about a time)", "postings": 7789, "pctPostings": 5.1, "employers": 1644, "pctEmployers": 22.3, "wordings": 5291, "topWording": "tell us about yourself", "topWordingEmployerPct": 0.3 },
    { "rank": 9, "family": "Notice period or start date", "postings": 18248, "pctPostings": 11.9, "employers": 1443, "pctEmployers": 19.5, "wordings": 1207, "topWording": "what is your notice period?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 15.5 },
    { "rank": 10, "family": "Relocation", "postings": 16888, "pctPostings": 11.0, "employers": 1432, "pctEmployers": 19.4, "wordings": 2896, "topWording": "are you willing to relocate?", "topWordingEmployerPct": 3.8 }
  ],
  "belowTopTen": [
    { "family": "Languages spoken", "postings": 10340, "employers": 1374, "pctEmployers": 18.6 },
    { "family": "Previous employment with this employer, relatives or conflicts", "postings": 43030, "employers": 1271, "pctEmployers": 17.2 },
    { "family": "Why this role or company", "postings": 8427, "employers": 1053, "pctEmployers": 14.3 },
    { "family": "Education level", "postings": 12457, "employers": 982, "pctEmployers": 13.3 },
    { "family": "Minimum age", "postings": 18053, "employers": 477, "pctEmployers": 6.5 },
    { "family": "Background check or drug screen", "postings": 9548, "employers": 459, "pctEmployers": 6.2 },
    { "family": "Security clearance or export control", "postings": 12739, "employers": 452, "pctEmployers": 6.1 },
    { "family": "Driver's license or transportation", "postings": 5880, "employers": 323, "pctEmployers": 4.4 },
    { "family": "Non-compete", "postings": 7022, "employers": 256, "pctEmployers": 3.5 },
    { "family": "Essential functions with or without accommodation", "postings": 6546, "employers": 186, "pctEmployers": 2.5 }
  ],
  "privacy": "Aggregates of public form metadata only. No applicant answers are involved, and no individual posting or employer is published. Top wordings are generic phrasings used by many employers."
}