{
  "name": "Screening questions on job application forms, by applicant tracking system",
  "version": "2026-10-03",
  "measuredAt": "2026-10-03",
  "publisher": "JobShifu",
  "publisher_url": "https://jobshifu.com",
  "report": "https://jobshifu.com/blog/can-application-questions-reject-you",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "citation": "JobShifu, \"Screening questions on job application forms, by applicant tracking system\", measured 3 October 2026, https://jobshifu.com/blog/can-application-questions-reject-you (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": 152929,
    "employers": 7377,
    "capturedFrom": "2026-09-24",
    "capturedTo": "2026-10-03",
    "atsCaptured": ["greenhouse", "ashby", "lever", "rippling", "recruitee"],
    "atsNotCaptured": "Workday, iCIMS, Taleo (application behind an account wall) and SmartRecruiters (bot protection). Results describe the five systems listed, not the whole market."
  },
  "method": {
    "unit": "An open posting's captured application form. Questions in the ATS's separate voluntary self-identification (EEO) block, hidden fields and display-only text are excluded.",
    "classification": "A form counts toward a category when at least one question label matches that category's pattern (case-insensitive). Patterns were checked by reading the most frequent matched labels in each category before publishing.",
    "categories": {
      "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": "Asks about visa sponsorship (sponsor, visa) or the legal right to work (authorized to work, work authorization, right to work, work permit, eligible to work, legally eligible/entitled/permitted).",
      "sponsorship": "Asks about visa sponsorship (sponsor, visa).",
      "workAuth": "Asks about the legal right to work, without regard to sponsorship wording.",
      "relocation": "Asks about relocating (relocat*).",
      "onsiteOrCommute": "Asks about working on site, in office, in person, hybrid attendance or commuting.",
      "salary": "Asks for salary or compensation expectations. Questions about current or present pay are excluded.",
      "yearsExperience": "Asks how many years of experience, or whether the applicant has N+ years of a kind of experience."
    },
    "atsKnockoutFlag": "Of the five systems, only Rippling publishes whether the employer marked a question as a knockout (a wrong answer rejects the application). Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever and Recruitee do not expose that setting, so for them this dataset measures how often a question is ASKED, not how often an answer rule rejects.",
    "disclosureFloor": "An ATS is broken out only with at least 1,000 postings and 100 employers. Recruitee (10 postings, 1 employer) is below the floor: it is included in the totals and not reported on its own.",
    "privacy": "Aggregates of employer-authored, publicly served form metadata only. No applicant answers, no individual posting and no employer name are published."
  },
  "perPosting": {
    "note": "Percent of open postings whose form asks at least one question of the category.",
    "rows": [
      { "ats": "all", "postings": 152929, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 68.3, "sponsorship": 56.3, "sponsorshipRequired": 52.7, "workAuth": 50.0, "relocation": 11.0, "onsiteOrCommute": 15.9, "salary": 30.1, "yearsExperience": 10.5, "anyOfThese": 77.9, "medianQuestions": 14 },
      { "ats": "greenhouse", "postings": 97895, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 72.5, "sponsorship": 60.1, "sponsorshipRequired": 58.7, "workAuth": 54.7, "relocation": 12.1, "onsiteOrCommute": 15.4, "salary": 31.9, "yearsExperience": 11.4, "anyOfThese": 80.9, "medianQuestions": 15 },
      { "ats": "ashby", "postings": 29909, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 73.1, "sponsorship": 61.3, "sponsorshipRequired": 49.7, "workAuth": 43.8, "relocation": 10.6, "onsiteOrCommute": 21.3, "salary": 25.2, "yearsExperience": 9.1, "anyOfThese": 83.6, "medianQuestions": 10 },
      { "ats": "lever", "postings": 23651, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 45.9, "sponsorship": 35.6, "sponsorshipRequired": 32.7, "workAuth": 38.7, "relocation": 7.5, "onsiteOrCommute": 11.0, "salary": 28.2, "yearsExperience": 9.1, "anyOfThese": 59.3, "medianQuestions": 14 },
      { "ats": "rippling", "postings": 1464, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 49.8, "sponsorship": 38.0, "sponsorshipRequired": 34.8, "workAuth": 40.5, "relocation": 5.3, "onsiteOrCommute": 19.8, "salary": 36.7, "yearsExperience": 6.6, "anyOfThese": 60.2, "medianQuestions": 13 }
    ]
  },
  "perEmployer": {
    "note": "Percent of employers with at least one open posting whose form asks the category. Reduces the weight of employers with very many postings.",
    "rows": [
      { "ats": "all", "employers": 7377, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 72.3, "sponsorship": 62.0, "workAuth": 56.0, "relocation": 19.4, "onsiteOrCommute": 34.3, "salary": 41.6, "yearsExperience": 29.8, "anyOfThese": 83.5 },
      { "ats": "greenhouse", "employers": 4060, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 77.1, "sponsorship": 66.8, "workAuth": 61.2, "relocation": 20.6, "onsiteOrCommute": 36.1, "salary": 45.5, "yearsExperience": 34.1, "anyOfThese": 86.7 },
      { "ats": "ashby", "employers": 1926, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 69.3, "sponsorship": 58.2, "workAuth": 48.6, "relocation": 19.3, "onsiteOrCommute": 34.0, "salary": 31.4, "yearsExperience": 22.0, "anyOfThese": 81.5 },
      { "ats": "lever", "employers": 1277, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 62.2, "sponsorship": 52.9, "workAuth": 50.6, "relocation": 15.9, "onsiteOrCommute": 28.9, "salary": 44.2, "yearsExperience": 28.9, "anyOfThese": 77.3 },
      { "ats": "rippling", "employers": 113, "sponsorshipOrWorkAuth": 66.4, "sponsorship": 54.0, "workAuth": 57.5, "relocation": 15.9, "onsiteOrCommute": 35.4, "salary": 46.0, "yearsExperience": 23.9, "anyOfThese": 76.1 }
    ]
  },
  "ripplingKnockouts": {
    "note": "Rippling is the only captured ATS that publishes the employer's knockout setting.",
    "postings": 1464,
    "employers": 113,
    "postingsWithAnyKnockoutPct": 40.4,
    "employersWithAnyKnockoutPct": 48.7,
    "postingsWithWorkAuthOrSponsorshipKnockoutPct": 25.3,
    "knockoutQuestions": 1599,
    "knockoutQuestionsWorkAuthOrSponsorship": 498
  }
}