Pre-Screening Question Catalogue for 12 Professions

What's Included in This Pre-Screening Question Catalogue

Pre-screening settles one thing before the first interview: is a conversation worth having? Done well, it takes an applicant two minutes and saves your team hours. Done badly, it is either so long that people drop out or so vague that it filters nothing. This Excel catalogue gives you five to seven practical questions for each of twelve professions, so you can pick the ones your role needs instead of writing them from scratch.

Every question comes with four pieces of information:

• Must or nice-to-have. Is this strictly required for the job, or does it merely help?
• Expected answer. What a suitable reply looks like, so that whoever reads the answers judges them the same way.
• Knock-out criterion, yes or no. A wrong answer ends the process only where the requirement is legally or operationally non-negotiable.
• Channel fit. A symbol for WhatsApp, phone and web: ● well suited, ◐ partly, ○ unsuited.

The twelve professions are: registered nurse, care assistant (elderly care), medical assistant, early-years educator, electrician, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning technician, truck driver (class CE), warehouse operative and forklift driver, production operative, cook, waiter or waitress, and sales assistant in retail. The workbook also contains a short guide on how to use the catalogue, a channel table that explains the strengths and limits of WhatsApp, phone and web, and a next-step note.

Key Features That Save You Time

• Twelve professions, one format. The same seven columns everywhere, so you can compare roles and copy rows between tables.
• Knock-out only where it is justified. The catalogue marks as knock-out those items such as a professional qualification, a driving licence class, shift availability or a work permit. Preferences and experience are marked as nice-to-have.
• Channel fit per question. Short yes-or-no facts suit WhatsApp. Motivation, language confidence and follow-up questions suit a phone call. Pick lists and documents suit the web form. Mixing channels keeps each step short.
• Placeholders for your values. Entries in curly braces, such as the radius or the lifting weight, are replaced with your own numbers.
• Equal-treatment safe. The questions avoid age, marital status, plans for children, pregnancy, origin, religion, health and disability, in line with the German General Equal Treatment Act (AGG).

How to Use This Pre-Screening Question Catalogue

1. Find your profession. Open the table for the role you hire for. Each table has five to seven questions.
2. Select what the role needs. Take only the questions that matter for this specific job. The shorter the pre-screening, the fewer applicants drop out. Delete or move the rest.
3. Set the knock-out criteria. Check every knock-out marked yes against the real requirements of your role. Where a requirement can be met later, for example a forklift licence for a warehouse role, switch the knock-out to no.
4. Assign a channel. Use the symbols to decide which questions go to WhatsApp, which to a short call and which to the web form.
5. Enter it in your briefing. Copy the final questions and knock-outs into the campaign briefing (see the download "Recruiting Campaign Briefing Template").
6. Test it. Run the questions past two people from the hiring team before the first ad goes live.

Some requirements, such as measles immunity proof or a police certificate, depend on the employer and the federal state. Check them for your role. The catalogue is practical guidance and not legal advice.

Why This Catalogue Works

It separates facts from judgement. Most questions in the catalogue have a clear, checkable answer: a qualification, a licence, a shift pattern, a start date. These can be answered in seconds on a phone and assessed consistently. Judgement questions, for example how someone helped a customer decide, are marked as nice-to-have and rated for the phone, where follow-up questions are possible.

It keeps the process short. Every profession has at most seven questions. Applicants who reach a job ad from a social feed are often on their phone and between other things. A pre-screening they can finish in a few minutes is far more likely to be finished.

It treats applicants the same way. A fixed set of questions with a defined expected answer removes the difference between a good day and a bad day of whoever happens to call. It also gives you a record of why someone was or was not invited.

It matches the channel to the question. Asking an open question on WhatsApp produces thin answers, and asking ten yes-or-no questions on the phone wastes everyone's time. The channel symbols make that choice explicit.

Who Should Use This Catalogue

• HR and recruiting teams who want a consistent pre-screening across roles and locations.
• Hiring managers in care, healthcare practices, childcare, trades, logistics, production, hospitality and retail who talk to applicants themselves.
• Owners and managing directors of small employers without a dedicated recruiter.
• Anyone setting up a WhatsApp, chatbot or phone pre-screening who needs a starting set of questions.

If you want the pre-screening to run by itself: the Sprad talent agent pre-screens every applicant via WhatsApp, phone or web, and every applicant lands in your own talent pool. It is part of Sprad Social Recruiting, which runs your job ads on Instagram and Facebook (Google and TikTok are to follow). Pricing is ad spend plus 10 %, from a €1,000 budget that can be split across roles, with three months as the recommended duration. There is no guarantee of a number of applicants. See Sprad Social Recruiting.

FAQs

How many pre-screening questions are right?

Five to seven. Each additional question costs you some applicants, so keep only those that change your decision to invite someone. Anything you can clarify in the interview does not need to be in the pre-screening.

Which questions should I never ask?

Questions about age, marital status, plans for children, pregnancy, origin, religion, health or disability. The catalogue avoids them. Where a health-related requirement exists by law, such as the food-hygiene briefing in a kitchen, the question refers to the briefing and not to a person's health.

When is a knock-out criterion appropriate?

Only for requirements that are legally or operationally non-negotiable, for example a recognised nursing qualification, a class CE licence or a work permit. If a requirement can be fulfilled after the hire, mark it as a must without knock-out and handle it in the offer.

Can I add my own professions?

Yes. Copy a table from a similar profession, replace the questions and set the knock-outs and channels the same way. The structure stays identical.