Candidate Experience Survey: 25 Questions to Ask, Stage by Stage
Twenty-five candidate experience survey questions by hiring stage, when to send each survey, and how to turn answers into fixes, with a free template.
A candidate experience survey asks a few short questions right after each step of hiring: how clear the job and the process were, how well you kept the candidate informed, whether the interview felt relevant and fair, and whether they'd apply again, plus one open question about what to change. Send it within a day of the step, to everyone who reached it, hired or not, and read every open answer.
Below are 25 questions grouped by stage, when to send each set, how to get candidates to answer, and how to turn what they say into fixes. The template has all 25 with their answer types, as Excel or PDF.
What should a candidate experience survey measure?
Five things, which together cover most of what candidates notice:
| What to measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Clarity | Whether candidates knew what the job was and how the process would work |
| Speed and communication | Whether they knew what was happening, and waited no longer than you said |
| Relevance and fairness | Whether the interview seemed to measure the job, and gave them a fair chance |
| Respect | Whether interviewers were prepared and treated their time as valuable |
| Intention | Whether they'd apply again, which sums up the rest |
Ask about each with a rating you can track, and add one open question per stage. The ratings show where to look; the open answers show what to change.
When should you send it?
At the step you want to learn about, within a day:
| Stage | Send it | To whom |
|---|---|---|
| After applying | Within a day of the application | Everyone who applied |
| After the first interview | Within a day of the interview | Everyone interviewed, including by AI |
| After later interviews | Within a day of the final interview | Everyone who reached the later rounds |
| After the decision | A day or two after telling them | Everyone who got a decision, hired or not |
| After withdrawing | Within a day of withdrawing | Everyone who withdrew |
Don't send all five to the same person. Each candidate gets the survey for the furthest stage they reached, plus the withdrawal survey if they withdrew.
25 candidate experience survey questions
After applying
- How easy was it to apply? (1 very hard to 5 very easy)
- Did the job posting give you a clear picture of the role, the pay and the schedule? (yes, partly, no)
- How long did the application take? (under 5 minutes, 5 to 15, 15 to 30, over 30)
- Did you know what would happen next, and when? (yes, no)
- What, if anything, nearly stopped you from applying? (open)
After the first interview
- Before the interview, did you know how it would work, how long it would take and who or what would interview you? (yes, partly, no)
- If an AI ran the interview: were you told before you started, and did you know a person would review it? (yes, no, not applicable)
- How relevant were the questions to the job? (1 not at all to 5 very)
- Did you have a fair chance to show what you can do? (1 no to 5 fully)
- Did you get answers to your questions about the role? (yes, partly, no)
- What one thing would have made the interview better? (open)
After later interviews
- How well were you kept informed between interviews? (1 not at all to 5 very well)
- Did each interview cover something new, or did questions repeat? (each was new, some repetition, a lot of repetition)
- How prepared were your interviewers? (1 not at all to 5 fully)
- Do you understand what the role involves day to day? (yes, partly, no)
- Did the process take about as long as you expected? (shorter, about right, longer)
After the decision, hired or not
- How clearly was the decision explained to you? (1 not at all to 5 very clearly)
- How long did you wait for the decision after your last interview? (under a week, 1 to 2 weeks, over 2 weeks)
- Overall, how would you rate your experience with us? (1 very poor to 5 excellent)
- How likely are you to apply to us again? (0 not at all to 10 very likely)
- What should we change first? (open)
If they withdrew
- What was the main reason you withdrew? (another offer, pay, the role, the process took too long, something else)
- Was there a point where you started losing interest? When? (open)
- Was anything about the interview process part of your decision? (yes or no, with a box to explain)
- Would you consider applying to us again? (yes, maybe, no)
How do you get candidates to answer?
- Send it fast. A survey a day after the interview gets the interview; one a month later gets a vague impression of your company.
- Keep it short. Five or six questions per stage, on a page that works on a phone.
- Make it safe. Anonymous answers, or a plain statement that answers have no effect on any application, today or later.
- Say why you're asking, in one sentence: "We're trying to make our interviews better, and you've just been through one."
- Close the loop. When you change something because of the answers, say so in the next survey invitation. People answer surveys they can see working.
How do you turn the answers into fixes?
Read the ratings to find the stage with the problem, then the open answers to find the cause. Common patterns and what usually fixes them:
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Low clarity before the first interview (question 6) | The invitation left out the format, the length or who would interview them | Rewrite it; our interview invitation templates list what every invitation needs |
| "No" to question 7 | Candidates didn't know an AI would run the interview | Say so in the first lines of the invitation, and again before the interview starts |
| Low relevance scores (question 8) | Questions that don't match the job | Rebuild the questions from the role's must-haves |
| Repetition between rounds (question 13) | Two rounds assessing the same thing | Give each round a different focus, agreed at intake |
| Long waits for decisions (question 18) | No feedback deadline for interviewers | Set one, and hold interview slots in advance |
| "The process took too long" among withdrawals (question 22) | Slow steps between rounds | Measure the gaps; our guide to time to hire shows how |
Track the overall rating (question 19) split by the stage each candidate reached. A good score from hires and a poor one from everyone else means the process works for winners and not for the people it turns down, who are most of the people who meet it.
What about AI interviews?
Telling candidates clearly is where many AI interviews fall short. In Greenhouse's May 2026 survey of 1,200 US job seekers, a vendor survey, 38% had walked away from a hiring process because it included an AI interview, and 70% said they were never clearly told up front that AI would be evaluating them. Questions 6, 7 and 10 measure exactly that, and they're worth asking after every AI interview. Our guide to candidate experience in AI interviews covers what keeps candidates in.
Where does DIO fit?
Before a DIO interview starts, every candidate agrees to a notice that says an AI runs the interview and a person makes the decision, and at the end DIO invites the candidate's own questions and answers them from a Q&A the recruiter has reviewed. Candidates don't see a score. Sending the first-interview questions above after DIO interviews tells you how well that works for your candidates, in their words. Watch how it works.