Screener questions help you find the right people for your study. You can add them on the Recruit tab in the Screener questions section, either by writing a new question or using Copy from another study to reuse questions from a previous study in your team.

Before you write anything, you should consider how screeners actually work. Screeners are designed to allow Customers to rank Participants to ensure they align with your needs. Screener Questions are not designed to be blockers: they rank applicants, they don't block them. Anyone can apply. Participants are scored on the multiple-choice options you mark as approve or reject, and open-text answers carry no weight in that score. Read how custom screeners work first if you haven't.

Write down exactly who you want before you write a single question. A vague definition produces vague screeners and results in poor quality recruitments.

An example of a weak audience definition is:

Each line in this example hides an unanswered question and is subjective. What is young? What is frequently? Does booking with one of the three sites count, or all three?

An example of a stronger audience definition:

Now every criterion can become a clear screener question.

Only multiple-choice options marked approve or reject affect an applicant's eligibility score. An open-text question like "What is your role?" gives you useful context to read, but it doesn't move anyone's score. If a criterion decides who gets into your study, write it as a multiple-choice question with reject options for the answers that rule people out.

This is important to consider for automated participant selection as it may create unintentional consequences as invitations to your study go to top-scoring applicants. You should consider this before implementing a must-have criteria.

You should consider avoiding yes/no questions that result in leading answers as this may result in skewed results, for example:

"Do you have an iPhone?"

It's obvious what the right answer is. Instead, you should consider using open-ended questions:

"Which type of mobile phone do you primarily use?"

Applicants can't tell which answer you're screening for, so you're more likely to get a true response, and you learn more either way.

For interview studies, 3 to 5 well-chosen questions is the sweet spot. Long screeners may cause drop-off and lower-quality answers, and the more questions you stack, the rarer your perfect participant becomes. If a question collects nice-to-have information rather than screening people, ask it in the interview or survey instead.

Skipping screeners entirely isn't a shortcut either. If you submit a study with no screener questions, this may be flagged with our team to see if audience filters alone is enough. We may notify you that you should consider adding screeners, however, ultimately it is your responsibility to ensure studies are set up properly.

Participants don't work in your industry. Spell out acronyms like EV (electric vehicle) or BA (business analyst), and write every question so anyone can answer it.

When a criterion is hard to phrase without leading, you should consider falling back to:

"Which of the following represents you?"

Then list the variations, marking the ones you want as approve and the rest as reject. You get what you need without giving anything away.