Must-knows are the verifiable facts you need before anything else — work authorization, a required license or certification, location eligibility. You mark them in the question builder with the Must-know ("Ask before review") toggle, and they're asked first on every channel: WhatsApp, web chat, and the SMS-linked form.
- Open your questionnaire in the builder — the AI Questionnaire Builder on your desk or campaign
- Find the question you want asked up front
- Toggle Ask before review — the question now carries the ★ Must-know badge
- Save the questionnaire
Must-knows move to the front of the conversation automatically. You don't need to reorder anything.
The behavior is consistent everywhere:
| Channel | What happens |
|---|
| WhatsApp | Asked in-chat right after the greeting; the conversation pauses while you review at Needs Review → Qualifier — approved candidates continue in the same chat |
| Web chat | Asked as the Qualifier stage; the form then stops — the candidate continues only after you approve, via a personal invitation sent from your own mailbox |
| SMS | The candidate gets a web link; same gated journey as web chat |
Two guarantees hold on every channel:
- Answers carry forward. Once a candidate has answered a must-know, the deep screening stage never re-asks it.
- Nothing sneaks past — and nothing is auto-rejected. An answer that doesn't match your expected values, or a skipped must-know (shown as — not answered), puts a red Didn't meet must-knows flag on the response, with the exact question that fired. You review the flag and decide; the candidate is never rejected automatically and never told they failed.
PlacementFlow also appends built-in Qualifier questions to every questionnaire: the candidate's best contact email plus an optional phone number (with text-messaging consent) — so the candidates you qualify are always reachable, on more than one channel.
The best must-knows are verifiable facts with a clear expected answer the candidate can give in one line:
- Right to work — "Are you legally authorized to work in [country]?"
- Location eligibility — "Which city and country are you currently based in?"
- Mandatory license or certification — "Do you hold a current [license/certification]?"
Keep the list short — around three. Every extra up-front question costs completion, and cold-sourced candidates are the most drop-off-sensitive.
- Subjective qualities ("strong communicator", "team player") — these belong in the scored deep screen, where the AI can weigh a real answer.
- Preferences and flexibility ("Are you open to contract roles?") — a preference isn't a verifiable fact; ask it as a regular scored question.
- Years of experience as a hard cutoff — treat it as a weighted, scored question instead. Hard experience gates silently push away flexible, strong candidates.
- Security clearance — screen for it as a regular question, not a must-know.
- Anything about where someone is from — nationality, citizenship, or origin. You may require that a candidate resides in or is authorized to work in a place; you may never gate on where they're from. Requirements should be phrased as confirmations of the role's needs, asked identically of every candidate.
- Asks your must-knows conversationally, first, on whichever channel the candidate uses
- Checks answers against your expected values deterministically and flags mismatches — with the exact question that fired — for your review
- When drafting questions, only marks genuine fact-gates as must-knows, and demotes any must-know without a usable expected-answer list to a regular question
- Never rejects anyone: flags are information for your decision. Qualify and decline are always your call.