Application effort
What startups ask for when you apply: cover letters, written questions and everything else on the form. Read from the application forms of 2,060 open roles at 102 companies.
What the form asks for
Share of rolesCover letters
Share of rolesRequired by Luminance (40 of 52 roles), Riverlane (all 34 roles), Phasecraft (all 11 roles), MAGIC AI (6 of 7 roles), Qureight (all 5 roles), Nscale (4 of 281 roles), Nu Quantum (3 of 8 roles), Fuse Energy (2 of 74 roles), PhysicsX (2 of 41 roles), Carmoola (1 of 6 roles), OMass Therapeutics (all 1 roles), Runware (1 of 15 roles), Trybe (1 of 3 roles) and Wrisk (1 of 4 roles). “Optional” is usually the job board's standard upload box rather than a real request.
Questions written for the role
758 roles (37%) ask at least oneBeyond the standard fields, many companies add their own questions. These are the kinds they ask, with real examples taken from the forms.
Experience and skills
503 roles · 76 companiesHow many years of paid experience (relevant to this role) do you have?
Omnea · on 50 rolesPlease confirm if you are able to speak, read, and write English fluently?
tem · on 19 rolesWhat should we absolutely know about you - in just one line?
Granola · on 15 rolesPlease briefly describe your experience and how it is relevant to this role.
HIVED · on 13 roles
Why this company
373 roles · 51 companiesWhy do you want to work at Encord? (Great answers are often 200-400 words)
Encord · on 34 rolesWhy Multiverse?
Multiverse · on 29 rolesWhy Conduct?
Conduct · on 20 rolesWhat is it about tem’s mission and/or ways of working made you want to apply?
tem · on 19 roles
Achievements and judgement
63 roles · 14 companiesWhat are you most proud of building?
Axle Energy · on 16 rolesWhat is something exceptional you have done?
Omnea · on 13 rolesWhat is the most challenging task you've solved (max 70 words)?
NewOrbit Space · on 9 rolesWhat's one of your favorite software products, and what would you change about it?
Metaview · on 4 roles
How you use AI
59 roles · 21 companiesWhat’s the last thing you used AI for, either at work or in your personal life, that you found to be genuinely useful?
Griffin · on 4 rolesWhat's your default coding agent / AI setup, and how do you use it day-to-day?
Metaview · on 4 rolesHow do you rate your coding skills out of 10 without AI assistance?
Conduct · on 3 rolesDescribe an LLM feature you've built, deployed, and maintained in production (2-3 sentences maximum)
Limbic · on 3 roles
Sales track record
25 roles · 8 companiesHow have you performed against targets/quota over the last 4 years?
Omnea · on 8 rolesDo you have hands-on experience managing and optimising paid user acquisition campaigns for web conversion across Meta Ads and/or Google Ads, with direct ownership of significant budgets and ROAS or CPA targets?
Flo Health · on 3 rolesWhat significant deals with Pharma / Biotech have you lead and in what technology areas were they?
Basecamp Research · on 2 rolesDo you have at least 4-8+ years of quota-carrying B2B SaaS cybersecurity enterprise sales experience?
Harmonic Security · on 2 roles
Knowledge test
23 roles · 2 companiesWhat causes the highest emissions?
Axle Energy · on 16 rolesChoose the correct answer: def mystery(s): return "".join(sorted(set(s), reverse=True)) print(mystery("programming"))
PhysicsX · on 7 roles
Company by company
Most involved first| Company | Roles | Required fields | Written questions | Cover letter | Quick to apply |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Universal Quantum | 36 | 10.9 | 75% | Optional | 8% |
| HIVED | 19 | 13.3 | 100% | Not asked | 0% |
| Paymentology | 4 | 12.5 | 100% | Not asked | 0% |
| Theia Insights | 1 | 13 | 100% | Optional | 0% |
| Qureight | 5 | 10.8 | 0% | Required | 0% |
| NewOrbit Space | 10 | 7.8 | 90% | Optional | 10% |
| Luminance | 52 | 11.5 | 2% | Required on 40 | 4% |
| Fleek | 5 | 8.6 | 100% | Not asked | 0% |
| Lawhive | 7 | 12 | 100% | Not asked | 0% |
| Scarlet | 18 | 9.1 | 100% | Not asked | 0% |
| Wrisk | 4 | 12 | 50% | Required on 1 | 0% |
| Nu Quantum | 8 | 10.1 | 38% | Required on 3 | 0% |
| Riverlane | 34 | 9.3 | 0% | Required | 0% |
| OMass Therapeutics | 1 | 9 | 0% | Required | 0% |
| PhysicsX | 41 | 11.8 | 63% | Required on 2 | 2% |
| Axle Energy | 16 | 7.7 | 100% | Not asked | 0% |
| TrueLayer | 4 | 11.5 | 75% | Optional | 0% |
| Encord | 35 | 10.8 | 97% | Not asked | 3% |
| Artificial Labs | 10 | 10.4 | 100% | Not asked | 0% |
| Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) | 32 | 13.2 | 3% | Optional | 0% |
| Flo Health | 33 | 12.8 | 9% | Optional | 0% |
| SatVu | 1 | 10 | 100% | Optional | 0% |
| Modo Energy | 8 | 10.9 | 63% | Optional | 0% |
| Trybe | 3 | 8 | 33% | Required on 1 | 33% |
| Omnea | 72 | 9.4 | 63% | Optional | 6% |
How this works. Each morning we read the application form for every new role on Ashby, Greenhouse, Workable and Lever, which covers 2,060 of the 2,581 matching open roles. Companies using other job boards aren't included yet. “Quick to apply” means no required cover letter, no written questions and eight or fewer required fields. A role counts as involved if it requires a cover letter, asks two or more written questions or has 14 or more required fields. Questions are sorted into types by rules, so a few may sit in the wrong group. See the matching roles →