Build Assessment Templates

Create the reusable blueprint that defines a candidate's AI assessment.

A Template decides which skills are tested, how many questions of each type there are, how long the assessment runs, and how candidates answer. When you save it, Coco HR generates the questions with AI. This guide walks through every option.

Before you start

You need at least one open job, because a template's questions are generated from that job's skills. If you don't have one yet, see Post and manage jobs.

Create a template

Go to Templates > New Template. The builder is a single form with three sections.

Section 1 — Template Info

  • Template Name (required) — for example, "Angular Developer."
  • Job Posting (required) — the open job whose skills drive question generation. Selecting a job loads its skills as cards.
  • Skills for question generation — every skill starts selected. Click a card to include or exclude it, or use Select all / Clear. Only selected skills produce questions.

Section 2 — Assessment Config

  • Subjective questions per skill (0–20) — open-ended questions the AI evaluates.
  • Time per question (minutes) (1–30).

A live panel shows your totals as you type: skills selected, subjective questions, subjective time, and the overall Total interview time. MCQ and coding time are added in as you enable them below.

Section 3 — Options

Toggles:

OptionDefaultWhat it does
Include practice assessmentOnAdds a warm-up round before the scored questions
Allow typed answers (in addition to audio)OffOff means audio-only; on lets candidates type as well
Generate audio (TTS) for each questionOffReads each question aloud to the candidate

Objective (multiple choice) questions — select Yes, include to add MCQs, then set the number of MCQs per skill. Each MCQ has four options and one correct answer, and is auto-graded.

Coding challenge — select Yes, include to add coding questions, then set the number of coding challenges per skill. All coding challenges share one total time budget (in minutes) that you set once for the whole assessment.

Save and generate questions

Select Create Template. Coco HR generates questions in the background. You'll be taken to the template's detail page.

Review and refine the template

On the Template detail page you can:

  • Watch the live "Generating questions X of N" banner while AI works.
  • See questions grouped by skill. Regenerate any individual question with AI if you want a different one.
  • Review Practice Questions (if you enabled the practice round).
  • Add Custom Questions from a Question Bank.

What templates do not include (today)

To set expectations, these controls are not part of the template builder:

  • No difficulty selector.
  • No passing-score or cut-off setting.
  • No proctoring settings on the template (proctoring runs automatically during the assessment — see the Candidate guide).
  • No per-question timer for coding challenges (coding shares one overall budget).

Attach the template to a job

A template only runs when it's attached to a job. Open the job (Jobs > your job), select Attach/Change Template, and pick your template. You can also create a template directly from a job — it pre-fills the job and attaches automatically on save.

Tips

  • Keep total interview time realistic — the live calculator helps you avoid an assessment that's too long.
  • Turn on typed answers if your candidates may be in noisy environments; leave it off when spoken fluency matters.
  • Use the practice round for less technical audiences so nerves don't affect scores.