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Match Select Results to Your Own Candidate Records

Use External IDs to link a Wonderlic Select candidate to their record in your own system so results come back already matched and nobody hand-matches scores to names.

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An External ID is an optional identifier you can add to a candidate's record in Wonderlic Select to link them to their corresponding record in another system — like an applicant tracking system.

What is an External ID?

External IDs are useful when you don't have a direct ATS integration with Wonderlic Select but you still want to link Select results to candidate records in another system, like your ATS, HRIS, etc.

You store your system's candidate ID on the Select candidate record and the ID comes back in your Data Reports so you can match Select results to your other records.

Already integrated? If your account is connected to JazzHR, Greenhouse, or iCIMS, you don't need External IDs — your integration already handles candidate identification.

External IDs can be set two ways:

  • Via a Quick Apply Link — append your system's candidate ID to a Quick Apply Link before sending it to a candidate. When the candidate applies, Wonderlic Select saves their ID automatically.

  • Via the candidate's Contact Info — add, edit, or remove an External ID directly in Wonderlic Select, without sending a new link.

View a candidate's External ID

  1. Open a job opening and select a candidate

  2. On the candidate's results page, find the Contact Info section

  3. If the candidate has an External ID saved, it appears in the External ID field

Note: The External ID field only appears in view mode when a value has been saved. If no External ID is set, the field is hidden.

Add or change an External ID

  1. Open the candidate's results page and find the Contact Info section

  2. Click Edit to open the Contact Info form

  3. Find the External ID field — it always appears in edit mode, even if currently blank

  4. Enter the External ID from your external system

  5. Click Save to apply the change

Remove an External ID

  1. Open the candidate's results page and find the Contact Info section.

  2. Click Edit to open the Contact Info form.

  3. Clear the External ID field.

  4. Click Save.

The External ID field will no longer appear when viewing the candidate's Contact Info.

Set External IDs via Quick Apply Links

This section is more technical than the steps above. Everything up to here is ordinary point-and-click work. What follows means editing a web address by hand and having your other systems send those links automatically — not something most people do day to day.

If it looks unfamiliar, consider partnering with whoever supports your applicant tracking system, or your IT team, to explore what's possible with the tools you already have. What works best varies a lot from one setup to the next.

Adding an External ID to your Quick Apply Link is the main way to use this feature. Wonderlic Select captures the ID automatically when the candidate applies, so nobody has to type anything in by hand.

This works best when the links are sent by something that can personalize them per candidate — your applicant tracking system, or a mail-merge email template.

How to build the link

Your Quick Apply Link is just a web address. You can add instructions to the end of it, and Wonderlic Select reads them when the candidate opens the link.

Those instructions are called parameters, and they follow a strict pattern:

  • A question mark (?) marks where the link ends and the instructions begin

  • Then the parameter's name, an equals sign (=), and its value

To attach a candidate's ID, the parameter name is externalId and the value is that candidate's ID in your system.

So a normal Quick Apply Link like this:

https://apply.select.wonderlic.com/A12BC3/YourCompany

becomes this:

https://apply.select.wonderlic.com/A12BC3/YourCompany?externalId=12345AbCdE

Replace 12345AbCdE with the candidate's ID from your system. Each candidate gets their own link carrying their own ID.

Tip: In that address, A12BC3 is the short code that identifies the job opening — don't change it.

The company name after it is display text only, so you can shorten the link by removing it (https://apply.select.wonderlic.com/A12BC3?externalId=12345AbCdE) or replace it with a different name. The link still reaches the same job opening.

Sending personalized links automatically

You don't build these links one at a time. Most systems that send candidate emails let you insert a placeholder that gets swapped for each recipient's real value.

Add that placeholder as the parameter's value in your email template:

https://apply.select.wonderlic.com/A12BC3/YourCompany?externalId={{candidate_id}}

The exact placeholder syntax depends on your system — check its documentation for merge fields or tokens. When the email goes out, each candidate receives a link carrying their own ID.

Three rules that catch people out

Wonderlic Select never warns you if a link is built incorrectly. A broken link still works — candidates still apply and still test — so the ID is simply missing when you go to match up your results.

Three details matter.

  1. The name must be typed exactly externalId — Capital letters matter. externalID and externalid are not recognized, and are ignored completely.

  2. The ? must be there — Without it, the instruction is treated as part of the link itself and ignored.

  3. Certain characters cut the ID short — If your IDs contain an ampersand (&) or a hash (#), everything from that character onward is lost — REQ&2026 is saved as just REQ. Most ID formats are unaffected, but if yours uses these characters, replace & with %26 and # with %23 when building the link.

Here's what works and what doesn't:

Link

Result

...?externalId=12345AbCdE

✅ Saves 12345AbCdE

...?externalID=12345AbCdE

❌ Nothing saved — ID should be Id

...externalId=12345AbCdE

❌ Nothing saved — the ? is missing

...?externalId=

❌ Nothing saved — no value provided

...?externalId=REQ&2026

⚠️ Saves only REQ — cut off at the &

...?externalId=REQ%262026

✅ Saves the full REQ&2026

Test one of your own links before sending a batch. Open it yourself, then check the candidate's record in Wonderlic Select to confirm the ID came through.

Important: send each personalized link to a candidate once. If the same link is opened a second time — for example, because you re-sent the email and the candidate clicked both — Wonderlic Select creates a second, separate candidate record carrying the same ID. It doesn't recognize the ID and update the first record. Two records sharing one ID will not match cleanly when you import results back into your system.

Sending candidates onward too

You can combine an External ID with a return address on the same link, so the candidate is both tagged and routed to your next step when they finish. Add the first instruction after a ?, then join the second with an ampersand (&):

https://apply.select.wonderlic.com/A12BC3/YourCompany?externalId=12345AbCdE&returnToUrl=https://www.yourcompany.com/careers/next-step

See Send Candidates to Your Next Step After Testing for the details.

External IDs in Data Reports

When you export candidate data from Wonderlic Select — through the Select Data Report on your Dashboard — the External ID column reflects the External ID saved on each candidate's record:

After choosing Export Wonderlic Select Data from the Dashboard:

  1. Open the Show/Hide Columns option on a new or existing Data Report

  2. Toggle External ID on to show the External ID column (it's off by default)

  3. Confirm you see the External ID column, then save the Data Report

The column has two different names. When you're choosing which columns to include in Wonderlic Select, it's listed as External ID. In the downloaded CSV file, the column header is Candidate ExternalId (one word, lowercase "d").

If you're setting up an import that matches columns by name, use the spelling from the file.

If you update a candidate's External ID in their Contact Info, the change appears in your next export. This lets you use the External ID as a matching key when importing Select results back into your ATS or HRIS.

FAQ

My account is integrated with an ATS — should I use External IDs?

No. External IDs are an alternative for accounts that aren't integrated with an ATS. If your candidates come into Wonderlic Select through a JazzHR, Greenhouse, or iCIMS integration, your integration already links Select results to your ATS records — there's no need to use External IDs. Integrated candidates won't have an External ID field shown in their Contact Info.

What format should the External ID be in?

Use whatever format your external system uses for candidate IDs — it could be a number, a string, or a mix. Wonderlic Select stores it exactly as entered.

Does the External ID have to be unique?

Wonderlic Select doesn't require External IDs to be unique, and won't warn you about duplicates. To ensure your data matches correctly, use IDs that are unique within your own system — and send each personalized link only once, since opening the same link twice creates two separate records carrying the same ID.

A candidate appears twice with the same ID. What happened?

The personalized link was opened more than once — usually because the invitation was re-sent and the candidate clicked both copies. Each open creates a new candidate record. The two records aren't linked to each other, so you'll want to decide which one to keep before importing results into your system.

What happens if a candidate applies without an External ID?

If a candidate uses a Quick Apply Link that doesn't include an externalId parameter — for example, because they copied a shortened version of the link — they'll be added to Wonderlic Select without an External ID. You can add one manually using the Contact Info edit steps above.

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