Understanding weighted scores

This guide illustrates weighted scores, how they can benefit your hiring process, and the steps you need to follow to apply them to your assessments. 

At TestGorilla, we understand that hiring the right candidate is crucial for your organization's success. We're excited to introduce you to a powerful feature that will help you make more precise and informed hiring decisions: Weighted scores. This article is for TestGorilla users on any plan.

Approx. reading time 5 minutes

In this article

1. What are weighted scores?
2. Why use weighted scores?
   1. How to apply weighted scores
   2. Viewing weighted scores
3. Common questions

What are weighted scores and how do they work?

Weighted scores allow you to customize the importance of different tests within an assessment battery.

Imagine yourself as a teacher, meticulously calculating the final grades for your students. You evaluate their academic performance based on two pivotal assignments and a final exam, with the final exam accounting for 60% of the total grade and each assignment contributing 20% individually. Our approach here functions just like your grading system, calculating a weighted average that accurately reflects the students' comprehensive performance in the course.

Here's how the weighted scores calculation works:

Weighted Score = (Test 1 Score * Weight 1) + (Test 2 Score * Weight 2) + ... + (Test n Score * Weight n) / Sum of weights

Let's break it down with an example:

Suppose you're hiring a Java developer and you are testing their Java and communication skills. You want candidates who perform well on both skills, but Java is twice as important. So you assign the Java test a weight of 2 and the communication test a weight of 1.

• Candidate A scored 40% on the Java test and 100% on the communication test.

• Candidate B scored 100% on the Java test and 40% on the communication test.

Now, let's calculate their weighted scores:

Candidate A Weighted Score: (40% * 2) + (100% * 1) / (2 + 1) = (80) + (100) / 3 = 180 / 3 = 60%

Candidate B Weighted Score: (100% * 2) + (40% * 1) / (2 + 1) = (200) + (40) / 3 = 240 / 3 = 80%

As you can see, with weighted scores, Candidate B emerges as the top choice because of their strong performance in the Java test, because you assigned it a higher weight, it has a more significant impact on the final score.

Why use weighted scores?

Weighted scores offer several advantages:

1. Prioritize Key Skills: You can give more importance to specific skills or qualities crucial for a role.

2. Customized Evaluation: Tailor your assessments to your unique hiring needs by adjusting weights based on your criteria.

3. Enhanced Decision-Making: Weighted scores provide a clearer and more accurate representation of a candidate's suitability.

How to apply weighted scores

To apply weighted scores to your assessments:

	Once you log in to your TestGorilla account, click on Assessments.
	Select the assessment to which you want to apply weights. Click on Set test weights either in the “Included tests" section or the candidate list.
	For each test in the assessment, set its weight. By default, each test is assigned an equal weight. Assign higher weights to more critical skills. You can check the impact of adding weights to your assessment on the impact column.
	After you finish, click on Set weights.

Viewing weighted scores

After setting the weights, you can review the weights selected in the “Included tests" section or in the candidate list, as long as you have added at least one test column to the overview table.

With weighted scores in TestGorilla assessments, you can fine-tune your hiring process and prioritize candidates with the most critical skills. This feature enables you to make precise, informed hiring decisions, leading to selecting candidates who best meet your organization's needs. You can apply weighted scores to your assessments today and streamline your hiring process like never before.

Common questions

If I change the weights on my assessment, will the new weighted score be sent to my ATS?

No, the ATS integration will always display the average score for tests with a weight of 1.

Why can’t I add weights to some tests in my assessment?

Weights can be applied to all tests that contribute to the average score. Therefore, you won't be able to assign weights to the following tests in your assessment:

• Typing speed tests

• Big 5 (OCEAN)

• Enneagram

• 16 types

• DISC

Why can’t I modify the weights on my assessment?

Only accounts with admin or owner access are allowed to change assessment weights.