Summary: In this article, you will learn what a CodeSignal Coding Score is, how to interpret a candidate's General Coding Assessment (GCA) Coding Score, and how to interpret GCA Core Skills scores.
The Coding Score
There are two types of insights delivered by the Coding Score:
- Overall Coding Score: Each Skills Evaluation Framework completion will result in a single Coding score that is an overarching metric for quantifying a candidate’s overall skills. This is the data point you can use to determine if they have the core skills to do the job. This number will range from 200-600, with higher scores indicating that a candidate successfully completed more questions in their assessment.
- Skill area proficiency: Coding score also gives you and your candidates insight into a candidate’s level of proficiency across the various skills each Skills Evaluation Framework measures. This data is not meant to be used to make hiring decisions, but it can give you directional information on candidate differences, and inform candidates of areas where they may need more development.
What’s a skill area?
A skill area represents a collection of skills evaluated in the Framework. It is made up of one or more question(s) or level(s). Each question/level can have a different contributing weight to the skill area. The candidate’s raw score across all relevant question(s)/level(s) makes up the candidate’s skill area label. The skill area do not have any influence on the Coding Score. Instead, they are a visual element in the Coding Report to help companies understand:
- What skill areas are evaluated in the Framework?
- Show candidate aptitude in each
skill area.
What are the different skill area labels?
It is the qualitative description we attach to each skill area in a Framework. There are four possible labels to describe each skill area:
Expert, if the candidate scores ≥ 1.0 of the possible points in the skill area.Advanced, if the candidate scores between 0.67 and 0.99 of the possible points in the skill area.Intermediate, if the candidate scores between 0.34 and 0.66 of the possible points in the skill area.Developing, if the candidate scores between 0.00 and 0.33 of the possible points in the skill area.
What’s a module?
A module is a collection of one more question(s) or level(s). Each question/level mapped to a module can have a different weight that contributes to the candidate’s module score. All modules within an assessment add up to determine a test-taker's coding score. A module is like a Lego block we use internally to organize questions together. In the future, we will re-use the same module across Frameworks to create more custom-tailored assessments to evaluate skillsets (this is what “modularization” means in our context).
Relationship between questions, modules, and skill areas
Here is a breakdown of coding scores and relevant skill areas.