Applicant scores and the Why-This-Score breakdown

What the applicant score is

Every applicant in Recruiting carries an overall score out of 100. It is Verinode's read on how closely this candidate matches the requisition they applied to, built from five weighted dimensions: certifications, experience, peer-profile fit, location, and compensation. The score is evidence, not a verdict. Verinode does not make hiring decisions, screen candidates in or out on its own, or advance anyone automatically. You decide who moves forward; the score exists so that decision is informed by more than a gut read on a resume.

The score also isn't a black box. Click it anywhere it appears and a Why This Score modal opens, breaking the number down into its five components, how each one is weighted, what each one measures, and any risks the scorer flagged along the way. This article walks through where the score shows up, how it is built dimension by dimension, what the modal shows, and the legal guardrails baked into how it is computed.

Where to find it

Open Recruiting from the sidebar. The route is /recruiting. The score appears in two places:

• The Applicants tab, inside the cards slider. Each applicant row shows the overall score out of 100 alongside their stance pill, source channel, and status. A score-band filter lets you narrow the list to Top (85 and up), Strong (70 to 84), Mid (50 to 69), or Low (under 50).
• An applicant's own detail page, under the Context tab. The Score field sits in a small grid alongside Years Experience, Location, and Source Channel.

On the detail page, the Score field is also the button that opens the breakdown. Click it and the Why This Score modal opens with the applicant's name in the title.

The five dimensions

The overall score is a weighted average of five dimensions, each scored 0 to 100 on its own. The weights add up to 100 percent and don't change per requisition:

1. Certifications Match, weight 30 percent. How closely the applicant's held certifications align with the requisition's required and preferred cert stack. This is the heaviest-weighted dimension because certifications are the one credential Verinode can check directly against what the role actually requires.
2. Experience Band, weight 25 percent. Years of Restoration field experience relative to the role's expectations. Treated as a signal, not a floor: an applicant with more experience than the role calls for is never penalized for it.
3. Peer-Profile Match, weight 20 percent. How closely the applicant's profile resembles peers who stayed past 90 days in this role and state. This is the one dimension that draws on the peer benchmark layer rather than just this requisition's stated requirements.
4. Location Fit, weight 15 percent. Same-state proximity to your service area. On-site roles penalize long commutes more than hybrid ones do.
5. Compensation Fit, weight 10 percent. Whether the applicant's preferred range overlaps yours. Large mismatches put offer acceptance at risk, which is why this dimension exists even though it carries the lightest weight of the five.

Each dimension is scored independently and then multiplied by its weight to produce its point contribution to the overall 0-100 score. A dimension scoring 80 at a 30 percent weight contributes 24 points; the five contributions sum to the overall score.

A few things worth knowing about how these dimensions behave:

• Certifications Match floors low when a required certification is missing, and climbs into the 90s when the applicant holds every required cert plus at least one preferred one.
• Experience Band never treats "more experience than the role needs" as a negative. An applicant well above the expected band still scores in-band; Verinode flags the mismatch for your review rather than marking the applicant down for it.
• Peer-Profile Match needs enough peer history in the role and state to be meaningful. Until there's enough, this dimension defaults to a neutral midpoint and the scorer notes that peer data is still insufficient, so a thin cohort doesn't quietly drag or inflate the overall number.
• Location Fit and Compensation Fit are read against your specific requisition, not a generic standard: your posted location, work arrangement, and comp range are what the applicant is measured against.

Inside the Why This Score modal

Click the score anywhere it appears and the modal opens in two columns.

Left column: the number and the bars.

• An Overall panel at the top shows the score out of 100 in large type, color-banded so you can read the tier at a glance: a strong green for 85 and up, teal for 70 to 84, amber for 50 to 69, and red below 50. These bands line up with the same Top / Strong / Mid / Low bands used to filter the Applicants list.
• Below it, one row per dimension: Certifications Match, Experience Band, Peer-Profile Match, Location Fit, Compensation Fit. Each row shows the dimension's weight ("Weight 30%"), its own score out of 100, how many points it contributes to the overall total ("contributes 24 pts"), and a colored progress bar sized to that dimension's score. A dimension with no data yet shows a dash in place of a number and an empty bar.

Right column: how each dimension is measured, plus risks and the disclaimer.

• How Each Dimension Is Measured, a plain-language explainer for each of the five dimensions, the same descriptions listed above, so you don't have to remember what "Peer-Profile Match" means every time you open the modal.
• Risks Flagged, a list that only appears when the scorer flagged something. Risk labels you may see include a legal review flag, a compensation gap, a missing required certification, an experience-band mismatch, a location mismatch, or a note that peer data was insufficient for this scoring pass. Any risk on this list means the scorer's recommended next step shifts to operator review rather than an automatic advance-or-decline read.
• Last scored, a timestamp showing when this breakdown was last computed, so you know whether it reflects the applicant's most recent resume or interview update.
• The Verinode Disclaimer, in a copper-accented panel at the bottom: "Verinode does not make hiring decisions. The scorer surfaces relative evidence on technical skills, experience, certs, and peer-profile compatibility. You review each candidate for fit, culture, and legal compliance before advancing." This is not boilerplate tucked away in a terms page, it sits inside the modal itself, every time you open it.

Close the modal with the Close button in the footer, or click outside it.

The legal review flag

Certain resume content can't legally factor into a hiring score in most US jurisdictions, criminal history and prior salary history chief among them. When the applicant's extracted resume mentions criminal history, the scorer structurally skips that field. It does not lower the score, does not raise it, and does not mention it anywhere in the breakdown. Instead, the applicant gets a Legal Review Flag.

You'll see this flag in two places:

• At the top of the Why This Score modal, a red-accented banner: "Criminal-history mention was detected in this applicant's resume. Verinode's scorer structurally skipped that field. It is not factored into the score below. You review and decide whether to advance."
• On the Context tab itself, above the score grid, a shorter version of the same notice: "Criminal-history mention detected in the resume. Verinode has not scored this attribute. You review and decide before advancing."

The flag has a real workflow consequence: the Draft Offer button on the applicant's detail page is disabled while the legal review flag is set, with a tooltip explaining that you need to clear the flag before drafting an offer. This is by design. It forces a documented pause for review rather than letting an offer draft slip past a compliance question unnoticed.

The same protection extends to salary history. Because a growing number of US states ban asking about or anchoring on an applicant's prior compensation, the scorer never uses it, even if a resume or cover letter volunteers it. Compensation Fit is always measured against your posted comp range, never against what the applicant previously earned.

Beyond criminal history and salary history, the scorer is built to never score on, infer from, reward, or penalize protected characteristics: age, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, marital or family status, religion, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, or political affiliation. If any of that content surfaces in a resume, it is treated as absent for scoring purposes. This is the same defense-in-depth principle you'll see described in Recruiting: overview and how the section works: the underlying protected detail is never surfaced in the product, only a neutral compliance flag naming that a human review is warranted.

Risks that aren't legal flags

Not every risk on the list is a compliance matter. A few are plain fit signals worth a second look before you advance someone:

• A compensation gap means the applicant's stated preferred range sits meaningfully above what you've posted, worth resolving before an offer conversation goes further.
• A missing required certification means the applicant doesn't currently hold something the requisition marks as required, which is why Certifications Match floors low rather than being neutral.
• An experience-band mismatch is neutral by design: it simply routes an out-of-band applicant (more or less experienced than the role typically calls for) to your review. It is not a demerit against the applicant.
• A location mismatch flags a longer commute or a remote candidate applying to an on-site role.
• Insufficient peer data means the cohort backing Peer-Profile Match hasn't grown enough yet for that dimension to carry real signal, so it's holding at a neutral midpoint rather than swinging the overall score on thin evidence.

None of these block anything on their own the way the legal review flag blocks Draft Offer. They're context for your decision, not a gate.

What the score is for, and what it isn't

The score exists to save you from re-deriving the same read on every resume: does this person hold what the role requires, do they fit the experience band, do they resemble people who've actually stuck in this role and state, are they close enough to show up, and does their comp expectation overlap what you're offering. Verinode surfaces that evidence consistently, every time, on every applicant, so a strong candidate doesn't get missed because you were slammed the week they applied.

It is not a hiring decision, and it is not a ranking Verinode expects you to follow mechanically. Use the score to prioritize who you screen first and to catch a mismatch you might otherwise miss, then read the full Context tab, the resume, and the interview feedback before you advance or decline anyone. The Why-This-Score modal exists specifically so that "why did this person score an 82" never has to be a mystery you take on faith.

Best-practice example

Say two applicants for the same role both land in the low 80s. Opening the Why This Score modal on each shows the difference isn't noise: one is strong on Certifications Match and Experience Band but weaker on Location Fit (a longer commute), the other is a closer Peer-Profile Match but is missing one preferred certification. Neither number tells you who to hire on its own, but the breakdown tells you what to ask about in the interview, close the certification gap with one, confirm the commute is workable with the other, rather than treating an 81 and an 83 as though the two-point gap meant anything by itself.

Related reading

• Recruiting: overview and how the section works
• Benchmarks overview
• Reading a benchmark
• How benchmarks work
• The decision workspace