How to set a fair passing score for an aptitude test

Start from the job, not the applicants

Ask one question: how much unfamiliar material does this person have to absorb in their first month, and how fast? A role with a dense manual, ambiguous problems, and little supervision needs a higher line than a role that is learned by shadowing someone for two weeks.

Write your answer down in one sentence before you set a number. If you cannot write the sentence, you are not ready to set the line.

Set it once, before the first result

A line chosen after you have seen the scores is not a standard, it is a rationalisation. Set it when you create the role, then leave it alone for the whole batch of applicants for that role.

In our dashboard the passing score lives on the access code and the role, so every candidate for the same role is measured against the same number, and you can see what that number was later.

If almost everyone passes, or almost nobody does

Those are the two signals worth acting on. If nearly every applicant clears the line, the test is not doing any work and the line is too low to inform anything. If nearly nobody clears it, you are either screening for something the job does not require, or the line is simply wrong.

Either way, change it deliberately: adjust the number for the next role you open, and note why. Do not change it mid-batch — that produces two different standards for people who applied for the same job.

A line is a threshold, not a ranking

Above the line, resist the urge to prefer 38 over 34. A four-point gap on a twelve-minute test is a thin thread to hang a hiring decision on. Use the line to decide who moves forward, then decide between them on the interview, the work sample, and the references.

Keep it consistent and keep the record

The same test, the same time limit, and the same line for every applicant to a role is what makes the result defensible if anyone ever asks. That record is worth having, and it costs nothing to keep.