How the HireScope score is built
A full, recruiter-friendly walkthrough of every number in the audit — what it measures, where it comes from, and what to do with it.
The 60-second summary
Every posting is parsed into ~100 signals across five scoring buckets: Conversion, Content, SEO, Inclusivity, and Market. Each signal carries a severity (info → critical) and a confidence tier (high → low). Penalties are deducted from the bucket the signal belongs to, then capped. The four recruiter-facing surfaces — Hiring Performance, Market Competitiveness, Spend Efficiency, and Compliance Risk — are derived from those already-capped bucket finals so a single finding can only move the score once.
The four recruiter-facing surfaces
Each one answers a different hiring question. They share inputs but never share penalties.
Hiring Performance (0–100)
The headline score
Predicts how likely the posting is to attract qualified applicants. It is a weighted blend of Candidate Conversion (45%), Posting Quality (30%), and Search Visibility (25%). Employer Value Proposition is shown as a sub-meter but never double-counted into the headline.
- 90–100Exceptional — competitive on every dimension
- 80–89Strong — minor polish only
- 70–79Average — clear lifts available
- 60–69Needs improvement — multiple drop-off drivers
- 0–59Poor — likely to underperform sponsorship spend
Market Competitiveness
Can this role win in today's market
Salary competitiveness (40%), benefits (20%), work arrangement (15%), title competitiveness (15%), and differentiation (10%). Benchmarked against live competitor postings, BLS (US), and Job Bank + Statistics Canada (CA).
Spend Efficiency
Sponsorship ROI signal
Reflects whether paid distribution dollars will convert. Combines applicant friction, salary competitiveness, search visibility, title performance, requirement overload, market positioning, and conversion optimization.
Compliance Risk
Banded gate — not a competitive score
Aggregated from six jurisdiction-aware rule families (pay transparency, Quebec language, employment disclosure, work arrangement, accessibility, inclusivity/bias). 85+ = Low, 65–84 = Moderate, below 65 = High.
The five scoring buckets
Where penalties actually land. Each finding belongs to exactly one bucket.
Conversion
Salary disclosure, CTA clarity, application friction, must-have count, requirement overload, missing timeline. Biggest lever on applicant volume.
Content
Readability grade, paragraph length, day-in-the-life clarity, scannable structure. Drives whether candidates finish reading the post.
SEO
Title structure (seniority + product + location), keyword coverage, alternative title phrasing, platform-specific search signals.
Inclusivity
Biased phrasing, accessibility signals, EEO statement, accommodations contact. Penalties are capped — never punitive when overall posting is healthy.
Market
Salary vs. live market median, competitor angles, differentiation playbook, demand signal for the role and region.
Severity scale
Every signal is tagged with one of five severities. Points shown apply to compliance findings; content/conversion penalties scale similarly but are capped per bucket.
Opportunity Rating
How much score the audit estimates you can recover by acting on its recommendations.
Walkthrough: every section of the audit
What each block is, where the numbers come from, and how to use it as a recruiter or agency owner.
Overall Score & Verdict
What it is: The 0–100 headline plus a 2–3 sentence narrative.
How to use it: Share it with hiring managers in one screenshot. The verdict explains the score in plain language — no decoder ring needed.
Performance Diagnosis
What it is: Top performance risks, a strategic narrative, and the Funnel Snapshot with word count, requirement count, title length, salary transparency.
How to use it: Start here. Each risk is fully written out with the why and the fix. The funnel snapshot tells you which metric to move first to recover the most points.
Market Intelligence
What it is: Live salary benchmark, demand signal, competitor angles, and a 'How to differentiate' playbook.
How to use it: The differentiation block is your pitch. Lift one or two ideas straight into the rewrite to stand out from the postings already competing for the same candidates.
Posting Architecture
What it is: Detected framework, section placement, and a Current vs. Recommended structure comparison.
How to use it: Use when the score is decent but applicants stall. Re-ordering sections (hook → role → requirements → comp → apply) often lifts conversion without changing a word.
Platform Optimization
What it is: Per-platform breakdown for Indeed, LinkedIn, and Google for Jobs with status, why it matters, and a single recommended title.
How to use it: Decide where to sponsor. The strongest platform usually only needs polish; the weakest tells you which 'must-have' fields you are leaving blank.
Compliance Posture
What it is: Jurisdiction-aware findings tagged by category and severity (info → critical).
How to use it: Resolve all critical/high before publishing. Each finding includes copy-paste remediation language from the compliance template library.
Rewritten Title & Intro
What it is: A drop-in title and 4–6 line opener tuned to the detected role, location, and tone.
How to use it: Paste it into the editor as a starting point — it already reflects the top fixes the audit identified.
Before vs. After
What it is: Side-by-side comparison of original vs. optimized posting with the projected score lift.
How to use it: Share with stakeholders to justify the rewrite. The projected delta is conservative — it only counts already-deducted, already-capped penalties being recovered.
Where the data comes from
- SEMrush — keyword search volume, difficulty, and alternative title phrasing.
- BLS (US) — occupational wage medians for US-based roles.
- Job Bank + Statistics Canada (CA) — wage data and demand signals for Canadian roles.
- Live competitor postings — for differentiation analysis and benefits/work-arrangement benchmarking.
- HireScope intelligence cache — role-specific norms (length, bullets, required sections) curated and updated continuously.
- Jurisdiction rule library — compliance rules per region (pay transparency, Quebec language, accessibility, etc.) maintained in-house.
Methodology FAQ
The questions recruiters and agency owners ask most often.
See the methodology in action
Run a full audit on one of your live postings and watch every score, signal, and recommendation line up exactly as described above.