I recently applied to HubSpot and took their CodeSignal coding assessment where I managed to score 560 out of 600 points. I thought this was a pretty solid score, but the recruiter contacted me saying my performance wasn’t sufficient to move forward in the process.
This has me really confused about what companies are expecting these days. Are they really looking for perfect scores on these coding tests? I have about 3 and a half years of professional experience in the field, so it’s not like I’m completely new to this.
I’ve been searching for a new position for about half a year now after being let go from my previous company. The job market feels incredibly tough right now and I’m starting to wonder if my skills are just not competitive enough anymore. Has anyone else experienced similar situations with technical assessments recently?
Your situation is super common. I’ve worked at several companies and they all do this - they set CodeSignal cutoffs based on how many applications they’re drowning in, not what the job actually needs. Got 500 applications for one role? Bump the cutoff to 580+ just to thin the herd, even though someone scoring 560 could crush the actual work. I’ve watched this happen over and over during job searches. The gap between test scores and real performance is massive. HubSpot gets swamped with applications, so they’re probably just using scores as a lazy filter instead of looking at whether you’d actually be good at the job. Don’t let this mess with your head about your skills. Focus on places where you can skip the initial screening through referrals or networking. Once you’re talking to actual hiring managers about real problems, your experience will matter way more than some automated test score.
CodeSignal assessments are broken. I’ve been on both sides and watched solid developers get filtered out while weaker candidates who gamed the system sailed through. These tests reward algorithm memorization instead of actual problem-solving skills you use daily. When I interviewed people, scores above 520 meant nothing for job performance. A 560 vs 590? Zero difference in how they handled our real codebase. HubSpot probably has volume issues and just sets arbitrary cutoffs without thinking about whether higher scores actually matter. The tight market makes this worse since companies can be super picky. Your experience plus that score should easily get you most roles. Try smaller companies - you’ll get actual humans evaluating you instead of getting auto-rejected by algorithms.
sounds like they already had internal candidates and just went through the motions with external apps. happens all the time at bigger companies like HubSpot. your 560/600 isn’t the problem - that’s 93%, which is solid. don’t overthink it. their loss.
i totally get it, 560 is a good score! but sometimes they just have a crazy number of apps and want top scores. or they might already have someone in mind. keep going, don’t let one rejection shake ur confidence!
That rejection is genuinely frustrating. Same thing happened to me last year with a different tech company - scored high 500s and still got turned down. My recruiter friend told me companies use coding assessments as just one filter. They’ve got internal benchmarks that aren’t always about your raw score. Turns out they wanted specific problem-solving approaches or had already filled most spots internally. The market’s definitely tighter than a few years back, but your 3.5 years plus that score shows you’ve got solid skills. Sometimes it’s just timing and what that specific company needs, not your actual ability.
That’s brutal for such a good score. Companies are way too picky now, but I’ve learned a lot from years of hiring.
Most places use these tests completely wrong. They obsess over scores instead of seeing how you actually solve problems. I’ve watched amazing engineers get rejected over arbitrary benchmarks.
What actually matters? Show you can automate real business problems. Build a portfolio that proves this instead of grinding coding challenges all day.
I built an automated pipeline that tracks applications, sends follow-ups, and scrapes company data to customize my approach. Takes 10 minutes to set up, saves hours weekly. Same idea for interviews - prove you think in systems and automation.
The market sucks but companies are desperate for people who build automated workflows. That’s worth way more than perfect test scores. Build stuff that shows you eliminate manual work.
Check out https://latenode.com for automated systems like this. Better than stressing over scores.