The score is the shortest form of an opinion about a candidate in Element. Three values, one click, no text field — so that it can be done while reading a CV, rather than "later, when there is time".
Three values
Recommend
I'm not ready to evaluate — a full answer, not a missing one. It tells the team "I have seen this and I am holding back", which is entirely different information from silence.
Do not recommend
There is also Delete score if you want to go back to "I have not scored this".
The score menu on a candidate card
This is your score, not the candidate's score
The label in the dialog reads Your score of candidate, and that is not decoration. The score belongs to you and to one specific project. Two consequences:
if a recruiter and a hiring manager both score the same person, both scores exist side by side — nobody overwrites anybody,
the same candidate can have "recommend" in one recruitment and "do not recommend" in another, because you are scoring the fit to a role, not the person in general.
Where you score
On the board — the icon on the candidate card. Once scored, the tooltip tells you what your score is and lets you change it in one click.
In the CV preview — with the button or the Ctrl+G shortcut. This is the fastest route: open the CV, read, score, move to the next one, never touching the mouse.
Where scores are visible
on the candidate card on the board, as the icon colour,
on the candidate list in the Project score column, which you have to switch on,
on the candidate profile, in the projects tab, in the Score column,
on the activity timeline and on the dashboard, as a "scored positively", "scored negatively", "cancelled the score" event.
That last point sometimes comes as a surprise: the score is not private. It lands in the candidate's history together with your name, and everyone with access to the project sees it. If you want to write something for recruiters' eyes only, use a note with restricted visibility, not a score.
Not the same as preselection points
There are two different numbers attached to a candidate in Element, and confusing them causes more misunderstandings than anything else:
The score — given by a person, three values, an opinion.
Preselection points — calculated by the system from the answers in the application form. For a candidate added manually, or one who applied before the form existed, you will see None here, and for a form without scoring, Not scored. Neither of those means "weak candidate" — they mean "there is nothing to count".
Careful with the word "recommendation"
In Element it means three different things, including the "recommend" from this article. The distinction is in the glossary.