How the Career Readiness Index works
The CRI is a 300–900 score of how prepared a student is for their chosen career direction. It's computed from what a student has actually done on Careers Craft — never a one-time test — and it moves every week as evidence is added, improved, or goes stale.
Four bands from 300 to 900
A single number, in four honest bands — so a student, parent or school knows at a glance where things stand, and exactly what to do next.
Exploring
300–449Building
450–599Ready
600–749Distinguished
750–900Exploring
Just getting started — a quiz taken or a tentative goal, but little evidence yet. Every dimension is open room to grow.
Building
Direction is set and evidence is accumulating — a few skill tests and some weekly consistency. The foundation is forming.
Ready
Consistent, proven and presentable — solid skill evidence, interview practice done, and at least one real artifact.
Distinguished
Exceptional breadth, depth and consistency across all five dimensions, kept fresh — genuinely well-prepared.
Five dimensions
The weighting adapts to the student's stage — direction matters most in Classes 8–9, while proven skill and interview craft weigh more for senior and college students.
Direction
Career quiz taken, a goal set, a path chosen and progressed.
Knowing where you're going — the anchor everything else builds toward.
Skill Evidence
Your best skill-test score per topic, weighted toward recent work.
Proven ability, kept fresh — not a certificate that ages.
Interview Craft
HR, coding and elevator-pitch practice and scores.
Being able to communicate the ability you've built.
Consistency
Streaks, how many weeks you were active, study-plan adherence.
Showing up regularly — the habit that compounds into readiness.
Artifacts
A resume, a published portfolio, a LinkedIn analysis.
Evidence an employer or admissions officer can actually see.
The rules that keep it honest
Guardrails that stop the score from being gamed — so a high number always means real readiness.
Missing evidence scores zero
A student who only took a quiz isn't “ready” — every empty dimension is room to climb, not a gap we paper over.
Evidence decays
A skill test older than six months slowly loses weight. Staying ready means staying active.
Grinding retakes doesn't work
Only your best attempt per topic counts. Breadth across topics is the legitimate way up, not repeating one test.
Every change is explained
Students, parents and schools always see which dimension moved the score, and by how much.
On percentiles and honesty
Cohort comparisons — where a student stands within their grade band — are shown only once that cohort is large enough to be statistically meaningful. Until then, we show no percentile rather than a made-up one. We publish this methodology in full because a score you can't inspect is a score you can't trust. The exact dimension weights live in our engine; the principles that govern them are all here.