The Difference Between Percentages and Percentiles and Why it Matters

Percentile and percentage are two similar but distinct concepts that are essential to comprehending most pre-employment score reports. The concept of percentages is very familiar to most people. It is because we come across them frequently in our daily lives.

For example, all of our assignments at school were graded with percentages. They’re even on food packaging to indicate the daily consumption recommendations per serving. However, ‘percentile’ is a similar word that has an entirely different meaning.

Since these are two essential metrics that go a long way toward assisting you in comprehending your pre-employment test findings and what they represent in picking the most acceptable candidate, it is essential to understand the difference between percentage and percentile. 

What is The Difference Between Percentages and Percentiles?

Percentage

Percentages refer to a figure out of 100. They provide an easy way to compare different numbers, like the ratio of chairs to desks on one floor of an office building versus that on some other floor. For instance, a candidate takes a test of 40 questions and answers 34 of them correctly. Her percentage is the number of correct answers divided by the total number of questions multiplied by 100. Thus, the candidate got 85% of the questions on the test correct.

Percentile 

Percentiles are all observations of a specific occurrence that fall below a specified proportion. So, what exactly does that imply? While percentages indicate how well a person performed on a test, percentiles indicate how well that individual performed compared to others. It’s a more complicated concept than a percentage. Let’s understand this by comparing all of the candidates’ results on the same 40-question pre-employment test.

Consider the distribution of all the results in the group; if the same candidate answered 34 questions correctly, she scored more than 60% of the other applicants, which is her percentile rank. She did not receive a 60% on the assessment, to be precise. Her 60th percentile rank, not her score, indicates how the candidate performed compared to all other test takers. A percentile rank, in other terms, is a method of ranking persons concerning others in a sample. A raw score of 34 indicates that she successfully answered 85% of the questions (percentage) and outperformed 60% of the other test-takers (percentile).

Percentile vs Percentage

One can clearly draw the difference between percentage and percentile on the following grounds:

1. Percentages refer to a mathematical value that can be stated as a fraction with a hundred as the denominator. On the contrary, the percentile is a point at or below which a particular percentage of measurements fall. 
2. Percentage denotes a rate, number, or amount, whereas percentile denotes a person’s place or status.
3. The percentile is based on comparative score or performance, whereas the percentage is based on individual scores.
4. When the denominator is 100, the percentage is employed to show fractional amounts as whole numbers. On the other hand, the percentile is used to show where the scores stand concerning other scores.
5. Quartiles exist in the percentile since the dataset is divided into 100 equal pieces, but they do not exist in the percentage.

The Way Forward

Understanding what is the difference between percentage and percentile ultimately can help you interpret pre-employment test results to make the most informed decision on which candidates you should invite to the next step of the hiring process. Both are critical in assisting you to identify and hire the best personnel. 

While metrics are an exceptional method to improve the hiring process and help you distinguish between the capabilities of a variety of candidates, it’s also crucial to go beyond the numbers and hire the most excellent fit for your team by evaluating someone’s work style and personality qualities. It is so because someone could score lower on technical skills and still be suitable for your company. 

Consider this: 

One candidate may shine in a lively, fast-paced environment where regular meetings and collaborations are the standards. Conversely, other candidates may thrive in a slow-paced, more open office environment, where autonomy is the norm. One of these applicants may be a great asset to your organization, while the other may be dissatisfied and underperform. Maintaining a reasonable employee retention rate requires ensuring that your new hire fits into your office culture. Furthermore, a candidate’s personality traits and attitude influence how well they will perform the task, mainly a client- or customer-facing position, a managerial position, or one that requires frequent teamwork.

If you wish to get a complete picture of a candidate, you should go beyond technical skill tests and test for personality traits and attitudes. You can easily accomplish this by employing one of the best assessment tests across the globe offered by Discover Assessments. Our gamified assessments empower you to transform your hiring process by offering multiple benefits ranging from different types of assessments like personality assessments, cognitive ability skills, selling skills and organizational congruence assessments (culture assessments) to incredible insights in the form of reports.

Percentile vs Percentage – FAQs