Publishing organisations that hire across multiple imprints or geographies face a particular challenge: how to maintain consistent editorial quality standards when hiring decisions are made by different managers in different teams. Editorial benchmarking is the answer.
What Is Editorial Benchmarking?
Editorial benchmarking means establishing a defined minimum score on standardised assessments as a threshold for editorial hires. Rather than each hiring manager relying on their own judgement, the organisation sets a data-driven standard: for example, a minimum percentile rank of 65 on the Editing Test and 70 on the Grammar Test for all junior editor roles.
Building the Benchmark
The benchmark is built from your existing team''s performance. By testing current high-performers, you establish what a strong score looks like in your organisational context. EditingTests.com''s percentile rankings, built from 130,000+ candidates, provide an external reference point. Your internal benchmark can then be calibrated against this external data.
Benefits for Publishing Organisations
Consistent benchmarks remove unconscious bias from hiring by replacing subjective impressions with objective data. They reduce time-to-hire by enabling earlier screening. They make induction smoother because new hires arrive with verified skills. And they make performance reviews more defensible when editorial quality is a factor in promotion decisions.
Benchmarking Across Geographies
For publishers with offices in multiple countries, consistent assessment standards are particularly valuable. The same test administered in London, New York, and Sydney produces comparable scores that allow meaningful cross-geography comparison — impossible with ad hoc editorial tasks.
