§ The result
1 point separates Stepstone and ADP.
Stepstone holds a 1-point edge over ADP under rubric v1.0, 49 to 48, across the Screening and ATS-integrated cohorts. The 7 criteria split 4 to 2 in favour of Stepstone, with 1 level: Stepstone is ahead on Bias Audit Transparency and ADP on Post-Market Monitoring. Post-Market Monitoring is at once the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing, and it belongs to ADP — ADP 45, Stepstone 38, on a 12% weight — which is 74% of the weighted advantage ADP holds across the 2 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
ADP
ADP is an enterprise human capital management and payroll provider whose recruiting suite uses AI to parse, rank, and match job applicants via its Candidate Relevancy tool, ADP Assist generative-AI assistant/job-description generator, and skills intelligence.
Vendor profile
Stepstone
Stepstone is a German job marketplace whose Stepstone Recruit employer platform includes an AI Screening Agent, which rates each application against requirements taken from the job ad, and a Talent Finder, which recommends candidates from a CV database of more than 4 million profiles.
§ The record
ADP is filed under ATS-integrated AI, Stepstone under Screening AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | ADP | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 1949 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
12% weight · 29% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
ADP 45 · Stepstone 38
0.8 weighted points to ADP
18% weight · 53% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
ADP 46 · Stepstone 50
0.7 weighted points to Stepstone
20% weight · 67% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
ADP 53 · Stepstone 55
0.4 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 79% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
ADP 55 · Stepstone 58
0.4 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 90% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
ADP 28 · Stepstone 30
0.3 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
ADP 57 · Stepstone 55
0.3 weighted points to ADP
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -0.6 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 2.9 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -1 beside that -0.6.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is ADP minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | ADP | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 53 | 55 | -2 | -0.4 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 46 | 50 | -4 | -0.7 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 28 | 30 | -2 | -0.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 55 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 55 | 58 | -3 | -0.4 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 45 | 38 | +7 | +0.8 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Total | 100% | 48 (F) | 49 (F) | -1 | -0.6 |
§ Evidence
Cited sources and documented absences, criterion by criterion.
An absence is a finding, not a blank: the reviewer looked for a named artefact and recorded that it is not located. Where a source sits is a fact about hosting only.
| Criterion | Weight | ADP | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 4 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 18 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
ADP has 23 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 18 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; Stepstone has 33 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 29 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 56 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 23 for ADP, across 2 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- ADP last reviewed
- July 17, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Stepstone last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
HireAIScore scores are editorial research, not legal advice, and no vendor pays for placement, scoring or removal — see the methodology, conflicts policy and terms.
§ Where next