§ The result
Handshake leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
Handshake finishes 20 points clear of Cognisess under rubric v1.0 — 50 against 30 — across the Screening and Assessment cohorts. Handshake leads every one of the 7 criteria and 3 of them by 20 raw points or more, Bias Audit Transparency among them; Cognisess leads none. Even Bias Audit Transparency, the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Cognisess 20, Handshake 52, 18% weight), is only 29% of the weighted advantage Handshake builds across the 7 criteria it leads.
Vendor profile
Cognisess
UK talent-analytics platform that scores candidates and employees with 50+ game-based and questionnaire assessments and weighted job-fit 'profilers', can auto-pass or auto-reject applicants against score thresholds, and runs recorded video interviews with optional DeepLearn video analytics.
Vendor profile
Handshake
Handshake is an early-career recruiting network whose employer tools use AI to rank applicants against employer-set criteria, find and message matching students and graduates, and target job promotions.
§ The record
Cognisess is filed under Assessment AI, Handshake under Screening AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773, EU AI Act and Colorado AI Act. Only Cognisess is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Cognisess | Handshake |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | GB | US |
| Founded | 2011 | 2014 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 29% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · Handshake 52
5.8 weighted points to Handshake
20% weight · 53% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · Handshake 48
4.6 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 65% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · Handshake 57
2.3 weighted points to Handshake
12% weight · 74% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · Handshake 58
1.9 weighted points to Handshake
12% weight · 84% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · Handshake 48
1.9 weighted points to Handshake
8% weight · 92% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · Handshake 60
1.6 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · Handshake 30
1.5 weighted points to Handshake
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -19.6 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 19.6 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -20 beside that -19.6.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus Handshake.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | Handshake | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 48 | -23 | -4.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 52 | -32 | -5.8 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 30 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 57 | -15 | -2.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 58 | -16 | -1.9 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 48 | -16 | -1.9 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 60 | -20 | -1.6 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 50 (F) | -20 | -19.6 |
§ 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 | Cognisess | Handshake | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 4 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 5 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 5 | 0 | Sources on a separate domain | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 21 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 27 | 7 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Cognisess has 26 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 21 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; Handshake has 34 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 27 with a source URL, 7 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Cognisess and Handshake sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 60 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 26 for Cognisess, across 5 distinct source domains, and 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Handshake 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