§ The result
Employment Hero leads softgarden on all 7 criteria.
Under rubric v1.0, Employment Hero, filed under Screening, finishes on 48 and softgarden, filed under ATS-integrated, on 42, 6 points apart. Employment Hero takes all 7 criteria from softgarden without a 20-point raw gap on any of them; the closest is FRIA Support, Employment Hero 32 to softgarden 30. Bias Audit Transparency is the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing at once (Employment Hero 35, softgarden 22, 18% weight), but it accounts for only 39% of the weighted advantage Employment Hero holds across the 7 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Employment Hero
SmartMatch is Employment Hero's AI candidate-matching engine. Since March 2026 it has been surfaced through Find Talent and ATS applicant scoring, where it ranks job seekers and applicants against employer criteria and feeds a Recruitment Agent that auto-shortlists candidates and runs AI video and phone screening interviews.
Vendor profile
softgarden
softgarden is a German cloud applicant tracking system (multiposting, career sites, applicant management and onboarding) with optional AI features: AI-Assisted Applicant Matching, which highlights applicants who closely match a job's requirements, and a newer LLM-based Screening Assistant, which scores each applicant against screening criteria.
§ The record
Employment Hero is filed under Screening AI, softgarden under ATS-integrated 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. Only Employment Hero is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Employment Hero | softgarden |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | AU | DE |
| Founded | 2014 | 2001 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 39% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Employment Hero 35 · softgarden 22
2.3 weighted points to Employment Hero
20% weight · 65% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Employment Hero 50 · softgarden 42
1.6 weighted points to Employment Hero
12% weight · 77% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Employment Hero 50 · softgarden 44
0.7 weighted points to Employment Hero
12% weight · 85% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Employment Hero 62 · softgarden 58
0.5 weighted points to Employment Hero
8% weight · 90% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Employment Hero 62 · softgarden 58
0.3 weighted points to Employment Hero
15% weight · 95% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Employment Hero 32 · softgarden 30
0.3 weighted points to Employment Hero
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Employment Hero 56 · softgarden 54
0.3 weighted points to Employment Hero
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +6.1 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 6.1 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +6 beside that +6.1.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Employment Hero minus softgarden.
| Category | Weight | Employment Hero | softgarden | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 50 | 42 | +8 | +1.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 35 | 22 | +13 | +2.3 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 32 | 30 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 56 | 54 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 62 | 58 | +4 | +0.5 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 50 | 44 | +6 | +0.7 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 62 | 58 | +4 | +0.3 |
| Total | 100% | 48 (F) | 42 (F) | +6 | +6.1 |
§ 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 | Employment Hero | softgarden | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 3 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own 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% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 7 | 0 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 7 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 31 | 4 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 31 | 5 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
Employment Hero has 35 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 31 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; softgarden has 36 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 31 with a source URL, 5 documented absences.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 71 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 35 for Employment Hero, across 1 distinct source domain, and 36 for softgarden, across 3 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Employment Hero last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- softgarden 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