§ The result
Handshake leads impress.ai on all 7 criteria.
Handshake sits 12 points above impress.ai under rubric v1.0, 50 against 38, with both filed under Screening. Handshake takes all 7 criteria and impress.ai none of them; the nearest contest is Data Governance Disclosure, Handshake 57 to impress.ai 55. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Handshake 52, impress.ai 22) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 46% of the weighted advantage Handshake holds across the 7 criteria it leads.
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.
Vendor profile
impress.ai
impress.ai is a Singapore-headquartered recruitment automation platform that uses conversational AI assistants, resume parsing and scoring, and structured competency-based screening to filter, rank and shortlist job candidates, integrating with enterprise ATS systems.
§ The record
Handshake and impress.ai are both filed 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. Only impress.ai is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Handshake | impress.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | High |
| Headquarters | US | SG |
| Founded | 2014 | 2017 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 46% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Handshake 52 · impress.ai 22
5.4 weighted points to Handshake
20% weight · 68% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Handshake 48 · impress.ai 35
2.6 weighted points to Handshake
12% weight · 84% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Handshake 48 · impress.ai 32
1.9 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 90% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Handshake 30 · impress.ai 25
0.8 weighted points to Handshake
12% weight · 96% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Handshake 58 · impress.ai 52
0.7 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 99% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Handshake 57 · impress.ai 55
0.3 weighted points to Handshake
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Handshake 60 · impress.ai 58
0.2 weighted points to Handshake
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +11.9 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 11.9 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +12 beside that +11.9.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Handshake minus impress.ai.
| Category | Weight | Handshake | impress.ai | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 48 | 35 | +13 | +2.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 52 | 22 | +30 | +5.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 25 | +5 | +0.8 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 55 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 52 | +6 | +0.7 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 32 | +16 | +1.9 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 58 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 50 (F) | 38 (F) | +12 | +11.9 |
§ 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 | Handshake | impress.ai | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 4 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 5 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | 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 domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 27 | 7 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 18 | 7 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
Handshake has 34 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 27 with a source URL, 7 documented absences; impress.ai has 25 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 18 with a source URL, 7 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Handshake sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 59 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains, and 25 for impress.ai, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Handshake last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- impress.ai last reviewed
- August 2, 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