§ The result
Handshake takes the total, Lever takes more of the criteria.
Handshake (Screening) edges Lever (ATS-integrated) by 1 point under rubric v1.0, 50 to 49. Lever leads more of the criteria than Handshake — 4 to 3 — but Bias Audit Transparency, which Handshake leads, carries 18% of the rubric, and the weighted sum still falls to Handshake. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Handshake 52, Lever 42) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 78% of the weighted advantage Handshake holds across the 3 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
Lever
Lever is an AI-powered applicant tracking system and recruiting CRM that centralizes sourcing, candidate relationship management, AI candidate matching (Talent Fit), and hiring analytics for high-growth employers.
§ The record
Handshake is filed under Screening AI, Lever under ATS-integrated AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Handshake | Lever |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 2014 | 2012 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 47% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Handshake 52 · Lever 42
1.8 weighted points to Handshake
20% weight · 68% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Handshake 48 · Lever 52
0.8 weighted points to Lever
12% weight · 78% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Handshake 48 · Lever 45
0.4 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 86% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Handshake 30 · Lever 32
0.3 weighted points to Lever
12% weight · 92% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Handshake 58 · Lever 60
0.2 weighted points to Lever
8% weight · 96% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Handshake 60 · Lever 58
0.2 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Handshake 57 · Lever 58
0.1 weighted points to Lever
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +0.8 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 3.8 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 +0.8.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Handshake minus Lever.
| Category | Weight | Handshake | Lever | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 48 | 52 | -4 | -0.8 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 52 | 42 | +10 | +1.8 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 32 | -2 | -0.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 58 | -1 | -0.1 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 60 | -2 | -0.2 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 45 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 58 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 50 (F) | 49 (F) | +1 | +0.8 |
§ 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 | Lever | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 5 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on a separate 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 | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources 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 domainSources on a separate domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 27 | 7 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 13 | 6 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Handshake has 34 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 27 with a source URL, 7 documented absences; Lever has 19 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 13 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Handshake and Lever sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 53 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains, and 19 for Lever, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Handshake last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Lever last reviewed
- June 7, 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