Side-by-side · Rubric v1.0
Handshake vs Lever
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.
Substantial gaps
Screening
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.
Substantial gaps
ATS-integrated
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.
Criteria won
7 criteria
- Handshake3
- Lever4
- Widest raw gap
- Bias Audit Transparency52 vs 42
- Heaviest weighted swing
- Bias Audit Transparency18% weight
The record
Categories, scope and company facts.
Handshake is filed under Screening AI, Lever under ATS-integrated AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of
| 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.
- 1
Bias Audit Transparency
18% weight47% of the movement so far
Handshake52Lever421.8 weighted points to Handshake
- 2
Article 11 Technical Documentation
20% weight68% of the movement so far
Handshake48Lever520.8 weighted points to Lever
- 3
Post-Market Monitoring
12% weight78% of the movement so far
Handshake48Lever450.4 weighted points to Handshake
- 4
FRIA Support
15% weight86% of the movement so far
Handshake30Lever320.3 weighted points to Lever
- 5
Human Oversight Design
12% weight92% of the movement so far
Handshake58Lever600.2 weighted points to Lever
- 6
Customer Documentation
8% weight96% of the movement so far
Handshake60Lever580.2 weighted points to Handshake
- 7
Data Governance Disclosure
15% weight100% of the movement so far
Handshake57Lever580.1 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, coloured for whichever of the two it favours.
| 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% | 50F | 49F | +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.