§ The result
Handshake leads Mercer | Mettl on all 7 criteria.
Under rubric v1.0, Handshake, filed under Screening, finishes on 50 and Mercer | Mettl, filed under Assessment, on 42, 8 points apart. Handshake takes all 7 criteria from Mercer | Mettl without a 20-point raw gap on any of them; the closest is FRIA Support, Handshake 30 to Mercer | Mettl 28. The widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing fall on different criteria: Human Oversight Design (Handshake 58, Mercer | Mettl 45) and Article 11 Technical Documentation at 20% (Handshake 48, Mercer | Mettl 38), the second being 26% of the weighted advantage Handshake holds across the 7 criteria on that side of the table.
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
Mercer | Mettl
Mercer | Mettl is an online talent assessment and remote-proctoring platform offering psychometric, aptitude, coding, and skills tests plus AI-assisted exam proctoring and scoring for hiring, certification, and L&D.
§ The record
Handshake is filed under Screening AI, Mercer | Mettl under Assessment 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 Mercer | Mettl is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Handshake | Mercer | Mettl |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | IN |
| Founded | 2014 | 2010 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 26% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Handshake 48 · Mercer | Mettl 38
2.0 weighted points to Handshake
18% weight · 49% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Handshake 52 · Mercer | Mettl 42
1.8 weighted points to Handshake
12% weight · 69% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Handshake 58 · Mercer | Mettl 45
1.6 weighted points to Handshake
12% weight · 84% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Handshake 48 · Mercer | Mettl 38
1.2 weighted points to Handshake
8% weight · 92% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Handshake 60 · Mercer | Mettl 52
0.6 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 96% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Handshake 30 · Mercer | Mettl 28
0.3 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Handshake 57 · Mercer | Mettl 55
0.3 weighted points to Handshake
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +7.8 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 7.8 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +8 beside that +7.8.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Handshake minus Mercer | Mettl.
| Category | Weight | Handshake | Mercer | Mettl | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 48 | 38 | +10 | +2.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 52 | 42 | +10 | +1.8 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 28 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 55 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 45 | +13 | +1.6 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 38 | +10 | +1.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 52 | +8 | +0.6 |
| Total | 100% | 50 (F) | 42 (F) | +8 | +7.8 |
§ 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 | Mercer | Mettl | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 0 | 1 | — |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | — |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | 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 | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 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 | 9 | 5 | 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; Mercer | Mettl has 14 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 9 with a source URL, 5 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 48 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains, and 14 for Mercer | Mettl, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Handshake last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Mercer | Mettl 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