Side-by-side · Rubric v1.0
Handshake vs Mercer | Mettl
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
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.
Substantial gaps
Assessment
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.
Criteria won
7 criteria
- Handshake7
- Mercer | Mettl0
- Widest raw gap
- Human Oversight Design58 vs 45
- Heaviest weighted swing
- Article 11 Technical Documentation20% weight
The record
Categories, scope and company facts.
Handshake is filed under Screening AI, Mercer | Mettl under Assessment AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of
Only Mercer | Mettl is in scope of
| 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.
- 1
Article 11 Technical Documentation
20% weight26% of the movement so far
Handshake48Mercer | Mettl382.0 weighted points to Handshake
- 2
Bias Audit Transparency
18% weight49% of the movement so far
Handshake52Mercer | Mettl421.8 weighted points to Handshake
- 3
Human Oversight Design
12% weight69% of the movement so far
Handshake58Mercer | Mettl451.6 weighted points to Handshake
- 4
Post-Market Monitoring
12% weight84% of the movement so far
Handshake48Mercer | Mettl381.2 weighted points to Handshake
- 5
Customer Documentation
8% weight92% of the movement so far
Handshake60Mercer | Mettl520.6 weighted points to Handshake
- 6
FRIA Support
15% weight96% of the movement so far
Handshake30Mercer | Mettl280.3 weighted points to Handshake
- 7
Data Governance Disclosure
15% weight100% of the movement so far
Handshake57Mercer | Mettl550.3 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, coloured for whichever of the two it favours.
| 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% | 50F | 42F | +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.