Side-by-side · Rubric v1.0
Handshake vs SHL
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
SHL
SHL is a global talent-assessment provider offering AI-scored cognitive ability, personality, behavioral, situational-judgement, coding, and video-interview assessments that score, rank, and recommend candidates for hiring and development decisions.
Substantial gaps
Assessment
The result
1 point separates SHL and Handshake.
SHL holds a 1-point edge over Handshake under rubric v1.0, 51 to 50, across the Assessment and Screening cohorts. The criteria split evenly, 2 each to Handshake and SHL, with 3 level, and the weighted points on the side SHL holds, headed by Article 11 Technical Documentation, settle the total. Article 11 Technical Documentation is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Handshake 48, SHL 60 — and at a 20% weight it carries 94% of the weighted advantage SHL holds across the 2 criteria on that side of the table.
Criteria won
7 criteria
- Handshake2
- SHL2
- Level3
- Widest raw gap
- Article 11 Technical Documentation48 vs 60
- Heaviest weighted swing
- Article 11 Technical Documentation20% weight
The record
Categories, scope and company facts.
Handshake is filed under Screening AI, SHL under Assessment AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of
Only SHL is in scope of
| Record | Handshake | SHL |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | US | GB |
| Founded | 2014 | 1977 |
What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
- 1
Article 11 Technical Documentation
20% weight62% of the movement so far
Handshake48SHL602.4 weighted points to SHL
- 2
Post-Market Monitoring
12% weight87% of the movement so far
Handshake48SHL401.0 weighted points to Handshake
- 3
Bias Audit Transparency
18% weight96% of the movement so far
Handshake52SHL500.4 weighted points to Handshake
- 4
Data Governance Disclosure
15% weight100% of the movement so far
Handshake57SHL580.1 weighted points to SHL
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 4 figures above sum to -1.2 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 3.9 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 -1.2.
Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Handshake minus SHL, coloured for whichever of the two it favours.
| Category | Weight | Handshake | SHL | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 48 | 60 | -12 | -2.4 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 52 | 50 | +2 | +0.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 30 | - | - |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 58 | -1 | -0.1 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 40 | +8 | +1.0 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 60 | - | - |
| Total | 100% | 50F | 51F | -1 | -1.2 |
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 | SHL | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 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 | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 27 | 7 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 15 | 4 | 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; SHL has 19 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 15 with a source URL, 4 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 53 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains, and 19 for SHL, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Handshake last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- SHL 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.