§ The result
SmartRecruiters leads Handshake on 6 of the 7 criteria.
SmartRecruiters, filed under ATS-integrated, comes out 12 points above Handshake, filed under Screening: 62 (D) against 50 (F) under rubric v1.0. Handshake is ahead on none of the 7 criteria: SmartRecruiters takes 6, the remaining criterion is level, and the nearest of those 6 is Customer Documentation, Handshake 60 to SmartRecruiters 63. Bias Audit Transparency is the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing at once (Handshake 52, SmartRecruiters 78, 18% weight), but it accounts for only 37% of the weighted advantage SmartRecruiters holds across the 6 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
SmartRecruiters
SmartRecruiters is an enterprise applicant tracking system and talent acquisition suite whose AI layer (the Winston assistant plus SmartAssistant/Winston Match) screens, ranks, and matches candidates to requisitions to support recruiter decisions.
§ The record
Handshake is filed under Screening AI, SmartRecruiters 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 | SmartRecruiters |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 2014 | 2010 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 37% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Handshake 52 · SmartRecruiters 78
4.7 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
20% weight · 71% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Handshake 48 · SmartRecruiters 70
4.4 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 89% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Handshake 30 · SmartRecruiters 45
2.3 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 94% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Handshake 57 · SmartRecruiters 62
0.8 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
12% weight · 98% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Handshake 58 · SmartRecruiters 62
0.5 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Handshake 60 · SmartRecruiters 63
0.2 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -12.8 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 12.8 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -12 beside that -12.8.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Handshake minus SmartRecruiters.
| Category | Weight | Handshake | SmartRecruiters | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 48 | 70 | -22 | -4.4 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 52 | 78 | -26 | -4.7 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 45 | -15 | -2.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 62 | -5 | -0.8 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 62 | -4 | -0.5 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 48 | - | - |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 63 | -3 | -0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 50 (F) | 62 (D) | -12 | -12.8 |
§ 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 | SmartRecruiters | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 0 | 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 | 1 | 0 | Audit reportSources on a separate 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 | 2 | 0 | Audit reportSources 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 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 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 | 11 | 2 | Audit reportSources 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; SmartRecruiters has 13 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 11 with a source URL, 2 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Handshake and SmartRecruiters sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 47 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains, and 13 for SmartRecruiters, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Handshake last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- SmartRecruiters 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