§ The result
2 points separate Handshake and Sova Assessment.
Handshake (Screening) edges Sova Assessment (Assessment) by 2 points under rubric v1.0, 50 to 48. Sova Assessment takes 3 of the 7 criteria, FRIA Support among them, against 4 for Handshake, whose share includes Bias Audit Transparency. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Handshake 52, Sova Assessment 38) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 55% of the weighted advantage Handshake holds across the 4 criteria it leads.
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
Sova Assessment
Sova Assessment is a UK-based enterprise talent assessment platform combining personality questionnaires, cognitive and ability tests, situational judgement, video interviews, virtual assessment centres and AI-led role simulations into a single occupational-psychology-validated candidate scoring workflow.
§ The record
Handshake is filed under Screening AI, Sova Assessment 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 Sova Assessment is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Handshake | Sova Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | High |
| Headquarters | US | GB |
| Founded | 2014 | 2015 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 33% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Handshake 52 · Sova Assessment 38
2.5 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 53% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Handshake 30 · Sova Assessment 40
1.5 weighted points to Sova Assessment
20% weight · 71% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Handshake 48 · Sova Assessment 55
1.4 weighted points to Sova Assessment
12% weight · 83% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Handshake 48 · Sova Assessment 40
1.0 weighted points to Handshake
15% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Handshake 57 · Sova Assessment 52
0.8 weighted points to Handshake
12% weight · 98% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Handshake 58 · Sova Assessment 55
0.4 weighted points to Handshake
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Handshake 60 · Sova Assessment 62
0.2 weighted points to Sova Assessment
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +1.5 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 7.7 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +2 beside that +1.5.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Handshake minus Sova Assessment.
| Category | Weight | Handshake | Sova Assessment | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 48 | 55 | -7 | -1.4 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 52 | 38 | +14 | +2.5 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 40 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 52 | +5 | +0.8 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 55 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 40 | +8 | +1.0 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 62 | -2 | -0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 50 (F) | 48 (F) | +2 | +1.5 |
§ 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 | Sova Assessment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 3 | 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 | 4 | 2 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 4 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 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 | 28 | 8 | 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; Sova Assessment has 34 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 28 with a source URL, 8 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Handshake and Sova Assessment sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 68 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains, and 34 for Sova Assessment, across 3 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Handshake last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Sova Assessment last reviewed
- August 2, 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