Side-by-side · Rubric v1.0
Handshake vs Stepstone
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
Stepstone
Stepstone is a German job marketplace whose Stepstone Recruit employer platform includes an AI Screening Agent, which rates each application against requirements taken from the job ad, and a Talent Finder, which recommends candidates from a CV database of more than 4 million profiles.
Substantial gaps
Screening
The result
1 point separates Handshake and Stepstone.
Under rubric v1.0, Handshake and Stepstone finish 1 point apart, 50 to 49, as two Screening entries. The 7 criteria split 4 to 1 in favour of Handshake, with 2 level: Handshake is ahead on Post-Market Monitoring and Stepstone on Article 11 Technical Documentation. The heaviest weighted swing runs the other way — Stepstone takes Article 11 Technical Documentation at 20%, Handshake 48 to Stepstone 55, 100% of the weighted advantage Stepstone holds — while the widest raw gap sits on Post-Market Monitoring, Handshake 48 to Stepstone 38.
Criteria won
7 criteria
- Handshake4
- Stepstone1
- Level2
- Widest raw gap
- Post-Market Monitoring48 vs 38
- Heaviest weighted swing
- Article 11 Technical Documentation20% weight
Keep this comparison
Both scores and all 7 criteria, side by side, in your inbox.
The record
Categories, scope and company facts.
Handshake and Stepstone are both filed under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of
| Record | Handshake | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2014 | 1996 |
What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
- 1
Article 11 Technical Documentation
20% weight41% of the movement so far
Handshake48Stepstone551.4 weighted points to Stepstone
- 2
Post-Market Monitoring
12% weight76% of the movement so far
Handshake48Stepstone381.2 weighted points to Handshake
- 3
Bias Audit Transparency
18% weight87% of the movement so far
Handshake52Stepstone500.4 weighted points to Handshake
- 4
Data Governance Disclosure
15% weight95% of the movement so far
Handshake57Stepstone550.3 weighted points to Handshake
- 5
Customer Documentation
8% weight100% of the movement so far
Handshake60Stepstone580.2 weighted points to Handshake
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 5 figures above sum to +0.6 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 3.4 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 +0.6.
Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Handshake minus Stepstone, coloured for whichever of the two it favours.
| Category | Weight | Handshake | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 48 | 55 | -7 | -1.4 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 52 | 50 | +2 | +0.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 30 | - | - |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 57 | 55 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 38 | +10 | +1.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 58 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 50F | 49F | +1 | +0.6 |
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 | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 5 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate 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 | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 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 | 29 | 4 | 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; Stepstone has 33 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 29 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Handshake and Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 67 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Handshake, across 2 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Handshake last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Stepstone last reviewed
- September 25, 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.
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Scored against