§ The result
LinkedIn Recruiter leads softgarden on all 7 criteria.
LinkedIn Recruiter finishes 15 points clear of softgarden under rubric v1.0 — 57 against 42 — across the Sourcing and ATS-integrated cohorts. LinkedIn Recruiter leads every one of the 7 criteria, softgarden none of them, and the closest of the 7 is Post-Market Monitoring, LinkedIn Recruiter 50 to softgarden 44. The advantage LinkedIn Recruiter holds is spread out: Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (LinkedIn Recruiter 50, softgarden 22, 18% weight), yet it supplies only 34% of the weighted points LinkedIn Recruiter gains across the 7 criteria it leads.
Vendor profile
LinkedIn Recruiter
LinkedIn Recruiter is LinkedIn's enterprise sourcing and candidate-management platform, whose Hiring Assistant add-on and AI-Assisted Search use AI to turn intake notes into qualifications, source and rank candidates, evaluate applicants against recruiter-set qualifications, and draft or send outreach.
Vendor profile
softgarden
softgarden is a German cloud applicant tracking system (multiposting, career sites, applicant management and onboarding) with optional AI features: AI-Assisted Applicant Matching, which highlights applicants who closely match a job's requirements, and a newer LLM-based Screening Assistant, which scores each applicant against screening criteria.
§ The record
LinkedIn Recruiter is filed under Candidate sourcing AI, softgarden under ATS-integrated AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Screening.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, Colorado AI Act, NYC LL 144 and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | LinkedIn Recruiter | softgarden |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2002 | 2001 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 34% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
LinkedIn Recruiter 50 · softgarden 22
5.0 weighted points to LinkedIn Recruiter
20% weight · 67% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
LinkedIn Recruiter 67 · softgarden 42
5.0 weighted points to LinkedIn Recruiter
15% weight · 75% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
LinkedIn Recruiter 38 · softgarden 30
1.2 weighted points to LinkedIn Recruiter
15% weight · 83% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
LinkedIn Recruiter 62 · softgarden 54
1.2 weighted points to LinkedIn Recruiter
12% weight · 90% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
LinkedIn Recruiter 66 · softgarden 58
1.0 weighted points to LinkedIn Recruiter
8% weight · 95% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
LinkedIn Recruiter 68 · softgarden 58
0.8 weighted points to LinkedIn Recruiter
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
LinkedIn Recruiter 50 · softgarden 44
0.7 weighted points to LinkedIn Recruiter
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +14.9 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 14.9 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +15 beside that +14.9.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is LinkedIn Recruiter minus softgarden.
| Category | Weight | LinkedIn Recruiter | softgarden | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 67 | 42 | +25 | +5.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 50 | 22 | +28 | +5.0 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 38 | 30 | +8 | +1.2 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 62 | 54 | +8 | +1.2 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 66 | 58 | +8 | +1.0 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 50 | 44 | +6 | +0.7 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 68 | 58 | +10 | +0.8 |
| Total | 100% | 57 (F) | 42 (F) | +15 | +14.9 |
§ 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 | LinkedIn Recruiter | softgarden | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 6 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 4 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 7 | 0 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 6 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 6 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 34 | 5 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 31 | 5 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
LinkedIn Recruiter has 39 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 34 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; softgarden has 36 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 31 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for LinkedIn Recruiter sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 75 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 39 for LinkedIn Recruiter, across 6 distinct source domains, and 36 for softgarden, across 3 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- LinkedIn Recruiter last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- softgarden 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.
§ Where next