§ The result
Paradox leads Mercor on all 7 criteria.
Paradox finishes 18 points clear of Mercor under rubric v1.0 — 41 against 23 — across the Scheduling and Screening cohorts. Paradox leads every one of the 7 criteria, Mercor none of them, and the closest of the 7 is FRIA Support, Mercor 20 to Paradox 25. Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Mercor 10, Paradox 50 — and at an 18% weight it carries 40% of the weighted advantage Paradox holds across the 7 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Mercor
Mercor is an AI talent platform that runs automated 20-minute AI video interviews and semantic resume/profile matching to vet, score, and place candidates and expert contractors, and offers an enterprise applicant-screening product that scores employers' applicant pools against role rubrics with pass/fail recommendations.
Vendor profile
Paradox
Conversational AI ("Olivia") that screens, schedules, and engages candidates over chat and SMS, often deployed on top of an existing ATS.
§ The record
Mercor is filed under Screening AI, Paradox under Scheduling 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 Mercor is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Mercor | Paradox |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 2023 | 2016 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 40% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Mercor 10 · Paradox 50
7.2 weighted points to Paradox
20% weight · 59% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Mercor 22 · Paradox 40
3.6 weighted points to Paradox
15% weight · 78% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Mercor 22 · Paradox 45
3.4 weighted points to Paradox
12% weight · 88% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Mercor 20 · Paradox 35
1.8 weighted points to Paradox
12% weight · 94% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Mercor 42 · Paradox 50
1.0 weighted points to Paradox
15% weight · 98% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Mercor 20 · Paradox 25
0.8 weighted points to Paradox
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Mercor 40 · Paradox 45
0.4 weighted points to Paradox
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -18.2 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 18.2 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -18 beside that -18.2.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Mercor minus Paradox.
| Category | Weight | Mercor | Paradox | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 22 | 40 | -18 | -3.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 10 | 50 | -40 | -7.2 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 25 | -5 | -0.8 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 22 | 45 | -23 | -3.4 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 50 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 20 | 35 | -15 | -1.8 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 45 | -5 | -0.4 |
| Total | 100% | 23 (F) | 41 (F) | -18 | -18.2 |
§ 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 | Mercor | Paradox | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | 0 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 2 | — | 0 | 1 | — |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 1 | 1 | — | 1 | 0 | — |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 10 | 8 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 8 | 2 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Mercor has 16 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 10 with a source URL, 8 documented absences; Paradox has 10 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 8 with a source URL, 2 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Paradox sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 26 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 16 for Mercor, across 4 distinct source domains, and 10 for Paradox, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Mercor last reviewed
- June 7, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Paradox last reviewed
- May 21, 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