§ The result
Sova Assessment leads Mercor on all 7 criteria.
Rubric v1.0 puts 25 points between Sova Assessment (Assessment) and Mercor (Screening): 48 for Sova Assessment, 23 for Mercor. Sova Assessment leads every one of the 7 criteria and 6 of them by 20 raw points or more, Article 11 Technical Documentation among them; Mercor leads none. Article 11 Technical Documentation is the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing at once (Mercor 22, Sova Assessment 55, 20% weight), but it accounts for only 27% of the weighted advantage Sova Assessment 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
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
Mercor is filed under Screening AI, Sova Assessment under Assessment AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Video interview.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act, Illinois HB 3773 and Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Mercor | Sova Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | High |
| Headquarters | US | GB |
| Founded | 2023 | 2015 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 27% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Mercor 22 · Sova Assessment 55
6.6 weighted points to Sova Assessment
18% weight · 47% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Mercor 10 · Sova Assessment 38
5.0 weighted points to Sova Assessment
15% weight · 65% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Mercor 22 · Sova Assessment 52
4.5 weighted points to Sova Assessment
15% weight · 77% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Mercor 20 · Sova Assessment 40
3.0 weighted points to Sova Assessment
12% weight · 87% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Mercor 20 · Sova Assessment 40
2.4 weighted points to Sova Assessment
8% weight · 94% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Mercor 40 · Sova Assessment 62
1.8 weighted points to Sova Assessment
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Mercor 42 · Sova Assessment 55
1.6 weighted points to Sova Assessment
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -24.9 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 24.9 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -25 beside that -24.9.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Mercor minus Sova Assessment.
| Category | Weight | Mercor | Sova Assessment | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 22 | 55 | -33 | -6.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 10 | 38 | -28 | -5.0 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 40 | -20 | -3.0 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 22 | 52 | -30 | -4.5 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 55 | -13 | -1.6 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 20 | 40 | -20 | -2.4 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 62 | -22 | -1.8 |
| Total | 100% | 23 (F) | 48 (F) | -25 | -24.9 |
§ 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 | Mercor | Sova Assessment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 1 | 1 | — | 4 | 2 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 2 | — | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 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% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 1 | 1 | — | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 10 | 8 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 28 | 8 | 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; 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 Sova Assessment sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 50 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 16 for Mercor, across 4 distinct source domains, and 34 for Sova Assessment, across 3 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Mercor last reviewed
- June 7, 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