§ The result
Spark Hire leads Mercor on all 7 criteria.
Rubric v1.0 puts 30 points between Spark Hire (Video interview) and Mercor (Screening): 53 for Spark Hire, 23 for Mercor. Spark Hire leads every one of the 7 criteria and 5 of them by 20 raw points or more, Bias Audit Transparency among them; Mercor leads none. Bias Audit Transparency is the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing at once (Mercor 10, Spark Hire 62, 18% weight), but it accounts for only 31% of the weighted advantage Spark Hire 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
Spark Hire
Spark Hire is a hiring platform combining one-way (async) and live video interviewing with an applicant tracking system (via its Comeet acquisition), and adds AI features that score and rank candidates' resumes and one-way video responses to help recruiters prioritize submissions.
§ The record
Mercor is filed under Screening AI, Spark Hire under Video interview AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act, Illinois HB 3773 and Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Mercor | Spark Hire |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 2023 | 2012 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 31% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Mercor 10 · Spark Hire 62
9.4 weighted points to Spark Hire
20% weight · 55% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Mercor 22 · Spark Hire 58
7.2 weighted points to Spark Hire
15% weight · 74% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Mercor 22 · Spark Hire 60
5.7 weighted points to Spark Hire
12% weight · 82% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Mercor 42 · Spark Hire 62
2.4 weighted points to Spark Hire
12% weight · 89% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Mercor 20 · Spark Hire 38
2.2 weighted points to Spark Hire
8% weight · 95% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Mercor 40 · Spark Hire 64
1.9 weighted points to Spark Hire
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Mercor 20 · Spark Hire 30
1.5 weighted points to Spark Hire
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -30.2 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 30.2 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -30 beside that -30.2.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Mercor minus Spark Hire.
| Category | Weight | Mercor | Spark Hire | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 22 | 58 | -36 | -7.2 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 10 | 62 | -52 | -9.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 30 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 22 | 60 | -38 | -5.7 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 62 | -20 | -2.4 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 20 | 38 | -18 | -2.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 64 | -24 | -1.9 |
| Total | 100% | 23 (F) | 53 (F) | -30 | -30.2 |
§ 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 | Spark Hire | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 1 | 1 | — | 3 | 0 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 2 | — | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 10 | 8 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 16 | 4 | 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; Spark Hire has 20 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 16 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Spark Hire sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 36 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 16 for Mercor, across 4 distinct source domains, and 20 for Spark Hire, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Mercor last reviewed
- June 7, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Spark Hire last reviewed
- June 7, 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