§ The result
Stepstone leads Mercor on all 7 criteria.
Under rubric v1.0, Stepstone scores 49 to 23 for Mercor, a 26-point gap between two Screening entries. Stepstone leads every one of the 7 criteria and 3 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, Stepstone 50, 18% weight), but it accounts for only 28% of the weighted advantage Stepstone 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
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.
§ The record
Mercor and Stepstone are both filed under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
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 | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2023 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 28% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Mercor 10 · Stepstone 50
7.2 weighted points to Stepstone
20% weight · 54% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Mercor 22 · Stepstone 55
6.6 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 73% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Mercor 22 · Stepstone 55
5.0 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 81% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Mercor 20 · Stepstone 38
2.2 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 89% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Mercor 42 · Stepstone 58
1.9 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 94% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Mercor 20 · Stepstone 30
1.5 weighted points to Stepstone
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Mercor 40 · Stepstone 58
1.4 weighted points to Stepstone
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -25.8 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 25.8 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -26 beside that -25.8.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Mercor minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | Mercor | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 22 | 55 | -33 | -6.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 10 | 50 | -40 | -7.2 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 30 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 22 | 55 | -33 | -5.0 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 58 | -16 | -1.9 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 20 | 38 | -18 | -2.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 58 | -18 | -1.4 |
| Total | 100% | 23 (F) | 49 (F) | -26 | -25.8 |
§ 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 | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 1 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate 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 | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 1 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 10 | 8 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 29 | 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; Stepstone has 33 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 29 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 49 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 16 for Mercor, across 4 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Mercor last reviewed
- June 7, 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.
§ Where next