§ The result
Stepstone leads Paradox on 6 of the 7 criteria.
Under rubric v1.0, Stepstone, filed under Screening, finishes on 49 and Paradox, filed under Scheduling, on 41, 8 points apart. Paradox is ahead on none of the 7 criteria: Stepstone takes 6, the remaining criterion is level, and the nearest of those 6 is Post-Market Monitoring, Paradox 35 to Stepstone 38. The advantage Stepstone holds is spread out: Article 11 Technical Documentation is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Paradox 40, Stepstone 55, 20% weight), yet it supplies only 39% of the weighted points Stepstone gains across the 6 criteria it leads.
Vendor profile
Paradox
Conversational AI ("Olivia") that screens, schedules, and engages candidates over chat and SMS, often deployed on top of an existing ATS.
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
Paradox is filed under Scheduling AI, Stepstone under Screening 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.
| Record | Paradox | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2016 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 39% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Paradox 40 · Stepstone 55
3.0 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 59% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Paradox 45 · Stepstone 55
1.5 weighted points to Stepstone
8% weight · 73% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Paradox 45 · Stepstone 58
1.0 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 85% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Paradox 50 · Stepstone 58
1.0 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 95% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Paradox 25 · Stepstone 30
0.8 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Paradox 35 · Stepstone 38
0.4 weighted points to Stepstone
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -7.6 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 7.6 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -8 beside that -7.6.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Paradox minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | Paradox | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 40 | 55 | -15 | -3.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 50 | 50 | - | - |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 25 | 30 | -5 | -0.8 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 45 | 55 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 50 | 58 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 35 | 38 | -3 | -0.4 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 45 | 58 | -13 | -1.0 |
| Total | 100% | 41 (F) | 49 (F) | -8 | -7.6 |
§ 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 | Paradox | 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% | 2 | 0 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 0 | 1 | — | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 1 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 1 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 1 | 0 | — | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 8 | 2 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Paradox has 10 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 8 with a source URL, 2 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 Paradox and Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 43 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 10 for Paradox, across 2 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Paradox last reviewed
- May 21, 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