§ The result
SmartRecruiters leads Paycor on all 7 criteria.
SmartRecruiters finishes 22 points clear of Paycor inside the ATS-integrated cohort under rubric v1.0: 62 (D) against 40 (F). SmartRecruiters takes all 7 criteria and Paycor none of them; the nearest contest is Human Oversight Design, Paycor 55 to SmartRecruiters 62. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Paycor 25, SmartRecruiters 78) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 42% of the weighted advantage SmartRecruiters holds across the 7 criteria it leads.
Vendor profile
Paycor
Paycor, a Paychex company, sells a mid-market HR and payroll suite whose recruiting tools include the Paycor Recruiting ATS, Paycor Smart Sourcing (formerly Talenya), which uses AI to build a prioritized list of passive and active candidates for each role and automate outreach, and a WISE assistant that phone-screens candidates and scores their answers.
Vendor profile
SmartRecruiters
SmartRecruiters is an enterprise applicant tracking system and talent acquisition suite whose AI layer (the Winston assistant plus SmartAssistant/Winston Match) screens, ranks, and matches candidates to requisitions to support recruiter decisions.
§ The record
Paycor and SmartRecruiters are both filed under ATS-integrated AI. They also share 2 secondary categories: Sourcing and Screening.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Paycor | SmartRecruiters |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 1990 | 2010 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 42% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Paycor 25 · SmartRecruiters 78
9.5 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
20% weight · 68% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Paycor 40 · SmartRecruiters 70
6.0 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 80% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Paycor 27 · SmartRecruiters 45
2.7 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 88% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Paycor 50 · SmartRecruiters 62
1.8 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
12% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Paycor 38 · SmartRecruiters 48
1.2 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
12% weight · 97% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Paycor 55 · SmartRecruiters 62
0.8 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Paycor 55 · SmartRecruiters 63
0.6 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -22.7 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 22.7 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -22 beside that -22.7.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Paycor minus SmartRecruiters.
| Category | Weight | Paycor | SmartRecruiters | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 40 | 70 | -30 | -6.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 25 | 78 | -53 | -9.5 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 27 | 45 | -18 | -2.7 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 50 | 62 | -12 | -1.8 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 55 | 62 | -7 | -0.8 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 38 | 48 | -10 | -1.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 55 | 63 | -8 | -0.6 |
| Total | 100% | 40 (F) | 62 (D) | -22 | -22.7 |
§ 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 | Paycor | SmartRecruiters | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 3 | 1 | — | 1 | 0 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 4 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 0 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 1 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 24 | 6 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 11 | 2 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Paycor has 30 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 24 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; SmartRecruiters has 13 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 11 with a source URL, 2 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Paycor and SmartRecruiters 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: 30 for Paycor, across 6 distinct source domains, and 13 for SmartRecruiters, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Paycor last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- SmartRecruiters 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