§ The result
Stepstone leads Ribbon by 6 points.
Inside the Screening cohort, rubric v1.0 puts Stepstone on 49 and Ribbon on 43, 6 points apart. The 7 criteria split 5 to 1 in favour of Stepstone, with 1 level: Stepstone is ahead on Article 11 Technical Documentation and Ribbon on FRIA Support. Article 11 Technical Documentation is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Ribbon 42, Stepstone 55 — and at a 20% weight it carries 43% of the weighted advantage Stepstone holds across the 5 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Ribbon
Ribbon is an AI recruiter that runs voice and video screening interviews with applicants around the clock, scores each interview against default and custom rubrics, ranks candidates for recruiter review, and syncs the results to 60+ applicant tracking systems.
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
Ribbon and Stepstone are both filed under Screening AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773 and Colorado AI Act. Only Ribbon is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Ribbon | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Low | Mid |
| Headquarters | CA | DE |
| Founded | 2020 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 40% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Ribbon 42 · Stepstone 55
2.6 weighted points to Stepstone
18% weight · 74% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Ribbon 38 · Stepstone 50
2.2 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 86% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Ribbon 50 · Stepstone 55
0.8 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 93% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Ribbon 33 · Stepstone 30
0.4 weighted points to Ribbon
12% weight · 98% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Ribbon 55 · Stepstone 58
0.4 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Ribbon 37 · Stepstone 38
0.1 weighted points to Stepstone
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -5.5 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 6.4 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -6 beside that -5.5.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Ribbon minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | Ribbon | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 42 | 55 | -13 | -2.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 38 | 50 | -12 | -2.2 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 33 | 30 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 50 | 55 | -5 | -0.8 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 55 | 58 | -3 | -0.4 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 37 | 38 | -1 | -0.1 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Total | 100% | 43 (F) | 49 (F) | -6 | -5.5 |
§ 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 | Ribbon | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 3 | 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% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 31 | 4 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Ribbon has 35 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 31 with a source URL, 4 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 Ribbon and Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 68 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 35 for Ribbon, across 2 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Ribbon last reviewed
- September 25, 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