§ The result
SHL leads Stepstone on 4 of the 7 criteria.
SHL holds a 2-point edge over Stepstone under rubric v1.0, 51 to 49, across the Assessment and Screening cohorts. Stepstone is ahead on none of the 7 criteria: SHL takes 4, the remaining 3 are level, and the nearest of those 4 is Post-Market Monitoring, SHL 40 to Stepstone 38. Article 11 Technical Documentation is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — SHL 60, Stepstone 55 — and at a 20% weight it carries 54% of the weighted advantage SHL holds across the 4 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
SHL
SHL is a global talent-assessment provider offering AI-scored cognitive ability, personality, behavioral, situational-judgement, coding, and video-interview assessments that score, rank, and recommend candidates for hiring and development decisions.
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
SHL is filed under Assessment AI, Stepstone under Screening AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773, EU AI Act and Colorado AI Act. Only SHL is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | SHL | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | GB | DE |
| Founded | 1977 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 54% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
SHL 60 · Stepstone 55
1.0 weighted points to SHL
15% weight · 78% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
SHL 58 · Stepstone 55
0.4 weighted points to SHL
12% weight · 91% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
SHL 40 · Stepstone 38
0.2 weighted points to SHL
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
SHL 60 · Stepstone 58
0.2 weighted points to SHL
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 4 figures above sum to +1.8 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 1.8 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +2 beside that +1.8.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is SHL minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | SHL | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 60 | 55 | +5 | +1.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 50 | 50 | - | - |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 30 | - | - |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 58 | 55 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 40 | 38 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 58 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 51 (F) | 49 (F) | +2 | +1.8 |
§ 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 | SHL | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 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 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 3 | 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% | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 15 | 4 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
SHL has 19 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 15 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 Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 52 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 19 for SHL, across 1 distinct source domain, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- SHL 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