§ The result
SmartRecruiters leads Stepstone on all 7 criteria.
SmartRecruiters, filed under ATS-integrated, comes out 13 points above Stepstone, filed under Screening: 62 (D) against 49 (F) under rubric v1.0. SmartRecruiters takes all 7 criteria and Stepstone none of them; the nearest contest is Human Oversight Design, SmartRecruiters 62 to Stepstone 58. The advantage SmartRecruiters holds is spread out: Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (SmartRecruiters 78, Stepstone 50, 18% weight), yet it supplies only 38% of the weighted points SmartRecruiters gains across the 7 criteria it leads.
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.
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
SmartRecruiters is filed under ATS-integrated AI, Stepstone 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.
| Record | SmartRecruiters | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2010 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 38% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
SmartRecruiters 78 · Stepstone 50
5.0 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
20% weight · 60% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
SmartRecruiters 70 · Stepstone 55
3.0 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 77% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
SmartRecruiters 45 · Stepstone 30
2.3 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
12% weight · 86% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
SmartRecruiters 48 · Stepstone 38
1.2 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
SmartRecruiters 62 · Stepstone 55
1.1 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
12% weight · 97% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
SmartRecruiters 62 · Stepstone 58
0.5 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
SmartRecruiters 63 · Stepstone 58
0.4 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +13.4 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 13.4 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +13 beside that +13.4.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is SmartRecruiters minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | SmartRecruiters | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 70 | 55 | +15 | +3.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 78 | 50 | +28 | +5.0 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 45 | 30 | +15 | +2.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 62 | 55 | +7 | +1.1 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 62 | 58 | +4 | +0.5 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 48 | 38 | +10 | +1.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 63 | 58 | +5 | +0.4 |
| Total | 100% | 62 (D) | 49 (F) | +13 | +13.4 |
§ 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 | SmartRecruiters | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 0 | 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 | 0 | Audit reportSources on a separate 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% | 2 | 0 | Audit reportSources 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% | 1 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain | 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% | 11 | 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 |
SmartRecruiters has 13 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 11 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 SmartRecruiters and Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 46 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 13 for SmartRecruiters, across 2 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- SmartRecruiters 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