§ The result
Stepstone leads softgarden by 7 points.
Under rubric v1.0, Stepstone, filed under Screening, finishes on 49 and softgarden, filed under ATS-integrated, on 42, 7 points apart. Stepstone leads 3 of the 7 criteria, including Bias Audit Transparency, while softgarden leads 1, including Post-Market Monitoring, and 3 are level. Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — softgarden 22, Stepstone 50 — and at an 18% weight it carries 65% of the weighted advantage Stepstone holds across the 3 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
softgarden
softgarden is a German cloud applicant tracking system (multiposting, career sites, applicant management and onboarding) with optional AI features: AI-Assisted Applicant Matching, which highlights applicants who closely match a job's requirements, and a newer LLM-based Screening Assistant, which scores each applicant against screening criteria.
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
softgarden is filed under ATS-integrated 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 | softgarden | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | DE | DE |
| Founded | 2001 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 59% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
softgarden 22 · Stepstone 50
5.0 weighted points to Stepstone
20% weight · 90% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
softgarden 42 · Stepstone 55
2.6 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 98% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
softgarden 44 · Stepstone 38
0.7 weighted points to softgarden
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
softgarden 54 · Stepstone 55
0.1 weighted points to Stepstone
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 4 figures above sum to -7.1 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 8.5 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -7 beside that -7.1.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is softgarden minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | softgarden | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 42 | 55 | -13 | -2.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 22 | 50 | -28 | -5.0 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 30 | - | - |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 54 | 55 | -1 | -0.1 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 44 | 38 | +6 | +0.7 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Total | 100% | 42 (F) | 49 (F) | -7 | -7.1 |
§ 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 | softgarden | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 6 | 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% | 3 | 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% | 7 | 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% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 5 | 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 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 31 | 5 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
softgarden has 36 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 31 with a source URL, 5 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 69 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 36 for softgarden, across 3 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- softgarden 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