§ The result
Textkernel leads Stepstone on 5 of the 7 criteria.
Textkernel (Sourcing) edges Stepstone (Screening) by 2 points under rubric v1.0, 51 to 49. Textkernel leads 5 of the 7 criteria and the remaining 2 are level, so Stepstone is ahead on none of them; the closest of the 5 Textkernel leads is FRIA Support, Stepstone 30 to Textkernel 32. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Stepstone 50, Textkernel 55) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 45% of the weighted advantage Textkernel holds across the 5 criteria it leads.
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.
Vendor profile
Textkernel
Textkernel provides AI-powered CV/resume and job parsing, semantic search, and candidate-job matching technology (including the acquired Sovren engine) embedded inside ATS, job board, and HR systems.
§ The record
Stepstone is filed under Screening AI, Textkernel under Candidate sourcing 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 | Stepstone | Textkernel |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | DE | NL |
| Founded | 1996 | 2001 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 45% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Stepstone 50 · Textkernel 55
0.9 weighted points to Textkernel
8% weight · 61% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Stepstone 58 · Textkernel 62
0.3 weighted points to Textkernel
15% weight · 76% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Stepstone 30 · Textkernel 32
0.3 weighted points to Textkernel
12% weight · 88% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Stepstone 58 · Textkernel 60
0.2 weighted points to Textkernel
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Stepstone 38 · Textkernel 40
0.2 weighted points to Textkernel
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 5 figures above sum to -2.0 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 2.0 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 -2.0.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Stepstone minus Textkernel.
| Category | Weight | Stepstone | Textkernel | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 55 | 55 | - | - |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 50 | 55 | -5 | -0.9 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 32 | -2 | -0.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 55 | 55 | - | - |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 60 | -2 | -0.2 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 38 | 40 | -2 | -0.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 58 | 62 | -4 | -0.3 |
| Total | 100% | 49 (F) | 51 (F) | -2 | -2.0 |
§ 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 | Stepstone | Textkernel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | — |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 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 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 13 | 5 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
Stepstone has 33 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 29 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; Textkernel has 18 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 13 with a source URL, 5 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 51 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains, and 18 for Textkernel, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Stepstone last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Textkernel 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