§ The result
Stepstone leads Zoho Recruit by 7 points.
Under rubric v1.0, Stepstone, filed under Screening, finishes on 49 and Zoho Recruit, filed under ATS-integrated, on 42, 7 points apart. Stepstone leads 3 of the 7 criteria, including Bias Audit Transparency, while Zoho Recruit leads 2, including Post-Market Monitoring, and 2 are level. Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Stepstone 50, Zoho Recruit 24 — and at an 18% weight it carries 61% of the weighted advantage Stepstone holds across the 3 criteria on that side of the table.
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
Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit is a cloud-based applicant tracking and recruiting platform whose Zia AI assistant performs resume parsing, skills-based candidate-to-job matching, match scoring, sourcing, and AI-assisted screening and assessments.
§ The record
Stepstone is filed under Screening AI, Zoho Recruit under ATS-integrated 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. Only Zoho Recruit is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Stepstone | Zoho Recruit |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Low |
| Headquarters | DE | IN |
| Founded | 1996 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 58% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Stepstone 50 · Zoho Recruit 24
4.7 weighted points to Stepstone
20% weight · 83% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Stepstone 55 · Zoho Recruit 45
2.0 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 95% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Stepstone 58 · Zoho Recruit 50
1.0 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 98% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Stepstone 38 · Zoho Recruit 40
0.2 weighted points to Zoho Recruit
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Stepstone 58 · Zoho Recruit 60
0.2 weighted points to Zoho Recruit
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 5 figures above sum to +7.2 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 8.0 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 +7.2.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Stepstone minus Zoho Recruit.
| Category | Weight | Stepstone | Zoho Recruit | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 55 | 45 | +10 | +2.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 50 | 24 | +26 | +4.7 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 30 | - | - |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 55 | 55 | - | - |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 50 | +8 | +1.0 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 38 | 40 | -2 | -0.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 58 | 60 | -2 | -0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 49 (F) | 42 (F) | +7 | +7.2 |
§ 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 | Zoho Recruit | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 1 | 1 | — |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 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 | 2 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | 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 | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 10 | 7 | 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; Zoho Recruit has 17 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 10 with a source URL, 7 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 50 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains, and 17 for Zoho Recruit, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Stepstone last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Zoho Recruit last reviewed
- July 17, 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