Cangrade
Cangrade is a predictive pre-hire assessment and screening platform that scores candidates against customer-specific success models built from roughly 50 psychometric traits, with add-on modules for resume screening, structured and video interviews, interview scheduling, and reference checking.
HireAIScore rates Cangrade 45 out of 100 (grade F, Substantial gaps) under rubric v1.0, last reviewed August 2, 2026. Cangrade ranks 33 of 49 vendors rated in Assessment AI, against a category average of 48. That score is drawn from 27 evidence items across 7 rubric criteria for Cangrade — 20 with a cited source, 10 recording that nothing was located.
§ 01 - Company facts
- Legal name
- Cangrade, Inc.
- Founded
- 2014
- Headquarters
- United States · US
- Pricing tier
- Mid
- Market side
- Employer-side (AEDT)
- Categories
- AssessmentScreeningVideo interviewScheduling
- Website
- cangrade.com
These are company details, not findings. They are editable by a verified representative and carry no weight in the score, which is built only from the cited evidence below.
§ 02 - Score breakdown
§ Score breakdown
Category scoring
Weighted contribution shown to the right of each bar.
- 01
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Weight 20%52
+10.4 · category avg 53
- 02
Bias Audit Transparency
Weight 18%35
+6.3 · category avg 47
- 03
FRIA Support
Weight 15%30
+4.5 · category avg 32
- 04
Data Governance Disclosure
Weight 15%54
+8.1 · category avg 55
- 05
Human Oversight Design
Weight 12%56
+6.7 · category avg 55
- 06
Post-Market Monitoring
Weight 12%32
+3.8 · category avg 39
- 07
Customer Documentation
Weight 8%62
+5.0 · category avg 59
Category avg is the mean raw score on that criterion across the 49 Assessment AI vendors in scope of this rubric, this one included.
§ 03 - Strongest · weakest
Strongest category
Customer Documentation
Raw score 62 · contributes 5.0 to total.
62 against a 59 category average
Weakest category
FRIA Support
Raw score 30 · contributes 4.5 to total.
30 against a 32 category average
§ 04 - Cited evidence
Download diligence record→§ Evidence
Cited per category
Every score is backed by at least one cited piece of evidence.
Evidence ledger
- Items
- 27
- Documentation
- 15
- Public statement
- 2
- Absence
- 10
- With a source URL
- 20 of 27
- Source hostnames
- 3
- Fewest items
- 3
- FRIA Support
These figures measure how thoroughly Cangrade was reviewed, not how Cangrade performed — an absence row, recording that nothing was located, is counted like any other item.
Article 11 Technical Documentation
4 items52
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The Science page describes the assessment as measuring roughly 50 psychometric traits, outlines three success-model build methods (KPI-trained AI, internal expert input, generative processing of job descriptions), and claims each score comes with a full explanation of what drove it, but publishes no validation methodology, sample sizes, or model architecture.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
US Patent 11,429,859 "Systems and processes for bias removal in a predictive performance model" (assignee Cangrade Inc, filed January 2020, granted August 2022) is a substantive public technical disclosure describing iterative ranking and removal of bias-contributing variables until a bias threshold is met.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The Ethical AI page serves as the company's AI principles and explainability statement, asserting a patented three-level bias removal process applied at question, trait, and model level plus visual explanations of trait contribution to scores.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No model card, system card, technical documentation pack, instructions-for-use, or ISO/IEC 42001 certification was found across the homepage, Why Cangrade section (Science, Ethical AI, Security & Compliance), the research hub, the patents page, or the press page, and no AI governance framework (NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001) is referenced anywhere on the site.
Bias Audit Transparency
5 items35
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Cangrade claims "zero statistically significant adverse impact on any legally protected group" and says it vets each question and trait so no group scores disproportionately, but presents no adverse-impact statistics, sample sizes, dates, or third-party verification on the page.
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The September 2022 patent press release claims a "0% chance of introducing bias" and describes the CEO calling the method "publicly disclosed, fully verifiable," but cites no independent audit or external validation of outcomes.
https://www.cangrade.com/press/cangrade-announces-patent-for-removing-bias-in-ai-hiring/
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Cangrade does not appear in the ACLU's crowd-sourced tracker of publicly released NYC Local Law 144 bias audits, which does name comparable vendors including HireVue, Eightfold.AI, pymetrics/Harver, Plum, Vervoe, and Paradox.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The Ethical AI page names no independent auditor (no BABL AI, DCI, ORCAA, Warden AI, Holistic AI, Credo AI or academic auditor) and offers no downloadable audit report or adverse-impact study; compliance documentation must be requested from the customer's account team.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Searches for a Cangrade NYC Local Law 144 bias-audit summary, an independent third-party audit, or a published adverse-impact validation study returned nothing across web search, the cangrade.com blog and research hub, the press page, and the ACLU LL 144 tracker.
FRIA Support
3 items30
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A March 2026 state-by-state guide gives employers concrete obligations across NYC LL 144, Illinois, Colorado SB 205, California FEHA/CCPA ADMT and others, and mentions Colorado annual impact assessments and California risk assessments, but omits the EU AI Act entirely.
https://www.cangrade.com/blog/talent-acquisition/the-state-by-state-guide-to-ai-hiring-regulations/
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A December 2025 accountability checklist advises employers on demographic outcome testing, quarterly retesting, vendor reassessment, documentation and human review processes, but contains no reference to EU AI Act Article 27 FRIA or deployer-obligation terminology.
https://www.cangrade.com/blog/hr-strategy/ai-accountability-and-compliance-your-complete-checklist/
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment template, EU AI Act deployer guidance, Article 26/27 material, conformity documentation, or EU representative information was found on cangrade.com - searches of the site, the compliance and ethics pages, the blog and the research hub returned no EU AI Act content of any kind.
Data Governance Disclosure
4 items54
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The Security & Compliance page states SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR alignment, end-to-end encryption, 2FA, SAML SSO, activity logging, that candidate data is stored and processed within the US only on AWS US-East, that Cangrade never shares user data with third parties, and that candidate data is never used to train AI models outside the customer's own organization.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The privacy policy discloses the personal data collected (including demographic information and assessment responses), a two-year retention period for candidates and incumbents after the hiring or assessment cycle, GDPR and CCPA rights, reliance on Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers outside the EEA, and names Google Analytics and Google APIs (Calendar, Drive) as subprocessors.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The Terms of Use reference no Data Processing Agreement, no SCCs, no subprocessor register and no customer audit rights, and grant Cangrade broad licensing rights over Candidate Data without the processing protections typical of an enterprise DPA.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No disclosure of training-data provenance, sample composition, demographic representativeness, or a variable exclusion list for the predictive models was found on the Science, Ethical AI, Security & Compliance, or research pages, and no ISO 27001 or ISO 42001 certification appears anywhere on the site or in web search.
Human Oversight Design
3 items56
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The Ethical AI page states "there is no substitute for the human in HR," positions AI output as recommendations, and says humans retain control over advancement thresholds, scoring configuration and final hiring decisions, alongside visual explanations showing which traits contributed to a candidate score.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The solutions page asserts "No black box algorithms" and that every score comes with clear explanations plus built-in ADA compliance, though it does not document audit logs, configurable thresholds or jurisdiction-specific settings.
https://www.cangrade.com/solutions/talent-screening-and-hiring-solutions/
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No published override, appeal or human-review workflow documentation, no per-jurisdiction configuration toggles (for example an NYC LL 144 or Illinois notice mode), and no product screenshots or help-centre documentation evidencing the in-interface score explanation were found on cangrade.com.
Post-Market Monitoring
3 items32
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Cangrade commits to notifying a customer's security contact in writing within 24 hours of confirming a breach with a detailed report within two business days, and claims real-time cyber threat monitoring and a 99.99% uptime SLA, but the notification channel is contractual and customer-only.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The only public contact surfaces published are the general support address support@cangrade.com, a phone number, and the Watertown postal address; no dedicated security or vulnerability-disclosure contact is provided.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No public status page could be confirmed (status.cangrade.com resolved but contained no status or incident content), and no product changelog, release notes, model-update log, continuous bias-monitoring dashboard, or published security incident history was found via the press page or web search.
Customer Documentation
5 items62
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Detailed public product pages cover resume screening and candidate matching, pre-hire assessments with 100+ validated assessments across 30+ languages, structured interview guides, video interviewing, scheduling, and AI reference checking.
https://www.cangrade.com/solutions/talent-screening-and-hiring-solutions/
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A March 2026 deployer-facing guide sets out employer obligations jurisdiction by jurisdiction, including NYC LL 144's annual independent bias audit, public results summary and 10-business-day candidate notice, plus a five-step compliance action plan.
https://www.cangrade.com/blog/talent-acquisition/the-state-by-state-guide-to-ai-hiring-regulations/
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A research hub advertising 21 published studies over 12 years of data offers downloadable reports such as the 40-page Gen Z & Millennial Workforce Intelligence Report based on 71,747 assessments, though the library is HR trend research rather than model validation or bias evidence.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A dedicated security and compliance topic page sits alongside the Science, Ethical AI, patents, use-case and privacy pages, giving buyers a self-serve diligence starting point.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No published Data Processing Agreement, trust center, self-serve compliance document portal, NYC LL 144 vendor-specific guidance, or EU deployer guidance was found; the Ethical AI page directs customers to request compliance documentation packages from their account team instead.
§ 05 - Editorial notes
Company overview
Cangrade was founded in 2014 by Gershon Goren and is headquartered at 9 Munroe Avenue, Watertown, Massachusetts, in the greater Boston area. Its core product is a psychometric pre-hire assessment measuring around 50 traits, scored by machine-learning success models built either from an employer's performance KPIs, from internal subject-matter-expert input, or generatively from a job description, producing a fit score that predicts performance and retention. The platform has since expanded into AI resume screening and candidate matching, structured interview guides, video interviewing, interview scheduling, AI reference checking, and onboarding and retention forecasting. Named customers include Wayfair, FDNY, and Lamar Advertising. The company is privately held with a small team, does not publish pricing, and sells on custom subscription quotes.
Regulatory exposure
Cangrade's product is squarely in scope of the major AI-hiring regimes: it is an AEDT under NYC Local Law 144, a covered AI system under the amended Illinois Human Rights Act and (for its video interviewing module) the Illinois AI Video Interview Act, an ADMT under Colorado's replacement legislation, and would be Annex III high-risk employment AI under the EU AI Act if deployed in the EU. Against that exposure, the company markets unusually categorical claims -"zero statistically significant adverse impact on any legally protected group" and a "0% chance of introducing bias"- that are not matched by published evidence. Cangrade publishes no independent bias audit, no adverse-impact study with sample sizes, dates, or demographic breakdowns, and no Local Law 144 bias-audit summary; it does not appear in the ACLU's crowd-sourced LL 144 audit tracker, and its Ethical AI page names no external auditor. The single public artifact offered in support is US Patent 11,429,859 ("Systems and processes for bias removal in a predictive performance model", granted August 2022), which describes a method for iteratively dropping bias-contributing variables - evidence of technique, not of outcome. Compliance documentation is explicitly gated behind the account team. The EU AI Act is absent from the site entirely, including from Cangrade's own state-by-state AI hiring regulation guide, and no FRIA or Article 26 deployer material exists. Security posture is comparatively better documented: SOC 2 Type 2, US-only data residency on AWS, a commitment that candidate data is never used to train models outside the customer's organization, a 24-hour breach-notification SLA, and named subprocessors in the privacy policy - though no ISO 27001, no ISO 42001, no published DPA, and no trust center.
Path to a higher score
The highest-value single move is to commission and publicly post a named independent bias audit in Local Law 144 format - auditor, date, data source, and intersectional sex-by-race/ethnicity selection-rate and impact ratios - since the current categorical "bias-free" marketing rests entirely on ungated internal testing and a method patent. Alongside it, release the underlying adverse-impact study as a downloadable document with sample sizes and test dates. Second, publish an Article 11-grade technical pack: a model or system card covering intended purpose, training-data provenance and demographic composition, validity coefficients, known limitations, and instructions-for-use, ideally anchored to NIST AI RMF or ISO/IEC 42001. Third, close the EU gap with an Article 27 FRIA template and Article 26 deployer guidance, a downloadable DPA with a subprocessor list, and a public trust center replacing the account-team gate. Finally, stand up post-market surfaces: a working public status page, a dedicated security-disclosure contact and vulnerability policy, a model-update changelog, and periodic re-published adverse-impact monitoring results so the bias claim is continuously evidenced rather than asserted once.
§ Regulatory frame
What applies to assessment ai.
Assessment is the most-regulated surface in AI hiring. NYC LL 144, EEOC and OFCCP frameworks, Illinois HB 3773, and EU AI Act Annex III §4 all apply, with overlap on bias-audit obligations.
§ Compare
Build any comparison→Cangrade against its nearest-scoring peers.
In Assessment AI.
§ Others rated in Assessment AI
All assessment vendors→Ranked 33 of 49 by weighted total under rubric v1.0. The ordering is arithmetic on the rubric and carries no view on which tool suits a given hiring process.
- 30Talkpush46F
- 31Vervoe46F
- 32Arctic Shores46F
- 33CangradeThis profile45F
- 34Equalture44F
- 35Retorio44F
Conflicts of interest
No vendor pays for placement, scoring, or removal. Casework - the consulting firm that operates this directory - provides paid services to some vendors. Any active or recent (within 24 months) commercial relationship is disclosed on the affected vendor profile and the review is reassigned to an independent reviewer. See the full policy on About.
Casework has no commercial relationship with this vendor.