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.
ScreeningSourcing

HireAIScore rates Stepstone 49 out of 100 (grade F, Substantial gaps) under rubric v1.0, last reviewed September 25, 2026. Stepstone ranks 52 of 160 vendors rated in Screening AI, against a category average of 46. That score is drawn from 33 evidence items across 7 rubric criteria for Stepstone — 29 with a cited source, 4 recording that nothing was located.

Score breakdown

Stepstone, criterion by criterion

Each rubric criterion is scored out of 100 on the cited evidence, then weighted into the total.

Weighted contribution shown to the right of each bar.

  1. Article 11 Technical Documentation

    Weight 20% · avg 49

    55

    +11.0

  2. Bias Audit Transparency

    Weight 18% · avg 41

    50

    +9.0

  3. FRIA Support

    Weight 15% · avg 31

    30

    +4.5

  4. Data Governance Disclosure

    Weight 15% · avg 53

    55

    +8.3

  5. Human Oversight Design

    Weight 12% · avg 56

    58

    +7.0

  6. Post-Market Monitoring

    Weight 12% · avg 40

    38

    +4.6

  7. Customer Documentation

    Weight 8% · avg 58

    58

    +4.6

Total weighted score

48.9(rounded to 49 for display)

Category avg is the mean raw score on that criterion across the 160 Screening AI vendors in scope of this rubric, this one included.

Strongest criterion

Customer Documentation

58raw / 100

Contributes 4.6 to the total. 58 against a 58 category average.

Weakest criterion

FRIA Support

30raw / 100

Contributes 4.5 to the total. 30 against a 31 category average.

Cited evidence

The evidence behind the score

Every score is backed by at least one cited piece of evidence. Open a criterion to see what was found, when, and where.

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Evidence ledger

Items
33
Documentation
21
Audit report
1
Public statement
7
Absence
4
With a source URL
29 of 33
Source hostnames
6
Fewest items
3
FRIA Support

These figures measure how thoroughly Stepstone was reviewed, not how Stepstone performed — an absence row, recording that nothing was located, is counted like any other item.

Article 11 Technical Documentation

6 items55

Bias Audit Transparency

4 items50

FRIA Support

3 items30

Data Governance Disclosure

6 items55

Human Oversight Design

5 items58

Post-Market Monitoring

4 items38

Customer Documentation

5 items58

Editorial notes

Company overview

The Stepstone Group started in 1996 in Norway as Jobshop.no. It is headquartered in Düsseldorf and has been majority-owned by KKR and CPP Investments since 2025. It runs Stepstone.de, Totaljobs and other job boards, plus Appcast (US programmatic job ads, out of scope here). Its employer-side AI sits in Stepstone Recruit. The Screening Agent, called 'Talent Assessor' in the data processing agreement, sorts a job ad's requirements into must-have and nice-to-have. It then checks each CV and screening answer against every requirement as fully, partially or not met, and gives recruiters a score or category with the reasons. Talent Finder recommends profiles from a CV database of more than 4 million. Stepstone bought Mya, a US conversational screener, in May 2021 and folded it into jobseeker-side job matching. mya.com now redirects to the corporate homepage and Mya is not among the group's core brands, so there is no sign it is still sold as an employer screener.

Regulatory exposure

EU exposure is maximal. Rating and prioritising applications (Screening Agent) and recommending candidates (Talent Finder) are high-risk uses under EU AI Act Annex III point 4, with Stepstone as provider and its employer customers as deployers. Stepstone's own white paper classifies its candidate recommender as high-risk. The Digital AI Omnibus moved the high-risk obligations from 2 August 2026 to 2 December 2027 without changing them. GDPR Article 22 and Germany's General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) already apply. Stepstone says a human always makes the final decision, although an optional Quality Check automatically filters out non-EU applications. Stepstone says it does not analyse video-interview content, and no emotion-recognition use (banned since February 2025) was found. Both tools are marketed on stepstone.de to employers in Germany. NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773, Colorado SB 26-189 and California's FEHA rules on automated-decision systems therefore matter only where the tools are used for US roles or candidates, and no LL 144 bias audit is published.

Path to a higher score

Publish documentation for the Screening Agent: instructions for use, the underlying model and its provider, how requirements are extracted and weighted, and accuracy and known limitations. Extend the QuantPi / TÜV AI.Lab non-discrimination testing to the live Screening Agent and Talent Finder, cover gender, age, ethnicity and their intersections, and repeat it on a published schedule. Publish deployer guidance for AI Act Articles 26 and 27, including a FRIA template, candidate-notice text and human-oversight procedures, and document the recruiter override controls. Publish the AI section of the trust center, which is currently hidden, name the model and cloud sub-processors, and add a public status page and a model changelog. Pursue ISO/IEC 42001; the trust center says ISO 27001 certification is not planned.

Regulatory frame

What applies to screening AI.

Treated as high-risk under Annex III §4 when the screening output is decisive. EU AI Act Article 13 transparency obligations apply; deployers must give candidates a way to contest.

Keep reading

All screening vendorsHow this score is builtAnnex IV section-by-section: what AI hiring vendors must documentWhat makes a defensible NYC LL 144 bias audit

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Ranking

Others rated in Screening AI

Ranked 52 of 160 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.

  1. #49Versant by Pearson49F
  2. #50Jobma49F
  3. #51Infor Talent Science49F
  4. #52StepstoneThis profile49F
  5. #53Lever49F
  6. #54Oracle Recruiting49F
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Conflicts of interest

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Casework has no commercial relationship with this vendor.