HR AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Talent acquisition › Candidate assessment › Enterprise › September 2026 Edition

Candidate assessment for enterprise buyers

Asked as “pre-employment assessment platform”, and as “skills testing tool for hiring”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 38 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
SHL
Contested
24% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 50 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessTestGorilla71%Clear leaderStanding →Mid-marketTestGorilla68%Clear leaderStanding →EnterpriseSHL24%ContestedThis page

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01SHL24%18%33accepted challenger
02Criteria Corp11%20%30accepted challenger
03iMocha8%5%19accepted challenger
04The Predictive Index8%10%10accepted challenger
05Harver5%8%24accepted challenger
06TestGorilla5%30%27criticized challenger
07Mercer | Mettl3%0%20accepted challenger
08HireVue3%22%27accepted challenger
09HackerRank3%22%23accepted challenger
10Testlify3%9%11accepted challenger
11Vervoe3%9%11accepted challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Codility0%17%18accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
TestGorilla vs Criteria CorpTestGorilla vs VervoeCriteria Corp vs Vervoe

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01SHL24%
02Criteria Corp11%
03iMocha8%
04The Predictive Index8%
05Harver5%
06TestGorilla5%
07Mercer | Mettl3%
08HireVue3%
09HackerRank3%
10Testlify3%
11Vervoe3%
12Codility0%

02What they warned about

Zero of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
SHL
18%
6 of 33 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Enterprise-only, custom contracts with variable pricing” Kimi K2, budget prompt
TestGorilla
30%
8 of 27 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“What to Avoid: ... TestGorilla | Credit-based pricing increases with headcount ... making it expensive at scale” Kimi K2, paraphrase prompt
HireVue
22%
6 of 27 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Even if a vendor has partially retreated from these features (as HireVue did), their presence in the product history signals weak psychometric governance.” Kimi K2, negative prompt
Criteria Corp
20%
6 of 30 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“these vendors are increasingly viewed as "expensive overkill" if a lighter, skills-first tool can achieve 90% of the predictive power” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

65 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 971 links across 301 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

testlify.com
vendor site · Testlify37 answers · 64 citations · 10 models
bestrecruitingtools.com
35 answers · 38 citations · 10 models
jobcannon.io
vendor site · JobCannon23 answers · 32 citations · 8 models
bryq.com
vendor site · Bryq21 answers · 33 citations · 10 models
testgorilla.com
vendor site · TestGorilla20 answers · 26 citations · 9 models
aihr.com
vendor site · AIHR17 answers · 17 citations · 8 models
pin.com
vendor site · Pin17 answers · 17 citations · 10 models
sovaassessment.com
16 answers · 32 citations · 9 models
gartner.com
vendor site · Gartner15 answers · 34 citations · 8 models
g2.com
12 answers · 25 citations · 7 models
worldmetrics.org
12 answers · 21 citations · 8 models
fuel50.com
vendor site · Fuel5012 answers · 12 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

bestrecruitingtools.com/blog/best-pre-employment-assessment-software-enterp…
34 answers · 10 models
testlify.com/top-10-pre-hire-assessment-platforms-for-enterprises
26 answers · 8 models
jobcannon.io/compare/best-pre-employment-assessments
20 answers · 8 models
testlify.com/guide-to-choose-the-best-talent-assessment-software
19 answers · 8 models
bryq.com/blog/best-talent-assessment-platforms-2026
18 answers · 9 models
aihr.com/blog/top-pre-employment-assessment-tools
17 answers · 8 models
pin.com/blog/pre-employment-assessment-tools
13 answers · 9 models
fuel50.com/blog/skills-assessment-platforms
12 answers · 8 models
gartner.com/reviews/market/talent-assessment-software
12 answers · 7 models
greenhouse.com/blog/best-recruiting-assessment-tools
9 answers · 6 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best pre-employment assessment platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which skills testing tool for hiring would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade assessment platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best pre-employment assessment platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a pre-employment assessment platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which assessment platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5HireVue
Two alternativesHarver, iMocha
SovaChanged
Three alternativesHarver, HireVue, SHL
Mercer | Mettl, SHL
Two alternativesExamSoft, Questionmark
The Predictive Index
One alternativeHarver
against: TestGorillano first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniSHL
Five alternativesCodility, Criteria Corp, HackerRank, HireVue, Mercer | Mettl
QuestionmarkChanged
One alternativeHackerRank
Mercer | Mettl
Four alternativesHogan Assessments, Korn Ferry, SHL, Talview
Harver
One alternativeTestGorilla
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashCriteria Corp
Eight alternativesCaliper, CoderPad, Codility, HackerRank, Objective Management Group, SHL, SalesDrive, The Predictive Index
against: DISCSHLChanged
Five alternativesCodeSignal, Criteria Corp, HackerEarth, Harver, eSkill
no first choice
Nine alternativesCodility, Criteria Corp, HackerRank, HireVue, Hogan Assessments, Mercer | Mettl, Questionmark, SHL, TestGorilla
Criteria Corp
Three alternativesBryq, Harver, Vervoe
against: HackerRank, TestGorillano first choiceagainst: Codility, Eightfold AI, HackerRank, HireVue, Wonderlic, Workday, iCIMS
Perplexity SonarSHL
Five alternativesCodility, Harver, HireVue, TestGorilla, The Predictive Index
iMochaChanged
Four alternativesCodeSignal, HackerRank, Sova, Testlify
no first choiceSHL
Four alternativesHarver, HireVue, TestGorilla, Testlify
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastSHL
Two alternativesCriteria Corp, TestGorilla
Mercer | Mettl, iMochaChangedagainst: Codility, Criteria Corp, HackerRank, Sova, TestGorilla, Testlifyno first choiceCriteria Corp
Three alternativesHarver, Pymetrics, The Predictive Index
against: HackerRank, HireVue, JobCannon, Korn Ferry, SHL, TestGorilla, iMochano first choice
Two alternativesSHL, TestGorilla
against: Criteria Corp, Harver, HireVue, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Mistral SmallHarver
Two alternativesScale, TestGorilla
no first choiceChangedno first choiceJobCannon
Two alternativesBryq, Criteria Corp
no first choiceagainst: SHL
DeepSeek V4 FlashSHL
Three alternativesCriteria Corp, HireVue, Mercer | Mettl
SHL, iMochaChanged
Seven alternativesCodility, HackerRank, Harver, HireVue, Mercer | Mettl, TestGorilla, Testlify
SHL
Twelve alternativesAon, Arctic Shores, CodeSignal, Codility, HackerRank, Harver, Korn Ferry, Mercer | Mettl, Plum, Sova, Talogy, iMocha
against: Criteria Corp, TestGorilla, Vervoe, Xobin, eSkillTalentClick
One alternativeSHL
against: Criteria Corp, Harver, JobCannon, The Predictive Indexno first choiceagainst: Caliper, DISC, HireVue, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, SHL, Spark Hire, True Colors, myInterview
Llama 4 MaverickTestGorilla
Two alternativesAIHR, Testlify
no first choiceChangedno first choiceBryq
Two alternativesCriteria Corp, JobCannon
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashVervoe
Four alternativesGlider.ai, HireVue, Pymetrics, TestGorilla
HackerRankChanged
Four alternativesCodeSignal, HireVue, SHL, TestDome
SHL
Six alternativesCodility, HackerRank, Mercer | Mettl, TestGorilla, Unstop, iMocha
TalentGuard
Two alternativesCriteria Corp, HireVue
no first choiceagainst: Criteria Corp, SHL
Kimi K2Criteria Corp, SHL
Three alternativesHireVue, Mercer | Mettl, The Predictive Index
SovaChanged
Four alternativesCodility, HireVue, SHL, iMocha
against: TestGorillaCodility, HackerRank
Five alternativesHireVue, Mercer | Mettl, Questionmark, SHL, iMocha
against: TestGorillaThe Predictive Index
Two alternativesBryq, Criteria Corp
against: Codility, HackerRank, HireVue, SHL, Wonderlicno first choiceagainst: Aon, HireVue, Qualtrics, Questionmark, Workday
GLM 4.7 FlashXTestGorilla
Three alternativesCriteria Corp, HireVue, iMocha
TestlifyChanged
Four alternativesCodility, HackerRank, Vervoe, iMocha
against: TestGorillaTestlify
Twelve alternativesApptega, Codility, Degreed, Eightfold AI, Fuel50, HackerRank, HireVue, LogicGate / Risk Cloud, Mercer | Mettl, Questionmark, SHL, Vervoe
Bryq
Six alternativesCriteria Corp, Harver, Hire Success, JobCannon, Sova, TalentClick
no first choiceagainst: Canvas, CoderPad, Learnosity, Mathspace, Talogy
MiniMax M2.5SHL, The Predictive Index
Three alternativesCriteria Corp, Harver, TestGorilla
no first choiceChangedMercer | Mettl
Five alternativesCodility, HackerRank, TestGorilla, Testlify, iMocha
Bryq, JobCannon
Two alternativesHarver, PeopleFactors
against: Criteria Corp, Korn Ferry, SHLno first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:12yes1610 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:00yes324 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:54yes1044 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:59yes207 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:27yes4120 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:57yes54 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:34yes2519 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:32yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:19no033 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:36yes1329 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:35yes3041 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 21:29yes722 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:35yes189 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 21:36yes26 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 20:16yes1820 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:11yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:12yes4217 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:30no03 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:48yes1916 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:40yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:33no028 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:44yes1827 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:30yes1262 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 21:38yes525 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:53yes1715 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:57yes67 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 22:03yes2462 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 21:24yes207 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:16yes2617 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:39yes57 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 21:11yes1923 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:28yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:25yes952 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:06yes3075 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:51yes21146 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 21:47yes1929 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:39yes138 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 21:11yes38 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 20:03yes2925 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:38yes196 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:20yes4223 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:38yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:44yes2448 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:57yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:36no033 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:40yes1425 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:00yes2351 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 21:28yes1650 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:31yes1813 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:47yes08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:52no036 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:56yes207 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:45yes1611 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:54no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 18:09yes28137 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:27yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:16yes539 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:36yes2341 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:47yes1450 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:22yes524 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:45yes2712 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:16yes36 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:58yes2161 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:37yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:15yes2516 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:08yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 21:37yes29100 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:12yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:00yes943 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:00yes2476 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:57yes2957 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 21:39yes1430 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Aon Assessment Solutions (cut-e) read as Aon
Criteria read as Criteria Corp
Eightfold read as Eightfold AI
Glider read as Glider.ai
Hogan read as Hogan Assessments
Korn Ferry Assess read as Korn Ferry
Mercer read as Mercer | Mettl
Sova Assessment read as Sova
Unresolved, counted raw
Apptega
Arctic Shores
Assess
AssessFirst
Central Test
Cynomi
Hire Success
PeopleFactors
Scale
SightGain
Talvox
TestTalents
True Colors
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in talent acquisition

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
← Background screeningInterview scheduling →