Talvin
Resources/Tools/Vendor Scorecard
FREE · 12 CRITERIA

Score any AI interview tool before you sign

Twelve criteria that decide whether an AI screening tool survives real hiring — including the four most vendors quietly fail. Rate your shortlist here and get the questions that expose the gaps.

Score a vendor Maturity audit Yours to take into your buying process
Talvin scored on the same twelve, including where we lose· Updated August 2026
Where evaluations go wrong The four blind spots
Explainability
Nobody asks how a rejection gets explained until a candidate asks.
Live integrations
Roadmap and reality get demoed as the same thing.
Completion rate
A tool that candidates abandon is a funnel leak, not a saving.
Price at volume
The number that matters is 500 interviews a month, in writing.
The problem

Most tools demo well. That's exactly the problem.

Teams pick the vendor with the cleanest demo, then hit the walls three months in — a bias question nobody can answer, an integration that turns out to be on the roadmap, candidates dropping out because the experience feels robotic. By then the contract is signed and the pilot is your problem. This scorecard moves those questions to before you commit.

The scorecard

Rate your shortlist, 1 to 5, across twelve criteria.

Score from what you've actually verified, not what the deck claims. Anything you're guessing at should be a 3 — and then a question on the call.

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Start here

Which vendors are you scoring?

The tools we see most often on APAC shortlists. Pick as many as you're comparing — you'll score each across the same twelve criteria, then see them side by side.

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Last step

Where should we send the full twelve-question script?

Your result is on the next screen either way. The email version includes all twelve questions with the red-flag answer beside each, as a sheet you can bring to the call.

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Ask these three before you sign

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52–60
Strong — verify the claims in writing
42–51
Credible contender, known gaps
30–41
Only with conditions in the contract
12–29
A pilot that will cost you a quarter

The twelve things that actually matter

Four of them are where most evaluations fail
01
Screening accuracy
Does it surface the candidates a good recruiter would have picked?
02
Ranking quality
An ordered shortlist, not a pass/fail pile you still have to read.
03
Completion rate
Blind spot. A tool candidates abandon is a leak, not a saving.
04
How human it feels
Real conversation, or a form with a face on it.
05
Bias & auditability
Can outcomes be reviewed by group, and exported?
06
Explainable decisions
Blind spot. Nobody asks until a candidate does.
07
ATS integrations live
Blind spot. Roadmap and reality get demoed the same way.
08
Setup & time-to-live
Days, or a quarter of implementation calls.
09
Voice depth
Does it follow up on what the candidate actually said?
10
Languages & accents
Accuracy on the accents your candidates actually have.
11
Pricing transparency
Blind spot. What 500 interviews a month costs, in writing.
12
Support & onboarding
Who answers when a live role stalls at 6pm.

The shortlist most teams start from

All comparisons →

Public, verifiable positioning only — where a vendor doesn't publish a figure we've left it blank rather than guess. We make Talvin, so read our row with the scepticism you'd apply to any vendor's own table.

Vendor Interview format Conversational depth Pricing Best for
Talvin AI Two-way adaptive voice, optional video capture Contextual follow-ups, depth configurable per question Published, per-minute APAC volume hiring, 25+ a quarter
HireVue One-way video, assessments, new AI interviewer Validated rubric, their framework Enterprise, quote-based Large US and EU enterprises
Ribbon AI AI phone screening Conversational, screening-level Published, per-interview tiers US high-volume phone screening
HeyMilo AI voice interviews Conversational Not published High-volume voice screening, US-built
Interviewer.AI One-way video, avatar add-on Mostly fixed questions Published self-serve tiers SMB and agencies
Vervoe Skills assessments and tasks Task-based, not conversational SMB tiers Skills-first SMB hiring
The script

Twelve questions to send before the demo

Send them in writing, before anyone gets a slide deck in front of you. The answers matter — and so do the silences. Each one has a red-flag answer beside it, which is usually the one you'll get.

01
Show me how you'd explain a rejection to a candidate who asks.
Red flag: a confidence score with no reasoning behind it.
02
What's your candidate completion rate, and how is it measured?
Red flag: "our clients see great engagement" with no number.
03
Which ATS integrations are live today — not on the roadmap?
Red flag: "we integrate with everything through our API."
04
What does 500 interviews a month cost, in writing?
Red flag: pricing that only appears after a discovery call.
05
How do you detect and report bias across demographic groups?
Red flag: a compliance PDF instead of an outcome report.
06
Can a hiring manager see why a candidate ranked where they did?
Red flag: the score is visible, the rubric behind it isn't.
07
Which languages and accents do you support, and how accurate are they?
Red flag: a language list with no accuracy figures per region.
08
How long from signing to a live role?
Red flag: an implementation phase with no fixed end date.
09
Where is candidate data stored, and who owns it?
Red flag: no named region, or ownership buried in the terms.
10
What's the accessibility story — re-attempts and accommodations?
Red flag: one attempt, one format, no alternative path.
11
What's your uptime and support SLA during a live campaign?
Red flag: support hours that don't overlap your hiring hours.
12
Who owns the interview questions and the scoring logic?
Red flag: you can't edit either without a services engagement.

Fair questions

We make one of the tools you might be scoring. Here's how we handle that.

Isn't a scorecard from a vendor rigged? +
It would be if the criteria were picked to flatter us. Two of the twelve — live ATS integration breadth and enterprise assessment validation — are ones we don't win today, and they're in there because they decide real purchases. Score us on the same sheet.
Are the twelve criteria weighted? +
Deliberately not. Weighting is where a vendor's thumb goes on the scale. Every criterion is worth 1–5, the total runs 12–60, and you decide which low scores you can live with — a 2 on languages is fatal in Kuala Lumpur and irrelevant in Denver.
What if I haven't seen the product yet? +
Score what you can verify and leave the rest at 3. The result then reads as a question list rather than a verdict, which is exactly what you want going into a first call.
Do I have to give you an email? +
You see the total, the per-criterion breakdown and your three questions on screen regardless. The email version is the twelve-question sheet with red-flag answers, formatted to bring to a call.

Want a second opinion on your shortlist?

Bring your scored vendors to a twenty-minute call. We'll run them through the same twelve criteria, point out where the gaps usually hide, and show where Talvin scores — including where we don't fit.

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