# Candidate assessment: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "pre-employment assessment platform" and as "skills testing tool for hiring", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/talent/candidate-assessment/2026-09

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/talent/candidate-assessment/index.md

**Standing:** TestGorilla leads with 68% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 41 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [TestGorilla](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/testgorilla/index.md) | 68% | 7% | 54 |
| 2 | [Criteria Corp](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/criteria-corp/index.md) | 10% | 3% | 33 |
| 3 | [Vervoe](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/vervoe/index.md) | 2% | 5% | 22 |
| 4 | [Testlify](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/testlify/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 13 |
| 5 | [iMocha](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/imocha/index.md) | 2% | 6% | 16 |
| 6 | [The Predictive Index](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/the-predictive-index/index.md) | 2% | 13% | 15 |
| 12 | [HackerRank](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/hackerrank/index.md) | 0% | 4% | 23 |
| 13 | [Codility](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/codility/index.md) | 0% | 12% | 17 |
| 15 | [Harver](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/harver/index.md) | 0% | 9% | 11 |
| 28 | [HireVue](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/hirevue/index.md) | 0% | 20% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 100 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: The Predictive Index; alternatives Criteria Corp, TestGorilla
- GPT-5.4 mini: TestGorilla; alternatives HireVue, Talogy
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: TestGorilla; alternatives Coderbyte, Criteria Corp, Intervue, The Predictive Index
- Perplexity Sonar: Criteria Corp; alternatives TestGorilla
- Grok 4.20: TestGorilla; alternatives Criteria Corp
- Mistral Small: TestGorilla; alternatives Adaface, Greenhouse, The Predictive Index
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: TestGorilla; alternatives Criteria Corp, The Predictive Index
- Llama 4 Maverick: TestGorilla
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: TestGorilla; alternatives CodeSignal, HireVue, Talmundo
- Kimi K2: Criteria Corp, TestGorilla; alternatives Plum, The Predictive Index
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Criteria Corp; alternatives Harver, Plum, TestGorilla
- MiniMax M2.5: SHL, TestGorilla; alternatives Test Partnership

## Sources the answers cite

66 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- testgorilla.com: 30 answers, 46 citations
- testlify.com: 27 answers, 32 citations
- peoplemanagingpeople.com: 24 answers, 24 citations
- testtrick.com: 23 answers, 39 citations
- jobcannon.io: 23 answers, 34 citations
- firsthr.app: 19 answers, 21 citations
- pin.com: 16 answers, 16 citations
- g2.com: 15 answers, 35 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://jobcannon.io/compare/best-pre-employment-assessments (22 answers)
- https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/tools/best-pre-employment-testing-software (21 answers)
- https://pin.com/blog/pre-employment-assessment-tools (16 answers)
- https://testtrick.com/blogs/hiring-assessment-tools-small-mid-sized-teams (16 answers)
- https://aihr.com/blog/top-pre-employment-assessment-tools (14 answers)
- https://firsthr.app/compare/hiring/pre-employment-assessment (14 answers)
- https://intervue.io/blog/best-pre-employment-testing-software (12 answers)
- https://testgorilla.com/blog/pre-employment-assessment-tools (11 answers)
- https://bryq.com/blog/best-talent-assessment-platforms-2026 (11 answers)
- https://adaface.com/blog/pre-employment-assessment-tools (10 answers)

## Warned against

- ProctorU: 6 of 6 labels negative. "Reviewers describe the platform as “completely unreliable,” with frequent technical glitches, long wait times, and unhelpful support." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- TestGorilla: 4 of 54 labels negative. "Frequent complaints about buggy tests, irrelevant or erroneous questions, unrealistic time limits... steep pricing with rigid annual subscriptions, and poor customer support" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Honorlock: 3 of 4 labels negative. "Chrome-extension-only, which excludes many students; heavy AI monitoring ... creates frequent false positives" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Proctorio: 3 of 4 labels negative. "Repeatedly named in complaints over excessive biometric data collection and opaque AI." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/hr.