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softgarden

EU-Made Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by softgarden e-recruiting GmbH · softgarden.com

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Employer Branding Manager

Weighted verdict

Owns the career page and the job-ad budget. Wants a career site that works on a phone, applications without an account, and cost per applicant per channel rather than a logo wall of job boards. Reads a pricing page for what a posting on StepStone actually adds to the bill.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Employer Branding Manager

Applicant management & hiring workflow

How this is scored

The daily work of hiring: pipeline stages per job, collaboration with hiring managers, structured evaluation, interview scheduling and candidate communication — judged on whether a decision is documented rather than merely made.

0 — An inbox of applications with a status field; no stages per job, no shared evaluation and no record of who decided what.

3 — A fixed pipeline with drag-and-drop stages and email templates, but hiring managers see everything or nothing, and evaluation is free-text comments.

5 — Configurable pipelines per job, hiring-manager access limited to their own vacancies, structured scorecards, interview scheduling with calendar integration, and templated candidate emails in German.

8 — Approval workflows for requisitions and offers, role-based access per team and location, structured interview kits, bulk actions with automated but reviewable candidate communication, and a history on each candidate of every stage change and who made it.

10 — The pipeline is an auditable record of a fair process: every decision attributed and reasoned, evaluation criteria fixed before applications arrive, reporting on time-to-hire and drop-off per stage, and the full history exportable per candidate for an AGG dispute.

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The Employer Branding Manager

An application overview with team communication, dashboards reporting time-to-hire and time-to-interview, and a system history logging access attempts and changes to records take this above a bare inbox. We found no public information on pipeline stages per job, structured scorecards, interview scheduling, or hiring-manager access limited to their own vacancies, so decisions beyond the change log are not documented on the captured pages. 1 2 3

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Multiposting, career page & candidate experience

How this is scored

Getting a vacancy in front of the right people and letting them apply: job-board distribution for the German market, the career page, and an application process that does not lose candidates on a phone.

0 — No career page and no job-board distribution; vacancies are posted by hand elsewhere.

3 — A basic hosted job list and free aggregator feeds, with no named German boards, and an application form that requires an account or a desktop.

5 — A branded career page, multiposting to named boards including the Bundesagentur für Arbeit and at least one major German paid board, Google for Jobs markup, and mobile application without an account.

8 — Multiposting with booking and budget tracking per board from inside the system, source attribution per applicant, career page in several languages with an embeddable widget, accessibility stated, and an application form configurable per job.

10 — Distribution is measured, not only broadcast: cost and applicants per channel reported, the career page meets a stated accessibility standard, one-click or CV-parse application on mobile, and candidates can see their own status and withdraw themselves.

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The Employer Branding Manager

Multiposting to more than 1,200 job boards plus social media and Google Ads, a career page in both packages, and per-ad analysis of conversion rates and entry channels give me a real channel view rather than pure broadcast. The captured pages name no individual German boards, and we found no public information on mobile application without an account, an accessibility statement, or booking and budget tracking per board from inside the system. 1 2

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Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent

How this is scored

What happens to the data of people who were not hired: automatic deletion on a configurable deadline, talent-pool consent that expires, data-subject requests, and access logging — the criterion the employer is actually liable for.

0 — Nothing stated about retention or deletion; applicant data stays until someone removes it by hand.

3 — Manual deletion and an anonymise button exist, but no automatic deadline, and talent-pool storage has no stated consent step.

5 — Automatic deletion or anonymisation after a configurable period after rejection, talent-pool storage only with recorded consent, and a documented way to answer an access or erasure request.

8 — Retention rules per country or entity, consent with expiry and automated re-consent requests, candidate self-service for their own data, a log of who viewed or exported an applicant file, and permissions a works council can review.

10 — Governance that can be evidenced: deletion runs are logged and reportable, special-category data can be excluded or restricted by field, every export is recorded, and the vendor publishes how deletion propagates to backups and to the job boards and tools it syncs with.

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The Employer Branding Manager

Automatic deletion of applicant data configured by the employer to its own requirements, a recommended six-month retention period, a four-week SLA for data-subject requests, and a log of access attempts and changes to records form a defensible baseline. We found no public information on talent-pool consent or its expiry, retention rules per country, or candidate self-service for their own data. 2 3

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AI screening transparency & control

How this is scored

Whether any automated ranking, matching, parsing or rejection is disclosed, explained and switchable — recruitment is a high-risk use under the EU AI Act, and an undisclosed score next to a candidate's name is a co-determination matter. A product without AI features is judged on stating so.

0 — AI matching or scoring is marketed with no statement of what it evaluates, where it runs, or whether it can be turned off.

3 — AI features are described as a benefit, with a general assurance that humans decide, but no documentation of inputs, no per-feature switch and no model or provider named.

5 — Each AI feature is described with its purpose and inputs, can be disabled per account, never rejects a candidate without a human action, and the model provider or subprocessor is named.

8 — AI outputs are shown with their reasoning to the recruiter, candidates are informed when AI is used, protected attributes are stated to be excluded, EU processing is available for the AI features, and the vendor publishes its EU AI Act position.

10 — The vendor treats recruitment AI as the high-risk system the law says it is: documentation a works council can base an agreement on, bias testing described and repeated, logs of every AI-assisted decision retained for audit, and every AI feature off by default until the customer enables it.

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The Employer Branding Manager

AI features are named — a screening assistant, an interview assistant, job-ad text creation and candidate matching — and sold with the assurance 'Transparent und ohne Blackbox'. That is a benefit description with a transparency slogan: we found no public information on the inputs each feature evaluates, a switch per feature, whether a human acts before any rejection, or the model provider used. 1 2

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HR handover, integrations & API

How this is scored

The hire does not end in the ATS: handover to the HR system and payroll, identity and calendar integration, e-signature for contracts, and an API a team can build on.

0 — No integrations and no API; a hired candidate is retyped into the HR system.

3 — A CSV export and an email integration, with a partner marketplace that names no German HR or payroll systems.

5 — A documented API, calendar and video-interview integration, and a named handover to at least one HR system common in DACH (e.g. Personio, DATEV-connected systems, SAP SuccessFactors).

8 — Maintained integrations with several named HR systems carrying the hire's data without retyping, SSO and SCIM, e-signature for offers and contracts, webhooks, and an API with published limits.

10 — Integration is designed rather than bolted on: a versioned API with a deprecation policy, handover that carries documents and consent status into the HR record, deletion that propagates to connected systems, and the vendor maintaining the German integrations itself.

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The Employer Branding Manager

The hire is carried forward by softgarden's own onboarding module through pre-boarding, re-boarding and offboarding, and a scheduling provider appears among the named subcontractors. We found no public information on a documented API, SSO, e-signature, or handover to any named HR or payroll system, so how a hire reaches an HR system like Personio or DATEV is not shown. 1 3

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where applicant data lives, who the contracting entity is, who the subprocessors are — including the job boards, CV parsers and AI providers the system passes CVs to. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; weighted higher here than in categories holding the customer's own data, because every record belongs to a third party who never chose the vendor.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and CV parsing or AI processing of unclear location.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent, or CV parsing and AI features run outside the EU without saying so.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — parsing, AI, email delivery — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published including parsing and AI providers, and a DPA that covers applicant data as the customer's processing.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and the AI and CV-parsing features run within the EU on providers the customer can see.

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The Employer Branding Manager

Applicant data is stated to be hosted in German data centres at named providers — WIIT, formerly myLoc, and Equinix in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf — under a Berlin contracting entity with a published register number, alongside a subcontractor list naming the parsing provider Textkernel, a downloadable and digitally signable data-processing agreement, ISO 27001/27017/27018 certification, and the statement that no third-country transfer of applicant data occurs. Ownership could not be confirmed in the independently sourced attributes, and a US Cloud Act caveat is flagged around the support tool Intercom — engaged via its Irish entity, with softgarden arguing it is not a subcontractor — which keeps this a notch below the top. 3 4

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: the pricing model (per employee, per open job, per recruiter seat), job-board posting costs, add-ons for AI, career page or integrations, and the minimum term.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A starting price exists, but the pricing basis (employees, jobs, seats) or which features sit in which tier is unstated — the invoice is unknowable.

5 — Tier prices public with the pricing basis and main limits given, but at least one commonly needed piece (paid job-board postings, AI features, integrations, extra seats) is unpriced.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its basis and limits, add-on prices listed, job-board posting costs or the booking model stated, minimum term and VAT treatment given.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given company size, number of open roles and recruiter seats, with every add-on, posting package and overage published.

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The Employer Branding Manager

The Core package is publicly priced 'ab 199 € / Monat' with five included jobs, unlimited users, and VAT treatment given as 'Alle Preise zzgl. MwSt.' — more than a mere starting price. But the All-in-One package is 'Individuelle Preisgestaltung', and we found no public information on job-board posting costs, prices for the AI modules, or the minimum term, so a real annual invoice is not computable from the public pages; a brochure with all packages and prices is offered for download, but its contents are not shown on the captured pages. 1 2

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency EU only ⚠ unverified 3/3 pts 3 Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (13)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage softgarden.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing page softgarden.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy softgarden.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Legal notice softgarden.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Applicant management & hiring workflow — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Applicant management & hiring workflow — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Multiposting, career page & candidate experience — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Multiposting, career page & candidate experience — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 AI screening transparency & control — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 AI screening transparency & control — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 HR handover, integrations & API — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 HR handover, integrations & API — found from sitemap softgarden.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →