SmartRecruiters

# Fix list: SmartRecruiters

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smartrecruiters, the October 2026 research run, assessed 7 October 2026. Grade C, 60.4 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on SmartRecruiters: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Payments & pricing, 8 out of 100, up to 11.5 more on the total

Why it scored 8: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The pricing page gives one figure, Essential "starting at $14,995" with no period stated, and the other three plans on request (5). No free tier or trial found (0). A customer administrator has to create the credential in a browser. The Posting API returns published jobs with no credential, which earns partial credit (3).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 2. Agent ergonomics, 51 out of 100, up to 8 more on the total

Why it scored 51: List endpoints take `limit` up to 100 with a default of 10, and webhooks carry IDs only. No field selection found (12). Cursor paging by `pageId` and filters such as `status`, `jobId` and `updatedAfter`, though some endpoints still page by `offset` (16). Errors return a code and message, with the codes listed per operation (14). No idempotency keys found. The docs advise backoff and a 128-second client timeout (3). Few required parameters and sensible defaults, but no official SDK in any language (6).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 3. Security & auth, 65 out of 100, up to 6.1 more on the total

Why it scored 65: OAuth 2.0 client credentials with 49 scopes, a system role and an optional access group, 1,799-second access tokens and revocation in Credential Manager. An unscoped API key with full company access and no expiry is also available, and secrets travel in headers only (26). Read scopes are separate from write and manage scopes, and access groups limit which records a credential sees. No confirmation step for deletes found (13). The API returns CVs and screening answers written by candidates, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (2). Audit API for administrators with at least 26 months of retention, and a webhook callback log (11). The trust centre lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, TISAX and UK Cyber Essentials with yearly external penetration tests. No security.txt or bug bounty found (13).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 4. Reliability, 78 out of 100, up to 4.4 more on the total

Why it scored 78: Graded on the public REST API. Statuspage at status.smartrecruiters.com with 11 components, among them Customer API and Marketplace API (20). Two incidents in the 90 days to 7 October, both on Recruiter Apps. Errors on the People, Job and Communities pages in the EU datacentre for 84 minutes on 21 July, marked major, and a 20-minute login fault on 7 September. Neither names the Customer API, so we scored between a minor record and one major outage (15). Limits are published at 10 requests a second and 8 concurrent per credential (15). X-RateLimit headers on every response and exponential backoff guidance, but Retry-After is documented only for the deprecated Analytics API and no idempotency keys were found for writes (8). SLA of 99.9 per cent annual availability for paid subscriptions (10). The API is generally available, with single fields marked alpha (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 5. Schema & documentation, 75 out of 100, up to 4.1 more on the total

Why it scored 75: Each reference page carries an OpenAPI 3.0.1 definition and a Swagger page exists. We found no single downloadable spec file (23). llms.txt of 511 lines and every docs page served as Markdown (10). Descriptions are uneven. Candidate search and status updates explain behaviour, while creating an interview has an empty description (9). Inputs are typed with enums, minimum and maximum values, patterns and required fields (12). Error codes are named per operation, such as REQUIRED_SUB_STATUS_OMITTED, with an ErrorResponse schema, but the definitions we read had no examples and the Get Started example posts a user body to `/jobs` (8). Dated changelog with an RSS feed, and a written breaking changes policy with versioned endpoints (13).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 6. Maintenance & community, 58 out of 100, up to 3.7 more on the total

Why it scored 58: Newest changelog entry 5 October 2026, on offer property details (30). Nine dated entries between 24 August and 5 October (20). Closed service with a changelog and RSS feed. API issues go through Contact Support inside a customer account, and no public developer forum was found (8). No official SDKs (0). No packages to assess (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 79 out of 100, up to 1.8 more on the total

Made of editorial 75, provenance 82.

Why it scored 79: Editorial half. Closed service with a public Master Subscription Agreement (version 15 November 2024) and an archive of earlier versions (15). Privacy notice updated 2 March 2026, a pre-signed DPA, 30 days of API access after termination followed by deletion, and 26 months of audit retention. The AI addendum lets SmartRecruiters train on anonymised or pseudonymised data, and the detailed retention documents sit in the trust centre (24). Written policy of at least 10 months' notice before a sunset and 24 months of support for earlier versions (18). Sub-processor list with purposes and locations, default hosting in Frankfurt with Ohio and Sydney as alternatives (18).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Terms of service: read, states 5 of the 7 things a reader expects, and has 2 clauses that cost points (4.3 of 10)
- Privacy policy: read, states 5 of the 8 things a reader expects (7.8 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- unchecked: the SmartSandbox product page returned 403 to our reader, so sandbox terms and price are not established
- unchecked: trust centre documents (SOC 2 report, data retention policy, penetration test reports) are behind an access request
- unchecked: the billing period for the $14,995 Essential starting price, which the pricing page doesn't state
- unchecked: the tools on https://developers.smartrecruiters.com/mcp, which answers 401. The vendor's MCP page says it isn't supported for the public API
- Whether a single downloadable OpenAPI file exists beyond the per-page definitions and the Swagger page
- The date SAP's acquisition closed, which the vendor's acquisition page doesn't give
- Whether the Audit API records API calls by credential or only the account and MFA events it lists
- Whether any endpoint accepts an idempotency key. None appeared in the seven reference pages read

## Weaknesses

- No free tier, trial or self-serve signup found. The Essential plan starts at $14,995 and the other three plans are quoted on request
- No idempotency keys in the reference pages we read, so a create retried after a timeout can duplicate a candidate or interview
- No official SDK, and the vendor's MCP page says the MCP server isn't supported for the public API
- An API key has full access to company data with no scopes and no expiry
- Offer endpoints are read-only, and new partner apps now go through the SAP PartnerEdge Build programme

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Ask the customer's admin for an OAuth client ID with only the scopes needed. An API key reads and writes all company data and never expires
- Exchange the client ID and secret at https://api.smartrecruiters.com/identity/oauth/token and refresh every 30 minutes
- Stay under 10 requests a second and 8 concurrent. `GET /candidates` allows 1 concurrent request, and job publication 2 a second
- Move a candidate with `PUT /candidates/{id}/jobs/{jobId}/status`. The variants without `jobId` act on the most recently updated application
- Page with `limit` (maximum 100, default 10) and `pageId` from `nextPageId`. Use the Reporting API for bulk reads, which returns CSV

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.