Gem

Gem finds people and ranks applicants

What Gem and its customers have seen

Gem has raised $148 million in total. More than 1,200 hiring teams run their recruiting on Gem. A $100 million Series C in September 2021 valued the company at $1.2 billion.

Who Gem suits

Where Gem stops, from your data to your contract

What Gem costs

Gem quotes by your number of employees. It has two plans. Gem + Your ATS is the plan for teams that keep their own applicant tracking system (ATS). The other plan is All-in-One. On Gem + Your ATS, scheduling, the AI Fraud Detection Agent and analytics are add-ons.

Standard seats carry the base features. The AI tools come with an AI-Powered seat. AI Sourcing and Application Review are paid add-ons, bought through your account manager. Ask Gem what the AI-Powered seat adds to your quote.

A company under 30 employees gets All-in-One free for six months, then 50% off a paid plan. A company of 30 to 100 employees gets reduced rates from day one, with no sales call. Gem’s published per-user prices are for recruiting firms only. Company talent teams are not eligible for those plans.

Retention rules, including periods by country, need the Advanced CRM package. CRM is Gem’s candidate database. Ask Gem whether your plan includes Advanced CRM.

Nine questions to put to Gem

1. Can you narrow the Terms of Service licence to running our account? Will you write that into our order form? Good answer: A written list of permitted uses, with no licence to candidate data beyond running our account.
2. The audit tested default weights. Do you have results for the weights we plan to use, including starred criteria? Good answer: A test at our weights, run by the outside auditor, and a plan to repeat it each year.
3. Will you cap price changes during our term? Will you refund the unused months if we cancel after a change? Good answer: A fixed price for the term, in writing, and a refund of unused months if prices rise.
4. Does Application Review work with Lever? Do scores go back into SuccessFactors as well? Good answer: One written list that names each system and says whether scores are saved back.
5. What price will you quote at our headcount for the AI-Powered seat, Application Review and email finding? Good answer: A written quote that lists each add-on, each seat type, the email finding allowance and the renewal price.
6. When our contract ends, how do we get back the scores and summaries from the AI features? Good answer: A named file format, a time window, and a promise to delete the rest after export.
7. Your data exports include fields for predicted gender and predicted race or ethnicity. How are they produced? Can we switch them off? Good answer: A clear method, a setting to switch them off, and no use of them in scoring.
8. How do you answer a person who asks why they appear in your database and how to be removed? Good answer: A named process, a response time, and removal that covers every Gem customer account.
9. Which contract will we sign, the Terms of Service or the Enterprise agreement? Which terms win if they differ? Good answer: A written statement of which terms govern.

Alternatives to Gem

The alternatives are LinkedIn Recruiter, SeekOut, hireEZ, Findem, Pin, Greenhouse and Workable, or buying nothing.

LinkedIn Recruiter is the paid LinkedIn tool for finding people who have not applied. Its AI add-on, Hiring Assistant, is sold on top of a Recruiter contract. LinkedIn is rolling it out gradually, so a customer may not have it yet. SeekOut searches nearly one billion public profiles. Its Applicant Evaluation and AI Screening reviews applicants against the role requirements.

hireEZ runs on top of your tracking system. Every candidate gets a screening conversation by voice or chat using your questions, and you decide who moves forward. Findem draws on more than 850 million profiles. It connects to your tracking system and candidate database to keep candidate data current. It does not replace them.

Pin works alongside your tracking system. Its AI recruiting agent covers sourcing, screening, messages and booking. Staffing agencies, boutique firms and independent recruiters use Pin. Pin also offers a version for in-house recruiting teams.

Greenhouse sells Real Talent. Its filters sort applications by how well they match the criteria the employer sets. It never advances or rejects a candidate. It works much like Application Review. Real Talent also targets fraud and spam. Greenhouse sells Voice AI interviews in 11 languages. Voice AI works with or without the Greenhouse system.

Workable Agent is built into Workable’s tracking system. It runs the first steps of hiring, from sourcing and screening to a shortlist. It can be added to any Workable plan and is paid for with prepaid AI credits.

Buying nothing means no licence over your candidate data and no renewal to track. It also means searching and sorting stay manual. Our guide to AI sourcing and screening covers what the rest of the market offers.