Lever

Lever is a hiring system, also called an applicant tracking system. It holds your applicants and your open roles. Its AI feature Talent Fit ranks the people who applied and says why. An extra product, AI Screening by VONQ, talks to applicants by chat or voice. Lever gives its price when you ask.

By Ashish Manchanda Published 14 Oct 2026 Last updated 14 Oct 2026

Lever ranks your applicants with AI, and a recruiter decides

In one line

Lever ranks applicants against the role and explains each ranking. An add-on screens them by chat or voice. Recruiters keep the final say.

Buy it if

You want AI ranking and screening inside the system that holds your applicants. You want a recruiter to make every decision. You can accept that Employ’s AI terms leave the checking of the AI’s output to you.

Do not buy it if

You need a price before you speak to a salesperson. You need a promise of accuracy from the vendor. You need terms with no standing consent to use data about how you use the AI to improve it.

Price

Lever gives its price on request and sets it by team size and hiring needs. Your subscription carries a limit set at your headcount on the order date. AI Screening by VONQ is sold as an extra with a separate quote.

What Lever’s AI does with an applicant

Lever is a hiring system with AI built in. Talent Fit comes with the platform. So does AI screening that matches candidates to roles. AI Screening by VONQ is an add-on with a price quote.

Talent Fit reads the job requirements and ranks candidates against them. Each person gets a score and an explanation. It looks at skills and experience, not only keywords. Your team can change the criteria.

The AI Screening Companion works on new applicants as they arrive. It shows each person’s fit with a reason. It finds people who may have been overlooked. It alerts the recruiter when a candidate looks ready to walk away. It also flags jobs that have been open for more than 30 days.

VONQ is a separate company that Employ partnered with in June 2026. Its AI runs the screen inside Lever. A candidate answers by chat or voice as soon as they apply. The AI compares the answers with criteria from your job description. The recruiter gets a ranked shortlist in Lever. Each candidate has a file that shows how the score was reached. The recruiter reviews it and the hiring team makes every decision. Warden AI, an outside firm, audits it for bias. AI Screening by VONQ cuts manual screening time by 70 to 90%.

Some AI features come built in and wait for someone on your side to turn them on. AI features may be available by default under Employ’s AI terms. Employ does not process your data with them until an authorised user on your side enables them.

Who Lever’s AI suits

You already hold your applicants in Lever

Lever puts its AI inside the same screen where recruiters already work. That means no new supplier for the AI screening add-on and no separate set-up project.

More people apply than your recruiters can read

Talent Fit ranks the people who applied against the role and gives a score and a reason for each. A recruiter can start with the top of the list.

Your recruiters also use LinkedIn

Lever connects to LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant. LinkedIn’s AI can look over the whole pool of applicants in Lever. Its evaluations come back into Lever in real time. A LinkedIn Recruiter connection sends candidates from LinkedIn into Lever.

You want candidates to hear back with a reason

Lever can draft a personal rejection email with feedback for each candidate. The AI Screening Companion sends this feedback to rejected candidates automatically. Ask Lever whether a recruiter can read each message before it goes.

Where Lever stops, from the AI terms to early features

Lever belongs to Employ, which also owns Jobvite and JazzHR. Employ named a new chief executive in April 2024 and another in February 2026.

Employ’s AI terms put the risk on you

The AI may make errors, make things up and introduce bias. You are responsible for reviewing what it produces. Employ does not promise its output is accurate. You are also responsible for the legality of the data you put in. You are responsible for how you rely on the AI. Signing Employ’s AI addendum counts as any legally required notice that the service contains AI.

Your data can train Employ’s AI if you agree

If you instruct, direct or consent to training, Employ gets a limited licence. It can train its models on your input data in anonymised or combined form. You also consent to Employ using data about how your team uses the AI. Employ uses that data to improve its AI and services.

Candidate data goes to outside companies

The AI Screening Companion is one of Employ’s AI Companions. For these, Employ uses Anthropic and AssemblyAI in the USA, plus IBM watsonx and OpenAI. They provide AI and machine learning services. Employ may hand AI work on to a third party. Lever uses Textkernel in the Netherlands to read CVs and process candidate data. Lever runs on Amazon’s cloud in the US West and EU Central regions.

Some planned parts are still to come

Employ plans identity checks with ID.me, an identity-checking company, for Lever in the second half of 2026. Your subscription does not depend on future features. You pay for the subscription whether or not ID.me arrives.

What Lever costs and what happens when you leave

Lever gives its price on request. It depends on the size of your organisation and your hiring needs. The subscription carries an Employee Limit. That is a cap set at the number of employees you have on the order date. Set-up help comes in three packages, Basic, Pro and Plus, with 10, 17 or 42 hours. AI Screening by VONQ has its own quote.

Lever invoices fees once a year on the order date, unless your order form says otherwise. Payment is due 30 days after the invoice arrives. The agreement runs for the term on your order form and then renews automatically for one year at a time. A rise at renewal can be no more than the change in the US consumer price index. That index measures US inflation. To end the agreement, you must give notice at least 30 days before the term ends.

There is no refund when you end early. The one exception is unused fees when the end is caused by Lever’s serious breach. Lever promises 99.9% uptime to all customers. Uptime is the share of time the system is working. The promise leaves out pilot, alpha, beta and similar features. These are early test versions.

While you are a customer, Lever gives you tools to pull your data at any time. It also makes all your data available once on request before the term ends. After the term, your data can no longer be reached and is deleted under Lever’s retention policy. Under Employ’s data protection addendum, Employ gives you a copy of your data and then deletes it. The addendum puts the job of retrieving the data on you. Ask for the number of days until deletion in writing.

You could also find and screen people with agents built on your own systems. We have mapped what that looks like. The HR Agent Map

Eight questions to put to Lever

Which AI features are inside our price and which cost extra? Good answer: A written list on the order form with each AI feature and its price.
Which AI features are switched on for us when we sign, and who can switch them on or off? Good answer: Everything is off until a named person on our side turns each one on.
Will you confirm in the order form that you do not train AI on our candidate data or usage data? Good answer: Yes, in writing, covering both input data and usage data.
What happens to our price if our headcount grows past the Employee Limit? Good answer: A stated rate in the order form, with no surprise at renewal.
Which outside companies see our candidates’ data when each AI feature runs, and in which countries? Good answer: A named company and country for each feature, with notice before any change.
Does the 99.9% uptime promise cover Talent Fit and AI Screening Companion? Good answer: Yes, written into our contract, or a clear list of what is left out.
Can any Lever AI feature move a candidate on or turn them down without a person acting? Good answer: No, or only through a setting that our named admin controls and that is logged.
How and where are candidates told that AI scores them, and who writes that notice? Good answer: A step in the application with wording that we approve.

Alternatives to Lever

The alternatives are Workable and Jobvite, or buying nothing.

Workable also builds AI into its hiring system. Workable Agent finds people, screens them against the role and hands over a shortlist. It searches a database of more than 400 million profiles. It gives each candidate a score out of 100. Workable publishes what it charges. Its Standard plan costs $299 a month, billed yearly. The Agent runs on AI credits, which Workable sells in bundles. Bundles start at 5,000 credits for $600, and every paid account starts with 3,000 free credits. Evaluating a candidate costs 1 credit. The Agent supports English only. The setting that turns candidates down automatically is off by default.

Jobvite belongs to the same company as Lever. Its Talent Fit ranks the most qualified candidates for an open role and explains each match. Jobvite’s Zero-Click Intelligent Sourcing finds qualified candidates in the candidate database you keep in Jobvite when a role opens. That database is called a CRM, short for candidate relationship management. Jobvite’s standard uptime commitment is 99.5%, against 99.9% for Lever.

Buying nothing means no new terms on candidate data and no renewal date to track. It also means every application is read and ranked by hand. The guide to AI sourcing and screening covers the rest of the market.

More in this guide

The AI sourcing and screening guide
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High-volume hiring which AI screening products can reject applicants with no person involved, how they text and call, and what they cost at volume.