Every recruiter I talk to tells me the same story: they’re drowning in applications while simultaneously starving for qualified candidates. It’s a paradox that perfectly captures the dysfunction of modern talent acquisition—too much noise, not enough signal, and way too many systems trying to solve pieces of the puzzle.
Recently, I sat down with Ani Sapru and Gabriella Spallone from Gem, a recruiting platform that’s taking an interesting approach to this problem. What caught my attention wasn’t just their AI capabilities (everyone claims to have those now), but their decision to build a platform that actually works with existing enterprise systems rather than forcing painful migrations. As someone who’s watched ATS implementations go sideways, this pragmatic approach resonated.
The Real Cost of Recruitment Tech Sprawl
Here’s what the average enterprise recruiting team is juggling today: an ATS for applications, a CRM for candidate relationships, a sourcing tool for finding talent, a scheduling platform for interviews, an analytics dashboard for reporting, email automation software, and probably a few more point solutions I’m forgetting. Each system has its own login, its own data format, and its own learning curve.
The market is crowded with vendors trying to solve pieces of this puzzle:
Workday Recruiting:
- Used by 39% of Fortune 500 companies
- Strengths: Deep integration with HR systems, robust compliance features, enterprise-grade security
- Limitations: Complex implementation, limited native marketing features, requires add-ons for advanced scheduling and candidate engagement
SuccessFactors:
- SAP’s offering remains popular with 13.2% of Fortune 500 companies
- Strengths: Strong analytics, global compliance capabilities, integrated with SAP ecosystem
- Limitations: User interface challenges, steep learning curve, expensive customization requirements
Greenhouse:
- The choice for companies prioritizing collaborative hiring
- Strengths: Excellent interview management, strong diversity features, intuitive scorecards
- Limitations: Higher price point for smaller companies, limited high-volume capabilities
SmartRecruiters:
- Popular mid-market solution with social recruiting focus
- Strengths: User-friendly interface, strong job distribution network, good mobile experience
- Limitations: Reporting can be basic, customization constraints, enterprise features require higher tiers
iCIMS:
- Veteran player with comprehensive talent acquisition suite
- Strengths: Mature platform, extensive integrations, strong compliance tools
- Limitations: Interface feels dated compared to newer competitors, can be overwhelming for smaller teams Beamery
- (CRM side): Leading standalone recruiting CRM
- Strengths: Advanced talent pooling, sophisticated automation, strong analytics
- Limitations: Requires separate ATS integration, premium pricing, complex implementation
Where AI Actually Makes a Difference in Recruiting
Let me address the elephant in the room: everyone’s claiming AI will revolutionize recruiting. Most of it is marketing fluff. But Gem’s implementation shows where machine learning actually delivers value:
Intelligent Candidate Ranking with Transparency
- Their AI doesn’t just score candidates—it shows its work. When it ranks someone as a 90% match, you can see exactly which requirements they meet and how the system arrived at that score
- During our demo, Gabriella showed how hovering over match scores reveals alignment to each job requirement, with purple-highlighted text showing where the AI found supporting evidence
- This transparency addresses the “black box” problem that plagued earlier AI recruiting tools
Guaranteed Contact Information That Changes the LinkedIn Equation
- Every candidate shown in Gem’s 650-million profile database comes with a verified personal email address
- This seemingly simple feature has profound implications: recruiters can potentially reduce or eliminate LinkedIn Recruiter seats, which typically run thousands per user annually
- The system enriches profiles automatically, eliminating the manual work of finding contact information
Rediscovery That Actually Works at Scale
- Enterprise companies often have millions of candidate records gathering dust in their ATS
- Gem’s AI can search across both ATS and CRM data simultaneously, understanding context from past interactions
- One customer found that 50% of their hires were people already in their system—they just couldn’t find them before
The Organizations Getting Real Value from This Approach
Based on my analysis and the customer examples shared, several types of organizations are seeing significant returns:
Legacy ATS Users (1,000+ employees)
- Companies stuck on Workday or SuccessFactors who need modern recruiting capabilities without migration pain
- Key benefit: 75-90% reduction in application review time through AI screening layered on top of existing systems
- These organizations can modernize their recruiting without the 18-month implementation typical of ATS replacements
High-Volume Retail and Healthcare Organizations
- Teams processing thousands of applications per role who need intelligent filtering
- Key benefit: Bulk actions based on AI scoring (accept all 90%+ matches, reject all below 50%)
- The modular approach lets them use app review for hourly roles while sourcing for professional positions
Executive Search Teams Within Enterprises
- Groups that live and die by proactive sourcing and relationship management
- Key benefit: Natural language search that understands context (“find me someone like our top performer but willing to relocate”)
- These teams often operate differently from mainstream recruiting and need specialized tools
Tech Companies in Competitive Markets
- Organizations where speed and candidate experience determine success
- Key benefit: Unified platform reduces context switching and accelerates time-to-offer
- Real-time analytics help them adjust strategies faster than competitors
Growing Companies Hitting Recruiting Scale Challenges
- Organizations where one recruiter now handles 56% more requisitions than three years ago
- Key benefit: Automation that actually reduces manual work rather than just moving it around
- The ability to start with one module and expand prevents over-investment
Making Sense of the Modular Revolution
What’s particularly interesting about Gem’s strategy is how it reflects a broader shift in enterprise software buying. Rather than forcing an all-or-nothing decision, they’ve built a platform where you can:
- Start with AI-powered application review on top of your existing solution
- Add sourcing capabilities when you’re ready to be more proactive
- Layer in CRM functionality as you build talent pools
- Eventually consider their full ATS if it makes sense—or not
This modularity addresses the reality that different teams within the same organization have vastly different needs. Your executive recruiting team might need sophisticated sourcing and relationship management, while your hourly hiring team just needs to process applications faster.
The pricing model reinforces this flexibility — the more modules you bundle upfront, the deeper the discount. It’s a clever way to encourage platform adoption while respecting that not every customer needs (or can implement) everything at once.
Where the Market Goes from Here
The old recruiting technolgy model of buying best-of-breed point solutions and hoping they integrate is proving unsustainable. But the alternative — ripping out everything for a monolithic suite — is equally unappealing for most enterprises.
Gem represents a third path: AI-native functionality that enhances rather than replaces existing systems, with a clear upgrade path for organizations ready to consolidate. Their 57% “good fit” rate for AI-sourced candidates (compared to the typical 10% hit rate on LinkedIn) suggests the technology is mature enough to deliver real value.
The integration list tells its own story. Deep, bidirectional sync with Workday, SuccessFactors, Greenhouse, SmartRecruiters, and iCIMS means they’re serious about playing nicely with incumbent systems. This isn’t a “rip and replace” play — it’s augmentation for organizations that can’t or won’t abandon their core HR infrastructure.
As companies face the dual pressure of doing more with less while competing for scarce talent, expect to see more vendors following this modular, AI-enhanced approach. The winners won’t be those with the most features, but those who can demonstrably reduce the time and effort required to make great hires.
For recruiting teams evaluating their tech stack in 2025, the question isn’t whether to adopt AI — it’s how to implement it in a way that enhances rather than complicates their existing processes. Gem’s approach suggests that the answer might be more evolution than revolution.
