Best tools to hire candidates with automation 2026. Most recruiting tools wait for candidates to apply, even though the majority of qualified professionals are passive at any given time. Weekday flips that model with a database of 300M+ verified profiles across the US and India, paired with fully managed outreach across email, WhatsApp, and phone that drives response rates above 50%, compared to the 20 to 30% teams typically see on LinkedIn. This guide compares Weekday against Gem, hireEZ, Juicebox, SeekOut, and Greenhouse across database depth, outreach automation, and operating models. Readers will come away knowing which platform actually completes the outreach loop rather than stopping at candidate discovery.

Scaling B2B marketing: the Gem and Demand Spring story. Published: April 9, 2026 Author: James Hickey luck/stock.adobe.com A common issue for fast-growing companies is that, despite a growing head count, certain aspects of marketing are often overwhelming as they remain reliant on a single person to do the job. Such was the case for Gem, an artificial intelligence (AI)-first recruiting platform, that had only one person running all campaign execution. With a significant volume of work - often including three to four webinars a month and several large campaigns per quarter - Gem needed reliable, flexible support to help manage the moving pieces of campaign execution. Additionally, they required a strategic partner to take on intensive, long-term projects like building industry-specific nurture programs, and ensuring the marketing database remained clean - tasks the internal team lacked the bandwidth to undertake. Gem, Demand Spring partnership. To tackle these issues, Gem partnered with Demand Spring who has worked with some of the largest and fastest-growing B2B brands to elevate their marketing practices. Demand Spring's approach blends leading-edge yet practical Revenue Marketing strategies with expertise in marketing technology to deliver measurable results. The partnership was bonded by their embrace of AI. Gem is the only AI-first recruiting platform that integrates applicant tracking, candidate relationship management (CRM), sourcing, and scheduling into a single workflow. The platform centralizes outreach, pipeline management, and analytics, and uses AI to analyze millions of profiles and automate outreach. As B2B marketing enters the transformative AI era, Demand Spring is focused on helping CMOs and their teams embrace innovation, drive optimization, and navigate the future of B2B marketing with confidence. Two areas of B2B marketing focus. Demand Spring was brought onboard by Gem to work closely with the team primarily on two project tracks. The first was Campaign Execution & Deployment, providing consistent support for high-volume activities, including weekly email sends, and managing the complex communications required for multiple monthly webinars and large quarterly campaigns. The second was Strategic Program Build-Out, focused on leading time-intensive projects such as building comprehensive, industry-specific nurture programs and executing essential database cleanup. Demand Spring maintained a close working relationship with the Gem team through regular update meetings and constant communication, and integrated themselves seamlessly within Gem's existing workplace processes. Demand Spring effectively acts as additional headcount, allowing the Gem team to manage a high-volume campaign load that includes three to four webinars per month. Easy integration. The partnership has consistently met and exceeded expectations, helping to expand Gem's marketing capabilities and increase the capacity of the small internal team, according to company officials. "The working relationship with the Demand Spring team honestly feels like an extension of our own team," said Gillian Weisenfluh, Marketing Campaigns Manager at Gem. "We have two email sends each week handled by Demand Spring - it has been a crucial support resource and really the equivalent of hiring another person on the team." With Demand Spring as a flexible, knowledgeable, and fully integrated strategic partner, Gem has been able to scale its email and webinar programs, successfully deploy highly targeted campaigns, and build critical long-term nurture assets. The partnership proves the value of having a supportive, external team that acts as an extension of the in-house marketing department. "The team is incredibly easy to work with, works well within our internal processes, and not only meets but exceeds our expectations," said Weisenfluh. "Working with Demand Spring has been one of the best experiences I've had working with an external team."