Six of fourteen models named Gem first on the direct prompt; one named LinkedIn Recruiter. Gem was named by thirteen of the fourteen models and LinkedIn Recruiter by fourteen and Gem carries 30 labels and LinkedIn Recruiter 34, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in seven categories this edition.
Named in seven categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the Recruiting CRM and sourcing page.
Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Gem and LinkedIn Recruiter were named in the same answer fifty times, of the 221 answers naming Gem and the 121 naming LinkedIn Recruiter. In those answers LinkedIn Recruiter took the first choice fourteen times and Gem ten.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | ||||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | ||||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | ||||||
| Perplexity Sonar | ||||||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | ||||||
| Mistral Small | ||||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | ||||||
| Llama 4 Maverick | ||||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | ||||||
| Kimi K2 | ||||||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | ||||||
| MiniMax M2.5 | ||||||
| GPT-6 Luna | ||||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B |
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Two of two in this category shown.
“premium enterprise platforms like LinkedIn Recruiter Corporate, Gem, or hireEZ can cost thousands of dollars annually per seat” Gemini 3.5 Flash · budget prompt · soft negative
“Gem (formerly HireEZ) is widely considered the best all-around candidate sourcing tool for this specific size and sector today.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Overpriced Platforms with Opaque Pricing - LinkedIn Recruiter Corporate: $10,800–$15,000/year with 3-seat minimums” Kimi K2 · negative prompt · hard negative
“Tools like LinkedIn Recruiter cost north of $9K/year per seat—this is justified by network size, but many alternatives provide similar value at a fraction of the cost.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · negative prompt · soft negative
“The gold standard network with the highest candidate-intent database, though it lacks advanced multi-channel outbound automation on its own.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · comparative prompt · soft negative
“### 1. LinkedIn Recruiter - Best for: Enterprise-scale sourcing - Key difference: Direct access to the largest professional network” MiniMax M2.5 · comparative prompt · first choice
“The most widely used platform, leveraging the world's largest professional database (290M+ profiles).” Qwen 3.7 Flash · comparative prompt · first choice
“The default industry standard — by far the largest professional network with 1B+ profiles.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · comparative prompt · first choice
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.