Adway vs Gem: Passive Sourcing Workflows Compared

Adway and Gem both help teams reach people who are not actively applying, through different workflows. Gem describes AI sourcing, rediscovery, CRM nurture and ATS options: finding and engaging identifiable people, including net-new candidates. Adway focuses on social attraction and advertising: putting employer-brand and job content in front of people on social platforms so they choose to apply. The right choice depends on whether your roles need identifiable profiles or new awareness, and many teams run both workflows.

Key facts

• Gem describes AI sourcing, rediscovery, CRM nurture, ATS and analytics, and it can work alongside an existing ATS or as a broader hiring platform.
• Adway focuses on social-first attraction and advertising, with Social Talent Pools for ongoing engagement audiences and connections to ATS and CRM systems that depend on connector and configuration.
• Sourcing outreach starts from a named person; social attraction starts from an audience. They suit different roles.
• Adway’s article on reaching people who are not searching explains the attraction approach.

What is Gem?

Gem describes a recruiting platform with AI sourcing, rediscovery of past candidates, CRM nurture, an ATS and analytics. Teams can use it alongside their current ATS or as a broader hiring platform. It finds net-new candidates as well as people already in your systems, so it should not be described as limited to contacts recruiters already know. Product descriptions here are based on Gem’s website, reviewed on 9 October 2026.

Adway vs Gem: how do they compare?

Provider	Documented scope	What to demonstrate
Adway	Social-first attraction and advertising	Campaign-to-application route and recruiting-system handoff
Gem	AI sourcing, rediscovery, CRM and ATS options	Net-new sourcing, existing-candidate reuse and selected module boundaries

This is a map of documented scope, not a winner. The two overlap in reaching passive talent but start from different points.

Where Adway fits: social attraction workflows

Adway works from the audience side. Always-On Job Ads creates campaigns from open roles with social creative and approval or automated publication, as configured. Social Talent Pools support ongoing social engagement audiences, activated with Boost when a role opens, and Social Apply provides the configured application route. Adway fits roles where awareness and applications are the gap, rather than finding specific named individuals.

Customer programmes such as OnePartnerGroup, Strukton Rail and Ocab show employers running social recruiting with Adway. They are examples, not forecasts. Adway’s performance and ROI data explains how it measures results.

Where Gem fits: sourcing, rediscovery and recruiting workflows

Gem fits roles where the people you need can be identified and contacted, and where reusing past candidates matters. Its sourcing, rediscovery and CRM workflows support recruiter-led engagement, and its ATS option lets some teams consolidate. In a demonstration, ask to see net-new sourcing and existing-candidate reuse for your role, and where the boundaries between modules sit in the package you would buy.

CRM outreach or always-on reach: which fits your actual sourcing gap?

Start from the role. If the people are few, identifiable and worth contacting one by one, sourcing and outreach are efficient. If the role recurs, needs many relevant applicants or suffers from low awareness of your company, social attraction addresses the gap. Adway connects to ATS and CRM systems, but a listed integration does not establish field mappings, and no native Adway and Gem connector should be assumed; confirm how records would move between the two before running them together.

Use a two-path buyer test to decide. It is a test design, not a report that either product won:

Record for each path	Path A: role with identifiable named profiles	Path B: recurring role needing new awareness
Source of audience or contact
Recruiter effort
Contact or application event
Configured integration
Downstream quality evidence

Our passive candidate sourcing definition separates job-search intent, engagement and qualification before you choose a tactic.

How do you run the two-path test?

Pick two real roles. For path A, choose a role where you can name the kind of person you need and a recruiter has time to contact them, such as a specialist engineering position. For path B, choose a role you hire for repeatedly, where you need a steady flow of relevant applicants and many candidates have not heard of you, such as a frontline or operations role.

Agree the definitions before you start. Decide what counts as a contact, what counts as a submitted application and what makes an applicant qualified for each role. Set the same observation period for both paths, and decide in advance how long you will wait for reviews and interviews before comparing.

While the test runs, log the recruiter time each path takes, not just the results. A sourcing workflow can produce strong candidates for a hard role but needs recruiter hours per contact; an attraction workflow needs set-up and creative approval but less effort per applicant. Both costs matter.

What should you ask in each demonstration?

Ask Gem to show net-new sourcing for path A, how a sourced contact is nurtured, and how it becomes an applicant in your ATS or in Gem’s own ATS option. Ask which modules your package includes and where their boundaries sit.

Ask Adway to show path B: an open role becoming a social campaign, the application route a candidate sees on a phone, and the record that reaches your ATS through the relevant connector. Ask how engagement audiences are reused for the next role.

Ask both vendors the same final question: what evidence will the test produce, and in which system will you be able to check it?

Which should you choose?

• Identifiable people, recruiter-led outreach and candidate reuse: evaluate Gem.
• Recurring roles that need awareness and applications from people who are not searching: evaluate Adway.
• Both kinds of role: run both workflows, each on the roles it suits, and compare with the two-path test.

For more options, see the platforms for passive candidate sourcing on social media. To test the social path on one of your roles, book a demo.

Sources

1. Always-On Job Ads and Adway integrations

Gem product description: Gem website, reviewed 9 October 2026. Vendor capability descriptions summarise published materials, not independent tests.