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Plum is a fast-growing modern health benefits platform that helps organizations offer high-quality, accessible insurance to employees.
Healthtech Insurance
201–500 employees
Bangalore, India
2019
Plum is a fast-growing modern health benefits platform. It helps organizations offer high-quality, accessible insurance to employees. Plum’s recruiting team faced increasing pressure to hire efficiently without sacrificing quality.
When their previous Applicant Tracking System (ATS) couldn’t keep up with the demands of a scaling team, Geetanjali Kumar, Head of Talent Acquisition, knew it was time to find a solution that matched Plum’s speed, innovation, and AI-driven approach.
At Plum, recruiters faced a number of challenges with their previous ATS, Lever. While the tool was user-friendly, it wasn’t efficient or innovative enough for Plum’s hiring needs going into 2025 and beyond.
Their recruiters spent hours manually screening resumes, chasing interview feedback, and tweaking raw data reports. Geetanjali shared:
“We didn’t face bugs or platform issues—it was more about value, especially with respect to recruiter productivity and time saved. We were spending so much recruiter time on screening, chasing feedback, and manually tweaking reports. We needed something AI-first to cut down this busywork.”
— Geetanjali Kumar
On top of that, the team experienced less than stellar support, which slowed things down in a fast-moving startup environment.
Plum’s team wanted more than just an ATS—they needed a tool that could streamline everything from hiring to onboarding.
They were looking for a tech-friendly, AI-first ATS — and that’s where Kula stepped in.
In just the first month of using Kula, Plum started seeing tangible improvements:
✅ Before Kula: Screening 200–500 applications manually took 2–3 hours per 100 resumes.
✅ Now with Kula: Early AI Scoring tests reduced the time spent sorting unqualified candidates, focusing recruiters on higher-quality leads.
✅ Before Kula: Delays of 1-2 days waiting for Hiring Manager and team feedback between interview rounds.
✅ Now with Kula: Feedback turnaround time is down to hours thanks to Kula’s AI Notetaker and streamlined workflows.
💡 “I can speak collectively for most of our hiring managers. They have been fascinated by the AI Notetaker. Instead of simply recapping the entire conversation history, they can now easily leave genuine feedback on candidates.”
💡 “I log into the Kula dashboard every morning and can immediately see if my hiring funnel is strong or weak. From that lens, there have been certain optimizations that we've been able to do because you get to visually see what your funnel looks like, which is very important for making changes.”
With AI-generated transcripts and notes, recruiters and hiring managers can review interview insights asynchronously, reducing the need for lengthy debrief meetings.
With all the candidate’s context in their ATS, the Plum hiring team is able to stay on the same page at all times and make more objective hiring decisions.
💡 “It is summarizing what the conversation was that takes time, and I think it cuts down on that cognitive effort a lot. The AI Notetaker has helped us with our hiring and the pace at which we hire.”
As a result? Plum made 10 hires using Kula’s ATS in the first month and anticipates ongoing improvements as they implement more AI-powered features to their hiring workflows.
When evaluating options, they considered their HRIS vendor’s ATS and demoed other tools, but Kula stood out for its AI capabilities and partnership mindset.
“What really pushed me toward Kula was the willingness to customize the platform to our needs. The team listened, supported, and helped set us up for success. I felt reassured that we’d have the help we needed to transition smoothly.”
— Geetanjali Kumar
1. Too much manual screening → Automated Candidate Screening
Recruiters were spending 2–3 hours manually reviewing a stack of 100 resumes.
Kula automated the screening process using AI Scoring to filter candidates based on custom criteria (e.g., skills, experience, education), saving recruiters hours of manual work.
2. Cognitive overload during interviews → AI Notetaking & Interview Intelligence
Hiring managers were juggling note-taking while trying to assess candidates, sometimes leading to missed details and extra time spent refining notes.
Kula’s AI Notetaker captured full transcripts and key takeaways from every interview, allowing managers to stay present and deliver more thoughtful, timely, and objective feedback.
3. No visibility into team pitch quality → Interview Intelligence for TA Leaders
Geetanjali did not have a scalable way to see how recruiters were positioning Plum in their outbound conversations.
Transcripts and notes automatically recorded in Kula enabled Geetanjali to get a bird’s eye view on what was actually happening, “The transcript and note-taking feature is very powerful for me as a TA leader because I can hold people more accountable when I have such concrete proof.”
4. Delays in job description drafting → Generative AI for JDs
Hiring managers didn’t always have time to draft job descriptions, causing delays in opening roles.
Kula’s AI Writing Assistant enabled the team to quickly spin up polished job descriptions, unblocking the process.
5. Hard-to-understand data exports → Visual Dashboards & Reporting
Reporting in their previous ATS required manual tweaking to get clear insights.
Kula’s built-in dashboards gave Plum instant visibility into funnel health, conversion rates, and bottlenecks in the hiring process.
6. Slow support response times → Premium Support
With their old ATS, support was not up to par—frustrating for a fast-moving startup.
The Kula team offered real-time Slack support with rapid response times and a flexible, feedback-driven approach.
Overall sentiment? “This is damn cool.”
That’s the direct quote from hiring managers when they saw Kula’s notetaker in action. Geetanjali further added:
“Our managers love that they can focus on the conversation without worrying about taking notes. It cuts down the cognitive effort. Instead of spending time summarizing conversations, people can focus on genuinely getting to know candidates.”
— Geetanjali Kumar
Kula’s AI Notetaker also unlocked:
💡 “It eliminates the need for debriefs in some cases because everyone’s already aligned from the notes and transcripts.”
Geetanjali praised Kula’s customer support as a key differentiator:
“Honestly, the best part is your customer support. I get responses in minutes on Slack. The team is responsive, open to feedback, and quick to act. It’s been amazing.”
The migration from Lever to Kula was completed in just under 3 weeks, with structured admin and recruiter training sessions that helped the team adopt the new platform with minimal friction.
“With Kula, the migration felt smooth and reassuring—their quick responses, structured approach, and clear timelines made it easy to move everything onto the platform, and the implementation support was truly top-notch.”
— Geetanjali Kumar
For Plum, switching to Kula wasn’t just about replacing an ATS—it was about choosing a partner to grow with:
“We’re pleasantly surprised by how quickly our team adapted. Even hiring managers without much training were able to navigate Kula easily. The value is clear.”
— Geetanjali Kumar
Looking ahead, Plum is excited to expand their use of recruiter-friendly AI features and continue collaborating with Kula to scale their hiring efforts.
⚡️ Ready to hire faster and smarter like Plum? Chat with our team or explore more customer stories.
