SmartRecruiters + The Cognitive Integration
The Cognitive integrates with SmartRecruiters so AI interviewing and sourcing run alongside the workflow global enterprise TA teams already use: you import active candidates from the SmartRecruiters stage you choose, invite them to a live AI interview, and write each score, summary and report link back to the candidate as a note. The connection is one of 60+ ATS integrations The Cognitive offers through a single integration. SmartRecruiters keeps every stage move and decision; The Cognitive never changes a candidate's stage or rejects anyone.
What does the SmartRecruiters integration do?
- Import from a stage: pick the SmartRecruiters stage to import active candidates from, run a sync, and they arrive in The Cognitive ready to invite.
- Back into SmartRecruiters: the score, summary and report link land on the imported candidate as a note, wherever SmartRecruiters takes notes through the integration.
- Stages untouched: nothing in SmartRecruiters moves or gets rejected by the integration; your team makes every call.
- Sourcing alongside: The Cognitive also finds people outside SmartRecruiters across ~900M public profiles; you choose who to contact and interview.
- Per-role rubrics and 9 interview languages for multi-region SmartRecruiters estates.
- Nothing forks: SmartRecruiters keeps being the source of truth while The Cognitive supplies the interview and evidence layer.
The Cognitive in a SmartRecruiters workflow
SmartRecruiters positions itself as an enterprise talent-acquisition suite with a marketplace of connected tools. The Cognitive works as the sourcing and first-round interview layer next to it: professional roles get a live AI interview, and the result comes back to SmartRecruiters as a note.
Global teams usually set up a role per business unit in The Cognitive, each with its own rubric, and import from the matching SmartRecruiters stage.
Global SmartRecruiters estates often span very different hiring in different regions under one instance. The Cognitive handles that without forking process: each role keeps its own rubric, candidates book slots across time zones inside the window the recruiter opens, and interviews run in 9 languages, which removes much of the follow-the-sun scheduling global TA teams otherwise staff around.
How does candidate sourcing get into SmartRecruiters?
Candidate sourcing is the outbound half of recruitment: searching for people who have not applied, checking they fit the role, revealing contact details, and starting the first conversation. An applicant tracking system is inbound by design: it holds and moves the people who already found you, so sourcing is the step that decides whether there is anything in it worth tracking. Every system on this page is a system of record for applicants; none of them goes and finds candidates.
That is the gap The Cognitive's AI sourcing fills. A search brief written in plain English runs across ~900M public profiles with contact details enriched from 30+ sources; the role becomes a durable role pool that keeps everyone each search finds. Each candidate a search returns costs 1 credit, a personal email reveal 4 and a phone number 12, charged only on a successful reveal, so browsing a search result is cheap and only the shortlist you act on is not. People you source stay in The Cognitive's role pool and are not written into SmartRecruiters automatically; you decide who to interview and who to add to SmartRecruiters yourself.
A global SmartRecruiters estate needs sourcing per region rather than one list. Searches are scoped by location and seniority per business unit, with a separate role for each, and verified contact details are revealed only for the people a regional recruiter will contact, so they start from a list instead of a research task in a market they do not know.
Where each step of hiring lives once SmartRecruiters and The Cognitive are connected
| Step | What happens | Where the record ends up |
|---|---|---|
| Search | A plain-English brief runs across ~900M public profiles; filters, seniority and location narrow it. Every candidate returned costs 1 credit | Role pool in The Cognitive |
| Verify | Each card opens with a "Why this match" line tied to the brief, so a match is something you can check rather than a claim to take on trust | Role pool in The Cognitive |
| Reveal | Verified emails (4 credits) and direct phone numbers (12 credits), enriched from 30+ sources and charged only when a reveal succeeds | The candidate's profile in The Cognitive |
| Outreach | Email sequences from Sourcing Pro up, sent from your own mailbox; a reply stops the sequence | The Cognitive |
| Import | A sync pulls active candidates from the SmartRecruiters stage you choose | Candidate stays in SmartRecruiters; a copy is ready to invite in The Cognitive |
| Interview | A live two-way AI video interview: fixed rubric, questions decided live and adapted to the answers given | Report in The Cognitive: scores, written feedback, transcript and recording |
| Write back | Score, summary and report link for imported candidates who interviewed | A note on the candidate in SmartRecruiters, where it accepts notes through the integration |
| Track and report | Stages, approvals, requisition reporting and compliance stay in SmartRecruiters | SmartRecruiters, which stays the system of record |
How does setup work?
- 1. Connect: the dashboard opens one integration window; select SmartRecruiters and authorize the connection there.
- 2. Pick the source stage: tell The Cognitive which SmartRecruiters stage to import active candidates from.
- 3. Sync, invite, write back: run a sync, invite the imported candidates, and push the score and report link back to SmartRecruiters as a note once they have interviewed.
- Your team keeps every stage move and decision in SmartRecruiters; the integration reads candidates and writes notes, nothing more.
Recruiting metrics SmartRecruiters can report, and the one it cannot
| Metric | What it measures | Available from SmartRecruiters alone? |
|---|---|---|
| Time to fill | Days from requisition open to accepted offer | Yes, it is a count of stage dates |
| Cost per hire | Total recruiting spend divided by hires made | Partly: the sourcing and screening time components usually sit outside the ATS |
| Stage conversion and drop-off | Share of candidates surviving each stage | Yes, per requisition |
| Source of hire | Which channel produced the hire | Yes for inbound; outbound only if sourced candidates are pushed in with their source recorded |
| Quality of hire | How hires actually perform, and whether they stay | No, it needs pre-hire evidence the ATS never collected |
Recruiting metrics are the numbers that describe how a hiring pipeline behaves: how long a requisition takes to fill, what each hire costs, how many candidates survive each stage, and how good the people you hire turn out to be. Four of the five come straight out of an applicant tracking system, because they are counts of things the system already records.
Quality of hire is the exception, and it is the one hiring managers actually argue about. It needs evidence about how a candidate performed before they were hired, and a resume plus a recruiter's written impression is not evidence you can correlate against anything later. A scored interview report, with a 1 to 5 rating per criterion, overall written feedback and the transcript, is what makes the correlation possible at all. We publish no benchmark figures for any of these: a number drawn from someone else's funnel predicts nothing about yours, so measure your own for a quarter and compare against that.
Why teams add The Cognitive to their ATS
SmartRecruiters is a system of record, not a sourcer or an interviewer. The Cognitive finds people across ~900M public profiles and interviews them live with AI, scoring every criterion 1 to 5 against the rubric you set, then writes the score and report link back to SmartRecruiters. AI Sourcing and AI Interview each start at $99/month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does The Cognitive integrate with SmartRecruiters?
Yes. The Cognitive imports active candidates from the SmartRecruiters stage you choose, you invite them to a live AI interview, and the score, summary and report link go back to SmartRecruiters as a note. It is one of The Cognitive's 100+ ATS integrations.
Can The Cognitive source candidates into SmartRecruiters?
The Cognitive sources candidates alongside SmartRecruiters: it searches ~900M public profiles from a plain-English brief and enriches contact details from 30+ sources. Sourced people stay in The Cognitive's role pool and are not written into SmartRecruiters automatically. Search results cost 1 credit per person shown; a personal email reveal costs 4 credits and a phone number 12, charged only on a successful reveal.
Does SmartRecruiters find candidates who have not applied?
No. SmartRecruiters is an applicant tracking system: it stores, moves and reports on people already in a hiring process. Finding candidates who have not applied is outbound sourcing, a separate job that teams either do by hand in LinkedIn and job boards or hand to sourcing software such as The Cognitive.
Which SmartRecruiters stage should feed AI interviews?
Global teams usually set up a role per business unit in The Cognitive, each with its own rubric, and import from the matching SmartRecruiters stage. You choose the source stage in The Cognitive, each role can use its own rubric, and every decision after the interview stays with your team in SmartRecruiters.
Do I need engineering help to connect SmartRecruiters?
No engineering is needed: an SmartRecruiters admin authorizes the connection from The Cognitive dashboard and picks the source stage.
Which plans include ATS integration?
ATS integration comes with the Interviews Pro, Max and Business plans. Plans bill monthly or yearly, and you can cancel anytime.
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