The most valuable content in your funnel isn’t always what you say; it’s what your buyer concludes on their own.
That’s the role of self-solutioning content: helping potential buyers explore what “better” looks like and justify the investment internally, all before ever talking to sales.
Gem, a recruiting platform that unifies talent CRM, analytics, and outreach automation, understands this perfectly. They’ve built not just one, but two standout tools that empower recruiting teams to make their case for investing in a modern hiring solution.
There are five main types of self-solutioning assets to consider: Guides or Checklists, Diagnostic Data, Benchmark Data, ROI Calculators or Forecasting, and Trials.
Each of the five self-solutioning content types serves a unique purpose but shares a common structure: diagnostic questions that help buyers identify their own gaps, linked to capabilities that address them, ending with a chance to highlight your company’s unique strengths.
Gem leverages both Benchmarking and Forecasting to help recruiting teams move insight to action.
Benchmarking: The First Layer of Insight
Gem’s 2025 Benchmarks Report does exactly what strong self-solutioning content should do: it sparks reflection by offering peer comparison data that helps recruiting teams understand where they stand.
The report includes channel-level benchmarks across pipeline stages, offering clear visibility into what top-performing teams are achieving in terms of response rates, conversion ratios, time-to-hire, and outreach strategies.
Forecasting: From Awareness to Action
Instead of asking for detailed funnel metrics, Gem keeps the experience simple. Users select Company size, Gender, Role, and Hiring goal. With those few inputs, the tool generates a predictive hiring forecast using Gem’s proprietary benchmark data. It shows how many candidates would typically be needed at each stage of the funnel — outreach, interested, interviewed, and offer — based on companies similar in size, industry, and role focus.
The power of this experience lies in its simplicity. Without needing to upload internal data or analyze spreadsheets, buyers quickly mirror themselves against real industry performance and get a clearer understanding of where improvement is needed.
Instead of being told they need a solution, they see the risk of inaction for themselves, and that’s where self-solutioning becomes most effective.
Together, these two tools represent a self-solutioning journey done right: First, benchmark data triggers reflection. Then, a Forecasting Tool guides buyers toward an informed decision.
Gem isn’t just sharing information; they’re letting the buyer lead.