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Lever

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Lever, a San Francisco maker of recruiting software, gave its remote-interviewing tool away in March 2020 and laid off about 40 percent of its employees within three weeks, when its customers stopped hiring. On April 27, 2020 it was approved for a $4,043,300 Paycheck Protection Program loan, which SBA forgave with interest in August 2021.

  • Category: labor-market and HR software
  • Pandemic-layoff role: Deepest-cut ranking company
  • Last updated: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Founders, executives and investors

Sarah Nahm was Lever's chief executive in March 2020. By August 2020 the company was quoting Nate Smith as "Lever CEO and Cofounder." Lever had offices in San Francisco and Toronto.

Business before the pandemic

Lever sold applicant-tracking and candidate-relationship software to employers, and described itself in 2020 as "the leader in talent sourcing and relationship management software." In the fall of 2019 it launched a Zoom integration that let recruiters schedule and join video interviews from inside Lever.

What the pandemic did to the business

The first response was a giveaway. On March 24, 2020 Lever made its Remote Interviewing product, upgraded the week before with Zoom, free to all customers through May 31, 2020. "We made this decision to help our customers and other organizations adjust to a new reality in light of COVID-19," Nahm said. The company said scheduled Zoom interviews had been rising 50 percent week over week for a month, and that the number of customers using the integration doubled within days of the new release.

Free tools did not protect revenue once customers stopped hiring. Layoffs.fyi placed Lever's April cut among others at recruiting startups, including ZipRecruiter, AngelList and Triplebyte. About a week later Lever's rival Greenhouse cut 28 percent of its staff, and Business Insider counted more than 2,000 startup employees in HR and recruiting laid off because of the pandemic.

Pandemic-relief role: a forgiven PPP loan

On April 27, 2020, Live Oak Banking Company approved a $4,043,300 PPP loan to Lever, Inc. of San Francisco, with 167 jobs reported and the whole amount listed for payroll. SBA recorded forgiveness of $4,095,253.64, principal plus interest, on August 12, 2021 (SBA PPP loan-level data, loan 5253667201).

Layoffs

In the week before April 13, 2020 Lever laid off about 40 percent of its employees across all departments in San Francisco and Toronto. Business Insider first estimated the number at 109; Layoffs.fyi later put it at 86, on a Lever employee's account. How Lever handled layoffs →

After the first shock

Lever's August 4, 2020 State of Recruiting report surveyed 700 talent and HR decision-makers in the U.S. and Canada. Only 14 percent of their companies were on a total hiring freeze, and 40 percent expected to come out of the pandemic stronger. Among recruiters, 85 percent were leaning more on video interviews and 84 percent on phone interviews. Smith said the pandemic had "transformed businesses in nearly every industry."

Where the company is now

Lever is sold by Employ Inc. alongside JazzHR and Jobvite. Lever's 2026 blog runs under Employ branding and listed a spring 2026 product release.

Sources

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