This blog offers a snapshot of these key releases. For full details and expected dates, please visit the Bullhorn Product Release Portal in Bullhorn Hub and check the Bullhorn Release Calendar. 

Missed the product updates last month? Check out the May 2025 release highlights while you’re here.

Bullhorn Amplify enhancements

Bullhorn Amplify

• Support all fields for AI Assistant: We’ve significantly enhanced the AI Assistant by expanding the fields available for its use. You can now leverage almost every field in your AI Assistant workflow, moving far beyond our previous limited selection. This update includes support for commonly-requested fields such as comments, internal description (job), and custom fields, though confidential fields will continue to remain unavailable. To utilise these new fields, they will need to be added via the Admin Prompt Studio. This expanded capability empowers you to maximise the AI Assistant’s effectiveness and tailor it more precisely to your specific needs.

Bullhorn Automation enhancements

Bullhorn Automation

• Mass mail opt out ATS Sync:  If you have the Update Mass Mail Opt Out feature enabled and a record opts back into mailing in the ATS, that opt-in workflow now syncs back into Bullhorn Automation and updates the record’s subscription status to Mailable.

Updates to Bullhorn ATS & CRM

Bullhorn ATS

• Support for CareerBuilder job board: External Source now supports CareerBuilder. You can enter your credentials to include these job boards in your External Source searches. For customers using these job boards, this enhancement allows you to optimise your workflows by searching for CareerBuilder candidates alongside their other integrated job boards directly within Bullhorn.

Bullhorn Analytics product updates

Bullhorn Analytics

• Support for additional placement entity fields: Our Placement Entity Model in Analytics has been updated to the Generic Entity Model, significantly expanding its capabilities. This enhancement allows you to leverage 80 additional fields (up from 28) for Placement-related metrics, offering greater flexibility for filtering and creating custom metrics within Analytics. This upgrade not only will save you time by reducing your reliance on Support for specific data needs, but also unlocks new analytical possibilities previously unattainable.

Product updates for Bullhorn VMS Sync

Bullhorn VMS Sync

• Draft submittal records add/update ATS submission records: You can now manage your ATS Submission Records directly when saving a Draft Submittal. This action will either create a new ATS Submission or update an existing one associated with the draft. You can also utilise Submittal Status Mapping to assign a specific status to these ATS Submissions.

Updates to Bullhorn Onboarding solutions

Bullhorn Onboarding

Talent Platform

• Quick Search now supports home phone number lookup: You can now search for candidates in Talent Platform using full or partial home phone numbers. Searches should be entered as numbers only, excluding the “+” sign.  This enhancement makes it easier to quickly find the right profiles using the information you have on hand.

For a complete look at June product updates, please visit the full release notes.

While doing the same thing, again and again, is entertainment for some, in recruitment it can lead to lost opportunity and missed connections.

Focusing on ‘busy work’ rather than talking to that hot sales lead or top talent prospect will eventually impact the bottom line. The problem is, recruitment as a whole has shied away from automation, likely due to the implication that robots can build relationships like humans (they can’t).

Automating mundane, daily activities throughout the entire recruitment process can be the key to success. Letting ‘robots’ knock tasks off of the collective lists of recruiters, salespeople, and marketers opens up more time to focus on revenue-generating activities.

Ultimately, automation assists recruitment and sales leaders to adhere to a framework that eases friction inside and outside of the organisation. This leads to less time manually entering notes, tasks, email and activities, and more time having meaningful conversations with candidates, clients, and sales prospects.

One hour saved per day per recruiter/salesperson equals 260 hours per year, per employee! That’s a lot of hours saved and multiply that by 50 (recruiters/salespeople) and you’re looking at 13,000 hours saved per year!

Recruitment

On the recruitment side of the desk, the candidate is king. From new applicants to interviews and on to contractor assignment, there are a number of areas where a forgotten note or missed connection can mean lost revenue and a less-than-sterling candidate experience.

With automation, the recruitment ops team can ensure a smooth experience at every step of the recruitment cycle; leaving recruiters to do what they do best–build relationships and put the world to work.

1. Update new applicant from ‘passive’ to ‘active’

Tools like applicant tracking systems (ATS) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems that depend on human input are also prone to human error. One of these often-missed tasks is updating an applicant status from passive to active. Anyone that is new to Bullhorn will be updated and ready for future automations or pre-screening.

2. Interview follow-up reminders

Remind all parties involved of the next step of the candidate journey. In this case, sending a simple email or text to the candidate can ensure an on-time meeting. You can also automatically send a reminder to the assigned recruiter and hiring manager.

3. Status updates to candidates as they move through the hiring process or are rejected

No one likes being left in the dark, however, most candidates never hear anything after they submit a resume. Candidates don’t care if they’re not a fit, they care if they never hear anything. Candidates spend a lot of time putting together a resume and submitting it, so at the very least sending automatic notifications after they submit and every time their profile changes can ease the flux of follow-up emails in your inbox. Be proactive and nurture candidates even if they’re not the right fit right now.

4. Add a note to candidate record at key intervals

Maybe your client is slow to getting back to you and there hasn’t been any progress for a req. Well, if there hasn’t been a note or profile update in a time period, say two weeks, you can automatically send a follow-up email to the candidate as a courtesy.

5. Send a text message on the first day of contract assignment

Reduce no-shows due to bad directions or info by sending an automatic text message on the first day of a contract assignment (or first day for any type of req). Start the contractor care portion of the assignment off on the right foot by proactively engaging with your now-placed candidate.

6. Regular feedback about consultant satisfaction

Engaging with a contractor during an assignment is an often-overlooked opportunity to engage. Sometimes they may not be ‘feeling’ their placement or some other issue has arisen, and by regularly reaching out and assessing their happiness, you can tackle problems head-on and course-correct when necessary, ultimately protecting revenue.

7. Send onboarding documentation and copy HR

The first step after a candidate has been chosen for a role is to gather their paperwork. Take the strain out of the onboarding process and immediately send an email to HR and the candidate along with any appropriate paperwork. This can all be triggered on a stage of ‘new placement’  or whatever status you use for new hires in Bullhorn.

8. Notify assigned recruiter when top talent visits a specific job page

Stay on top of A+ candidates and proactively reach out based on their behavior. Using automation to track and notify the assigned recruiter when a “gold star” candidate does a certain action like visits specific job, clicks a link in an email, or submits an application.

9. Send notification when stage changes

When a key stage changes, like moving from interview to placed, you can have a notification automatically sent to the recruitment manager or recruitment ops lead so they can predict and forecast placement rates.

10. Email when stage changes

Email candidates, recruiters, hiring managers, HR, or any other important person when key stages change. This is very helpful for new hires.

11. Update contact records when stage changes

Sometimes a field changing should update another. Using automation, you could update a candidate rating to gold star whenever they have a stage of placed.

12. Gather credentials (healthcare, industrial, etc.)

This is a big one for certain industries, especially healthcare. Automatically send an email to a candidate one month before expiring credentials and every week until new credentials have been received.

Sales

Always be closing–Alec Baldwin’s monologue from Glengarry Glen Ross said it best. But in today’s sales environment, there are many times when sending emails, following up with new prospects, or nurturing current client relationships falls to the wayside.

Automating through the recruitment sales cycle can protect revenue, nurture relationships, and ultimately close more business.

13. Set a reminder to follow-up with new sales prospects

Busy salespeople can overlook a prospect that may have not been ready when they first spoke. Automatically set follow-up tasks to call prospects and keep the relationship fire burning bright.

14. Check-in monthly with current clients

Your current customers are equally important as new business. Nurturing your current relationships with clients can lead to additional job orders and solidify your business in their collective minds. Send an automatic email each month to check-in and assess any new hiring needs or address any concerns with service, quality, etc.

15. Trigger email based on stage

Maybe you’ve been working with a prospect for a while, but for whatever reason, they haven’t quite made the switch to customer. Worse yet, they haven’t responded to any of your messages. Luckily, automating email based on a stage change is a piece of cake. For example, moving to a stage of ‘MIA’ or ‘No Response’ can trigger a last-ditch email effort to turn that prospect around.

16. Reminder to call hiring manager after assignment

Following up on the status of a recently placed candidate is common practice, but can slip through the cracks for salespeople working new leads. Set yourself a reminder to call a hiring manager one month after an assignment begins and uncover new hiring challenges or address any concerns your client may have. Take it a step further by checking-in each month of an assignment.

17. Work with hot sales leads

Uncovering hot prospects isn’t an exact science, but leveraging automation can help. Rather than spending time and energy working through a list of prospects, use AI and automation to discover who is more engaged with your firm. Lead scoring applies a rank to prospects for every positive or negative action they may take. For example, one prospect may have a score of 90 while another 50. The prospect with 90 has clicked emails, may have interacted with you previously, or visited key pages on your site; each with its own score. This enables salespeople to focus on the most engage–and yes, you can automate email sequence, etc. based on score.

18. Nurture prospects with timed sequences

New prospects, old prospects, lists from conferences–all can be used in a well-crafted email sequence. Automate this first step in building a relationship by sending personalised, plain-text emails to prospects at scale.

19. Welcome emails to new clients

It may seem like a no-brainer, but thanking a new customer and kicking off the relationship isn’t a bad idea. Again, a welcome packet email with relevant attachments, contacts, and info to help your new client get the most out of the relationship could fire off based on a contact stage of customer.

Marketing

Ahhhh marketing. It’s a discipline I hold near and dear to my heart. After all, we can thank marketing automation for much of what we’ve talked about today.

In a recruitment organisation, marketing has a pretty large responsibility to make sure the candidate and client experience aligns with the brand. From re-engaging with old candidates, aligning touchpoints to the brand, and generally helping recruitment and sales teams send the right content at the right time, marketing has its hands full. Luckily we have automation to help.

20. Send auto-responder to new applicants

It sounds like a no-brainer, but it happens over and over again–the applicant submits an application and never hears anything. Ease the friction right from the start and respond once an application is successfully submitted.

21. Regular communication with previous submissions, interviews, and consultants

It happens. Thousands of candidates get sourced, 2% get placed and the rest just settle in the ATS for a long nap. Stop this by identifying and communicating with old, but not awful candidates (and clean up your ATS while you’re at it). Send regular emails to old candidates–typically those without a note or other activity in six months. Herefish customers see an increase in placements from existing ATS candidates of 76%, so reinvigorating current ATS candidates pays off.

22. Ask engaged candidates for referrals

A players know A players, or so the saying goes. Capture more value from your current ‘top talent’ by driving referrals. You can base a referral email simply on assignment end date or go one step further by using a candidate score to find your most engaged candidates.

23. Identify bad email/no email

Weed out bad information automatically and clean up your database. Candidate and prospect info can be entered incorrectly or simply be bad. Using automation you can identify these records and attempt to update or simply remove them from Bullhorn.

24. Send an email on candidate’s birthday/anniversary/any date

Retail outlets have used this for years but it’s just as applicable for recruitment. Sending an email on a specific date like a birthday or customer anniversary is a small delight that can be set once and will run forever.

25. Uploading spreadsheet

Systems that aren’t integrated require endless downloading and uploading of spreadsheets. Stop this insanity and automatically keep your marketing platform, like Herefish, integrated with Bullhorn, and never upload a spreadsheet again.

So there you have it; 25 things that recruitment automation can help with today. Automating repetitive or mundane tasks that are prone to be forgotten helps recruiters, salespeople, and the entire organisation save time, money, and effort.

What is Bullhorn Amplify?

Bullhorn Amplify is a new kind of AI solution built exclusively for recruitment firms. It automates sourcing, screening, and submissions—so your team can fill roles faster, hire smarter, and grow your business without increasing headcount. 

Built on Agentforce, Salesforce’s trusted AI infrastructure, Amplify for Recruitment Cloud is designed to be flexible, not one-size-fits-all. Rather than a rigid solution, Amplify delivers a configurable set of AI-powered recruitment agents that can be tailored to your workflows, roles, and verticals—all within your existing Salesforce environment.

Amplify for Recruitment Cloud delivers suites of agents, including relevant skills, actions, and topics purpose-built for four different recruitment sectors: 

• Professional
• Healthcare
• Light industrial
• Executive search

Each agent comes with built-in skills, sector-specific taxonomies, and can be further customised to reflect your agency’s unique processes and client needs.

Out-of-the-box AI skills, built for you

Whether your agency focuses on professional, executive search, healthcare, or light industrial recruitment services, Amplify delivers AI skills optimized for your specific workflows. Out of the box, you get:

• Matching: Instantly surface high-quality candidates 
• Screening: Score and shortlist top talent through automated conversational screening
• Outreach: Generate personalised outreach and nurture sequences at scale

These preconfigured skills are designed to work right away—but they’re also fully configurable to your firm’s needs.

In addition, many more skills are in development, including data enrichment, intake, scheduling, and submission.

Flexible by design. Scalable by choice.

Amplify is built to meet you where you are. You can start small—automating just a single task or role—or scale AI across your entire operation. Because these agents are deeply embedded in Salesforce, they operate seamlessly with your existing workflows and data, helping you maintain visibility and control.

Why Bullhorn Amplify?

With Amplify, you can:

• Deploy recruitment agents quickly with starter capabilities like matching and screening already built in
  
• Customise workflows to reflect your firm’s unique processes and sector-specific nuances
  
• Personalise outreach at scale by tailoring prompts and messaging to your tone, vertical, and client expectations
  
• Operate around the clock with AI agents that extend your team’s capacity 24/7
  
• Build on Agentforce, combining Salesforce’s trusted AI infrastructure with Bullhorn’s deep recruitment expertise

Start amplifying your team business

Bullhorn Amplify is here to help your recruiters focus on what they do best — building relationships, closing reqs, and driving results. Want to see it in action or learn how to get started?

Contact your account team to learn more.

Missed the product updates last month? Check out the March 2025 release highlights while you’re here.

Bullhorn Automation (Global)

• Enhanced distance filtering for AI Matching: Available now, we have updated our Auto-Match & Semantic Match services to allow customers the ability to not only filter on max distance but also set a minimum distance. In addition, we have also added support for customers to ignore distance altogether by allowing them to disable the distance filter.
  • Greater flexibility: Recruiters can fine-tune match results by specifying both a minimum and maximum distance—or choose to ignore distance entirely.
  • Remote & relocation support: Ideal for roles like remote jobs or travel nursing where location is flexible or secondary

Updates to Bullhorn ATS & CRM

Bullhorn ATS

• LinkedIn job status update button:  Available now, we have introduced a LinkedIn Job Status button via action menu. Allows recruiters to manually check the LinkedIn Apply Connect sync status of any Job within Bullhorn ATS.
• Recent search selection should direct to criteria builder: Available now, when selecting a recent search from the Quick Search dropdown, you’ll be directed to the criteria builder instead of immediately launching the search. This change allows you to review and refine your search parameters before executing a saved search, giving you greater control and flexibility.

Product updates for Bullhorn VMS Sync

Bullhorn VMS

• Position list export: Available now, the Position List search results can now be exported in JSON or CSV format.  The export is emailed to the requesting Admin Tools user. This is enabled for all users, allowing for large dataset analysis and decision-making.

For a complete look at April product updates, please visit the full release notes.

The LinkedIn Apply Connect integration will help streamline the application process and empower recruiters to work smarter, not harder. By bridging the gap between LinkedIn and the Bullhorn ATS, this integration delivers a seamless experience for both candidates and recruiters—reducing drop-off, boosting efficiency, and improving your bottom line.

A seamless candidate experience

Today’s talent are looking for simplicity and speed; according to Bullhorn’s most recent GRID Talent Trends Report, 80% of candidates expect to be placed in less than 20 days. With LinkedIn Apply Connect, job seekers can apply directly on LinkedIn via Easy Apply, with their application data automatically synced to the Bullhorn ATS in real time, eliminating friction in the application process. If your company is using LinkedIn Recruiter, your candidates receive automatic status notifications, ensuring transparency and keeping them informed throughout the hiring journey—boosting both satisfaction and trust in the recruitment process.

An easier recruiting workflow

For recruiters, this integration eliminates manual data entry, ensuring that every LinkedIn application is captured instantly in the Bullhorn ATS. With real-time job syncing, recruiters no longer need to manage job postings separately within LinkedIn. Any changes to job descriptions, status updates, or details in Bullhorn ATS are instantly reflected on LinkedIn, providing a single source of truth for all job postings.

A few benefits this integration brings for recruiters include:

• Instant application syncing – No more manually adding candidates from LinkedIn.
• Enhanced applicant insights* – View real-time LinkedIn profile data within Bullhorn ATS for better candidate evaluation.
• Improved efficiency – Less administrative work means recruiters can focus on high-value tasks like candidate engagement and client relationships.
• Automated candidate notifications* – Keep candidates informed automatically when their applications are viewed, resumes are downloaded, or decisions are made.

*Requires LinkedIn Recruiter license

A competitive advantage

In a recruitment landscape where every second counts, agencies leveraging Bullhorn’s LinkedIn Apply Connect integration gain a significant competitive edge. By reducing candidate drop-off, increasing recruiter efficiency, and offering an enhanced application experience, agencies using Bullhorn ATS will stand out from competitors still relying on fragmented, manual processes. Additionally, according to data from LinkedIn, Apply Connect attracts up to three times more qualified applicants compared to offsite applications.

Get started today

Bullhorn’s LinkedIn Apply Connect integration is now available for recruitment agencies on the Bullhorn Platform and ready to modernise their hiring processes. To enable the integration, talk to your Bullhorn Account Executive and ensure you have:

• A Bullhorn Front Office or Bullhorn ATS product
• A LinkedIn Agency Account with available job slots
• A LinkedIn company page
• A career portal website

Check out the video below to see the LinkedIn Apply Connect integration in action:

This integration—along with other enhancements like a new search experience, parsing updates, and AI-powered enhancements—is now available to all Bullhorn Front Office users. Stay tuned for further investments into the Bullhorn Platform to help you and your team work faster and smarter.

Want to take your recruitment strategy to the next level? Contact your Bullhorn representative today to activate LinkedIn Apply Connect.

Imagine having all your resources—Bullhorn Launch training, product updates, support cases, and more—available in one easy-to-access place. The Bullhorn Hub is built to empower your self-service experience, putting everything you need right at your fingertips. 

What is the Bullhorn Hub?

The Bullhorn Hub is a centralised platform that streamlines access to resources, tools, and insights, empowering customers to maximise their productivity and optimise their Bullhorn experience. With the Bullhorn Hub, you can: 

• Discover the latest product updates and enhancements easily in the Product Release Portal, your go-to resource for staying informed.
• Visit Bullhorn Launch and learn at your own pace with on-demand learning designed to teach you in-demand skills. 
• Easily submit a support case and get the help you need, fast.

With the Hub’s advanced search capabilities, you can uncover what you need faster than ever before.

How can I access the Bullhorn Hub?

You can access the Bullhorn Hub using two methods:

1. Single Sign-On (SSO): Sign in through your Bullhorn ATS account.
2. Direct Login URL: Visit help.bullhorn.com.

Have a question? Follow these instructions to access the Bullhorn Hub today or check out our FAQ or How-to video! 

We can’t wait for you to see what is in store at the Bullhorn Hub!

Missed the product updates last month? Check out the February 2025 release highlights while you’re here.

Bullhorn automation and AI agents enhancements

Bullhorn AI agents and automation

AI Assistant

• Conversational AI Assistant: AI Assistant is now conversational! The existing workflow has been moved from within the AI Assistant card to a slide out experience. There is a new AI Assistant button on Job and Candidate records, and a dismissable warning when you leave or start a conversation over.

AI Search & Match

• AI Search & Match improvements: Customers can now take advantage of AI Search & Match improvements. Previously, search queries connected keywords with “OR,” generating broader results that included candidates matching any of the terms. With this update, our AI Build service has been enhanced to refine keyword usage, ensuring that keywords are now connected by “AND.” This improvement delivers more precise search results by only including candidates who match all specified keywords.

Bullhorn Automation

• Score writeback to Bullhorn Recruitment Cloud: Available now, Bullhorn Recruitment Cloud customers can configure the Bullhorn Automation Score to write back to a custom field on their Candidate records in Bullhorn Recruitment Cloud which allows them to better identify the most engaged Candidates in their ATS.

Updates to Bullhorn ATS & CRM

Bullhorn ATS

• Novo candidate list is now generally available: We’re excited to announce that the Novo Candidate List is now generally available, bringing enhanced search capabilities and a more intuitive experience to your candidate database. With this update, you can confidently and efficiently search for records without dealing with complex interfaces. Clients can upgrade by submitting a support ticket. Later this year we will begin automatically upgrading clients.

Bullhorn Analytics product updates

Bullhorn Analytics

• Metric editing: Available now, Enterprise Edition clients can now create new metrics based on Metric Types by navigating to Admin > Metrics > Edit Metrics, removing the need to always duplicate or inherit from an existing metric. Users can now control the aggregation options for existing and new metrics, selecting from options such as count, sum, min, average, etc. This update continues to allow our Analytics customers to make self-service changes in their environment without reliance on Support.

Product updates for Bullhorn VMS Sync

Bullhorn VMS

• Submittals attachment type filter: Available now, attachment type is now an alphabetised type ahead filter. This update lets users quickly find and assign a file type to an attachment.

For a complete look at March product updates, please visit the full release notes.

Lay the foundation with VMS job automation

Sync your VMS jobs to your ATS so that you can simply see the job come in and not waste any bandwidth on making sense of each VMS job, all while Bullhorn automates VMS jobs in the background. Bullhorn VMS Sync captures VMS jobs data and creates a job record in your ATS. VMS Sync then normalises the VMS data so it contextualises jobs across all VMSes, so everything looks the same regardless of which VMS the job is coming from. Have the information you need coming in where you expect it to be, with VMS Sync mapping VMS fields to ATS fields and applying business rules and routing logic your admin can set.

Source, screen, and qualify candidates with AI

Spend less time searching for qualified candidates and more time building relationships with the best ones with AI. AI agents automatically enrich each job, build the public job description, categorise the job by AI, and automatically add screening questions. Then, AI agents automatically build search queries and match candidates to the job using our machine learning models. From there, automation engages with and sends personalised messages to candidates. Then, those candidates are screened by an AI agent, and the ones who are the best fit for the role are invited to book time on a recruiter’s calendar.

The last mile: Submit candidates faster to your VMS

Bullhorn is committed to fully closing the ATS-VMS loop by deepening VMS Sync Submittals functionality. In addition to continuing to support new integrations for VMS candidate submissions and innovate on VMS Sync jobs, we’ve added three new features based on customer feedback to submit candidates faster. 

1. Enhanced submittal mapping

Get as close as possible to a 100% submission form completion to reduce manual work and reduce copy/paste from your ATS to VMS. We’ve greatly expanded this so an admin can map any ATS field on the company, job, or candidate to the client submission form, which is especially useful if you’ve done a lot of custom work to your ATS.

2. Auto-populate based on last submission

Reduce repetitive data entry, typos, and speed up the submission process when auto-populating based on last submission. When you’re in the ATS to submit a candidate, it’ll alert you that we’ve found a previous submission. You can choose to start from scratch or use the same exact data that you submitted a few days or hours ago.

3. Draft submissions

If you have an account manager who must review every submission before getting the candidate over the VMS, recruiters can quickly create a draft submission. This draft submission can then be slotted in a queue for the account manager to quickly review and then push off, ensuring you’re submitting your candidates correctly to increase the likelihood that your candidate submissions are accepted.

With AI agents and assistants amplifying your workforce, you can accelerate speed to market, boost recruiter efficiency, and strengthen strategic VMS relationships.

Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about how VMS meets AI.

Missed the product updates last month? Check out the January 2025 release highlights while you’re here.

Bullhorn AI enhancements

Bullhorn AI

• New look! We have updated the Candidate & Job card to be more prompt-focused and give our customers an easier way to visualise the most important prompts to the recruiter. This is also a stepping stone for a more unified user experience with AI Assistant as we progress towards infusing prompt generation into different recruitment workflows and pages.

Updates to Bullhorn ATS & CRM

Bullhorn ATS

• Data Hub external data: Available now, customers can bring data from external data sources into the Bullhorn ecosystem for comprehensive reporting through Bullhorn Analytics & Data Replication! Common use cases include finance data, payroll, and custom apps. Clients have two options to integrate data from external applications:
  • Publish data to the data hub using our Data Hub APIs
  • Engage Bullhorn Professional Services
• For licensing information, contact your Account Manager to get started.

Bullhorn Automation product updates

Bullhorn Automation

• Email template builder with saved rows: Available now, we have released the ability to create saved rows, making it easy to save frequently used email blocks when using the drag-and-drop email builder in automation. As a customer who creates a large volume of emails, you can now save a row of your design to reuse it in other email templates, reducing the time and effort spent on repetitive tasks. 

Product updates for Bullhorn VMS Sync

Bullhorn VMS

• API update – AHSA trio: Available now, the AHSA Trio Credentials now support AHSA’s V3 API, providing enhanced security, performance, and reliability. All enabled credentials have been updated with the AHSA API key. New or disabled credentials can add the API key in AHSA/Sync.

For a complete look at February product updates, please visit the full release notes.

We caught up with experts from across Bullhorn, including Jay Roberts, Account Executive, Erik Mateev, Sales and Strategy, Automation & AI, and Leigh Clarke, Senior Solutions Consultant, to understand how automation can have an immediate impact on your recruiting organisation.

Read the recap below or catch the webinar recording here.

Setting the stage

Across Bullhorn’s customer base, hundreds of millions of data points are now automated every year — a clear sign that recruitment teams are embracing automation at scale.

When it comes to recruitment automation, there are three key pillars: 

Productivity on the administrative side, like checking emails, updating fields and notes, creating tasks, etc. The goal here is to take effort away from consultants to give them valuable time back to create more opportunities for new business. 

Experience is the second pillar – how can you create the best experience for your candidates and clients? It’s about creating proactive engagement and good communication. 

Data health is the third and arguably most important pillar – in order to have your team to be the most productive, your data needs to be clean. With accurate data, your ATS will become a reliable source of truth and the first point of reference for your consultants.

Finally, before we dive into the automations, it’s helpful to keep in mind the logic behind every automation: if this, then that – this being the trigger, that being the actions that will follow on to take in the background.

1. Engage inactive candidates

This automation begins with any candidate that hasn’t had any submission in 24 months or no note in the past six months. 

• First, bring them through an engagement workflow, which will start with a newsletter-style, HTML email, showing content, a photo of their recruiter, and displaying a link to open jobs.
• Then, after a few weeks, send them a more personalised email that feels as if it’s come from a human being.
• Four weeks after that, send them a survey.
• Two weeks after that, update their status to “archived”.

If at any point, the candidate does interact, you can add a note on them, which will take them out of the automation flow.

Re-engaging dormant candidates is one of the highest-leverage moves an agency can make to build pipeline without increasing sourcing spend. Creating a campaign to proactively engage candidates will allow you to bring that relationship back to life.

2. Get an alert when a candidate views a job on your website

If you have a candidate perusing open jobs on your website, you can create an automation that reacts to a candidate visiting your website.

• The trigger point is your candidate having visited a page on the website in the last seven days where the URL contains “jobs”.
• Then, send a notification to the candidate owner – that is, the recruiter – telling them that the candidate has visited and looked at that job. That notification will come through via email.

As the candidate engages more with jobs, more information will come through about the candidate in their Bullhorn record. A numerical engagement score will start to appear, based on how many times the candidate has interacted with what you send them. From that score, you can determine how actively the candidate is engaging with our brand, as well as how actively they may be looking for a new position.

3. Make data cleansing easy

This automation will help you update, maintain, and populate data in your ATS/CRM.

• Start with a list of candidates with no submissions or notes. In addition, there might also be missing information, like their phone number or their position title.
• This time, you’ll be sending them a survey, which will land in their inbox. 
• The candidate will then follow the survey, where you can ask them questions, like what their current job role is, what the best number to reach them is, or even GDPR-related questions. 
• When they populate that information, their candidate record will update automatically in Bullhorn. The survey can also allow them to update their resume or CV.

Going back into Bullhorn Automation, you can build out this process and make it a bit more complex by using something called branching.

• One branch, or option, of the automation is if your candidate fills out the survey and updates their information – then their status will be updated to active.
• If not, you can create an alternate branch, or path, for that candidate, where you can wait a while – say, a week – and then send a follow-up. 
• From there, another branch: if the candidate responds to the follow-up, you’ll make them active.
• If they still do not respond, you can update their status to archived, and also add them to a hotlist, where they’ll be marked for deletion.

This is just one example of the many data-driven automations you can set up so you have a clean and accurate ATS to work with, allowing your recruiters to rely on it as a source of truth.

4. Reply to online applications automatically

This automation is a bit different. This automation triggers a submission, or, in this case, an application. 

• In this case, you can bring submission status into the “if this” portion of the automation. Here the submission status would be “web response in the last 7 days”. This means anyone who’s applied via our website, or via an integrated job board that we have in the Bullhorn system, would be pulled into the automation.
• What you can do here is respond to that submission with an automated email thanking them for sending in their information. You can also send a text message via SMS, which can also include a survey they can fill in. 
• Some clients have built branching options from here, depending on how the candidate responds, which can then set up a chat experience for the candidate via text.

This makes sure the candidate gets a personalised experience as soon as they interact with you. That initial outreach can go a long way into making sure your candidates feel appreciated and valued.

Our GRID findings show that every second candidate drops out of the process because they find that the engagement is too slow, or they’re not being engaged with at all. This recruitment automation is an excellent way to address that.

5. Speed up business development

We’ve done a lot of automations dealing with candidates, but here’s one you can use for your contacts and sales leads.

• This automation is based on a follow-up for a cold call that you’ve logged for one of your sales contacts. So, if, in the last day, you’ve logged a prospect call or a cold call (or even logged a left message), that will bring that contact into this automation.
• From here, you can send them an email following up, acknowledging that you had a call or left a message and sharing your contact details. 
• Then, after three days, a task will be added reminding you, the recruiter, to follow up with this conversation you had earlier in the week. This way, you can ensure that you’re speaking to those folks again after that good first initial call.

Everyone in a sales role can understand the stress of calling tens, maybe even hundreds of people in a day and having to follow up with those leads. With this automation, you can empower your consultants to either automate the follow-up or proactively start the follow-up process.

One Bullhorn Automation customer created a similar recruitment automation to follow up with every new lead added in their Bullhorn system where a consultant was unable to engage with that prospect on the first try. By the end of month one, the group resulted in a 97% success rate in showing some form of engagement with those emails by the prospect.

Less busywork. More ROI.

On average, recruitment automation is saving roughly 12.75 hours per person per week, which translates back around to about $60,000 to the recruiter’s topline. The focus of automation is to remove busy work and allow recruiters to focus on what they do best: building relationships and generating revenue.

Are you ready to empower your recruiters and automate your recruiting workflow? Request a demo of Bullhorn Automation today.