Introduction
LevelUP Human Capital Solutions (HCS), a leader in talent solutions, made a strategic move in 2022 by implementing Bullhorn One. LevelUP provides comprehensive talent solutions ranging from full-scale recruitment placement outsourcing (RPO) to temporary staffing and managing contingent labor through Total Talent and managed services. They serve a diverse client portfolio in financial services, technology, health care, and emerging industries.
Their commitment to delivering results-driven service and continuous improvement has been enhanced by the integration of Bullhorn One, setting a new benchmark in personalized client and candidate experiences.
Bullhorn One allowed us to achieve many of our strategic goals, allowing us to be more innovative and build an ATS that would address today’s business challenges as well as accompany us for our growth in the years ahead,” said Fitzgerald. “We’re much more effective now that we don’t have fragmented project teams and siloed back-office work.
Before Bullhorn One
Before Bullhorn, LevelUP used recruiting and talent management software that lacked modern technology and impacted the team’s ability to operate within a centralized ATS. “Our teams faced challenges with the functionality and user interface of our previous system,” said John Fitzgerald, President and Global Chief People Officer at LevelUP. “We needed a modern system that allowed us to leverage the power of our greatest asset, the expertise of our employees, enhance our business processes, improve the user experience and keep pace with the evolving client needs.”
The absence of a unified database for candidates and clients meant that the LevelUP team had to recreate candidate bases and connections for each project, creating unnecessary work, hindering collaboration, and leaving recruiters in the dark.
Recognizing the need for a centralized ATS that could provide access to the same data and operating model globally and offer enhanced tools and capabilities, the company’s leadership decided to invest in Bullhorn One.
Solution
LevelUP implemented Bullhorn One in 2022, because they found it delivered complete, cloud-based management of every aspect of their organization, from intake to payroll. In addition to Bullhorn One, LevelUP makes use of multiple Bullhorn Marketplace integrations that streamline their text, email, and voice communications.
“By itself, the Bullhorn Platform offered a lot of benefits,” said Fitzgerald. “But we viewed access to Bullhorn’s Marketplace is a significant differentiator in the industry.”
Bullhorn One was chosen for its ability to integrate search and staffing functions with RPO and contingent workforce services, providing a holistic view.
Implementation Process
Fitzgerald said that while the implementation process had its challenges, it started and ended “perfectly.”
Anticipating the change management involved in the implementation process, Fitzgerald and his team allocated 12 months to ensure a successful transition to Bullhorn One. This allowed teams sufficient time to adjust to the new operating model.
A Bullhorn implementation specialist, Newbury Partners, worked closely with LevelUP during the transition, taking steps to understand their organization’s unique challenges. Fitzgerald said he and his team received tailored advice, including recommendations for specific Marketplace integrations, as well as wrap-around support during the go-live process. “Bullhorn was very understanding and willing to hear our voice of customer recommendations,” said Fitzgerald. “We were in partnership mode with one another. From my point of view, it was great.”
Newbury, Bullhorn and the leadership team at LevelUP worked collaboratively to design a process to introduce the new system in stages. This allowed time to ensure data accuracy as team members became confident working in the new system.
“When you’re in a period of transition, it’s important to work with a partner that is committed to transparency,” Fitzgerald said. “Bullhorn helped us identify and brainstorm around issues as they arose, and as a result, we’ve done a good job managing the change.”
Bullhorn understood our business practices and competitors, so they could provide strategic support during implementation.
Results
The LevelUP team is customizing Bullhorn One to unify and automate their processes and deliver the best experience for candidates and clients.
With a single ATS, they can now find the best-suited candidates across the entire platform, reducing time and resources that used to be spent recreating data across projects. It also gives business leaders better insight into placements and openings, helping them pinpoint opportunities for cross collaboration and better outcomes.
“Bullhorn gives us the intelligence to understand how our key processes are working and how to better manage them for accuracy and timeliness,” Fitzgerald said. That includes tracking metrics such as time to fill positions, the number of submissions for each role, and how many roles are filled each week.
LevelUP is also excited by the increased efficiency they have seen with Bullhorn One’s invoicing capabilities. Instead of the finance team needing to review all invoices at the end of the month in one big batch, the team is able to continuously review invoices. “We have seen increased efficiency with invoice distribution as well as accuracy. We built Bullhorn Automation reminders to ensure candidates and time approvers are consistently reminded to complete their timesheet responsibilities.” said Fitzgerald.
With Bullhorn, LevelUP is creating a better client and candidate experience and building a competitive advantage for their team.
Into the Future with Confidence
Looking ahead, the team is going to use Bullhorn Automation to ensure consistency with outreach, and to gain efficiencies such as routinely flagging missing data and milestone check points with our candidates, hires and hiring managers. “We’ll be able to quickly validate a candidate’s profile, track their submissions, and access the breadth of our database to find the best placement, even if it’s not within the original outreach. Bullhorn gives us the ability to provide that kind of service and personal attention, which is the power of LevelUP.”
Now that they have gone live on Bullhorn, the executive team at LevelUP is looking forward to bringing the entire company up to speed on their new tech stack. In addition to Bullhorn’s training, they created a series of internal training videos to help new team members adopt the platform. They also have continuous education for current team members to explore the platform and the possibilities to enhance recruitment processes. “In the short term, our primary focus is on orienting people to our new processes, and introducing the system changes we’re making,” said Fitzgerald. “We are excited to show our team what’s possible. And we want to hear from them with their ideas for further efficiencies and automations.”
Fitzgerald is also excited about expanding into the Bullhorn ecosystem. “One of the nice things about Bullhorn One is the ability to grow with it,” said Fitzgerald. “We are constantly looking at what additional data we can bring into Bullhorn through integrations to meet our company’s strategic goals. And the core of that is having a strong ATS database that is always mined, updated, and valid.”
With Bullhorn One, everything is completely centralized. With a powerful ATS and a range of integration options, our teams can be as effective as possible.