At our most recent Engage Boston, we gathered two of the industry’s most knowledgeable leaders with deep insights about the development of AI on Salesforce—and where it’s going. Whether you’re interested in making the platform work for your unique goals or focused on future-proofing for the inevitable next wave of change, this expansive conversation will give you a master class on AI for the recruitment industry. 

Read on for tips and tricks from Lindsey Ohayon, Director Business Development and Strategy, Salesforce and Joshua Pines, VP, Product Marketing, Bullhorn on how to: 

• Get the most out of Salesforce with an AI perspective on the platform
• Understand integration with Bullhorn’s AI capabilities  
• Prepare your organization for future AI-driven capabilities from Bullhorn 

Leverage the power of AI using Salesforce

While industry players may be familiar with consumer applications of AI, it’s important to contextualize the capabilities of the Salesforce platform. Years ago, Salesforce introduced the Einstein platform to leverage predictive and proactive insights for customers and introduced a generative wave of AI technology with Salesforce GPT in 2023. While ChatGPT is powered by a public data model, trusted customer data shouldn’t sit in a public domain, as used by ChatGPT in 2024.

Trust is key, explains Ohayon. “With that kind of trust in mind, we started approaching that generative AI path we’ve been on for the last couple of years.” The process started with an inquiry into how the platform could connect all of our customers’ data sources in a trusted way. Ohayon elaborates: “Break down those data silos, unblock those data islands to realize a cohesive way to view your customers’ information in a trusted manner, and activate AI use cases, and the way we’ve done that is through the Einstein One platform.”

The core differentiator? Einstein One combines Data Cloud and multiple Customer 360 apps, such as Sales, Service, Marketing, and Commerce Clouds, to activate AI experiences. The platform offers predictive AI capabilities such as recommended shopping experiences on Commerce Cloud, bots to support agents, and sales tools, including Service Cloud and Forecasting. 

Meanwhile, Einstein Copilot, the generative AI source, is a conversational AI tool that operates across all of an organization’s CRM applications. Speak to it naturally, and the platform takes action. 

Customization = competitive edge

“It’s not enough to just provide you AI capabilities,” says Ohayon, elaborating on the development of the innovation, “but with Einstein One studio, you can customize what that AI does for you and your business.” The realization of tailor-made capabilities allows stakeholders to elevate from the competitive noise of the marketplace, building their own capabilities by developing custom prompts and Copilot actions, all supported, explains Ohayon, “by the Einstein trust layer, which means we have a zero-retention policy. None of your customer data that exists in your Salesforce orgs will end up being retained by a public LLM.”

Lay a foundation for innovation

For industry leaders who are focused on future-proofing their organizations, Copilot offers capabilities and extensions that support the march towards adopting and optimizing the adoption of AI. Because Einstein One incorporates Data Cloud and Customer 360 apps, it’s a more trusted resource across multiple categories, offering a unified view of your customers. 

As Ohayon explains, “You’re not actually moving data platform to platform, but with our integration, you can leverage it as if it lives natively on either platform. So now once you have all of that data accessible on Salesforce, you truly are ready to activate those AI experiences because you have that real, true, unified view of your customer.”

The power of platform-native partnership

Let’s say you want to automate a creative flow to send a trigger to a certain candidate via email and have AI do that based on real-time transcription from a call that you had with them. As a Salesforce customer, you’re now empowered to set that in motion with data cloud connectivity. You have a suite of functionality, based on good, trusted data, that empowers or accelerates what AI can do for your company. 

The key is enriching day-to-day workflow. “We want the intelligence that AI provides to be within that flow of work,” urges Ohayon. “It’s not just what actions you can take, but how you and your customers operate day to day.”

Drive behavior focused on high-value activities

Everyone knows the pain points of conversing with bots, where there is no point of connection between a chatbot and a support agent. With AI, companies can tap into the power of the data cloud and leverage that single source of truth to summarize a customer’s previous interactions across multiple touchpoints, all so your users can provide customers with a continuous experience.

Customers can benefit from Salesforce learnings to drive more interesting, valuable functionality. For example, many customers on the Salesforce platform run a contact center business within their business to manage client issues. Adoption of Service Cloud amongst clients is a great use case that we’re seeing amongst clients that have a separate call center to handle client issues in the moment using cases.

When users are freed from manual tasks, they can focus on higher-value activities—building relationships with clients and candidates or developing existing relationships within your pools.

The roadmap to leveraging AI in the future

Looking ahead at the conversations in Salesforce’s boardrooms around the biggest questions driving innovation in the next six, twelve, or 24 months, many customers are reeling from being asked to do more with less. “I think there’s also an interesting kind of twist that we’ve started to make in speaking about AI,” shares Ohayon. “It’s not just how certain tasks can be replaced by AI, but how we work more efficiently with AI to spend more time with our customers.”

Rather than simply replacing tasks, use the platforms to enrich customer interactions to drive revenue retention rate and customer success. “Instead of feeling like my job is going to be replaced by AI, which is certainly not where we’re heading, use AI for good. Make your job and make your day that much more enriched, that much more informed.”

Want more insights from Engage Boston? Check out the Content Hub for keynote videos, recaps, and more!

Bullhorn VMS Sync connects all your vendor management systems into one central area, allowing jobs to flow automatically into your ATS. Instead of logging into several different platforms with data formatted differently for each one, users of VMS Sync can see jobs normalized right in their ATS, allowing them to focus more on placing candidates and less on administrative tasks.

Bullhorn currently has over 110 integrations with different VMS platforms. Four of those platforms also have VMS Sync submittal capabilities, meaning that within the Bullhorn ATS, users can submit candidates to the VMS right from Bullhorn.

We sat down with Tony Cardinella, Senior Customer Success Consultant at Bullhorn, as part of our ongoing Bullhorn Basics series to explore VMS Sync best practices and common bumps in the road. To make sure you’re making the most out of VMS Sync, read on, or watch the full webinar here. 

Credential list health

To make sure VMS Sync is running smoothly for your organization, you’ll want to run through a daily checklist. There are a few items you should keep an eye on in order to take full advantage of VMS Sync and place candidates more quickly.

The first item on your checklist: ensuring the health of your credential list. When viewing your credential list, you’ll notice either green checkmarks, red X marks, or yellow envelopes. Green checkmarks mean that the credential is active. Yellow envelopes are also okay – they mean that the unique email for that credential hasn’t yet received an email for that credential, likely due to an API connection, but they are active credentials.

Red X marks, however, are disabled credentials. Credentials are only disabled for two reasons: if the password expires and needs to be reset or if the VMS site was unavailable during an overnight requisition sweep. These are simple fixes: either reset the credential password or reactivate the connection to the VMS site.

Company mapping

The next item on your checklist is company mapping. The company mapping view is split into two columns: VMS companies and ATS companies. You can click on the location of your VMS companies to see what positions are affected by that mapping, which positions are pending, and open another tab to find all of the position details.

You can also click into your linked companies to ensure that your VMS and ATS companies are linked properly. If a company is marked as auto-linked, the system has automatically linked the two companies. A confirmed link means that a human being manually linked the two companies. You’ll want to check both your company mappings and linked companies all contain correct information.

Skill mapping

Finally, you’ll also want to monitor your skill mapping. Skill mapping is mainly used for our healthcare clients. You can view the VMS Sync types and specialties and link them to any fields you’d like within the ATS when those two variables come together on a job. 

Another best practice is to create dedicated user logins for each credential signed into VMS Sync. When each credential has a dedicated email, you’ll receive near real-time email updates for new positions and updates to those positions.

Credential troubleshooting

If you’re experiencing lag time with any of your positions uploading, check to ensure you’re not having your IT department forward emails from your VMS platform to the dedicated credential email for VMS Sync. Email forwarding can be effective for some, but for some clients, it can be difficult to differentiate which emails go to which dedicated VMS credential email address. This is why we recommend creating truly dedicated credentials with a credential email on the VMS side so everything updates as fast as possible.

Another scenario that you may be encountering is end users needing to constantly reset their passwords for their logins to the VMS site, coinciding with the VMS credential and VMS Sync being deactivated. This is often due to a shared credential that has the dedicated login selection set to “yes,” because our systems programmatically update that password once a week. If this is a continuous issue, and it’s a VMS that Bullhorn doesn’t have an integration with, simply move that setting to “no,” and you’ll be good to go. Additionally, if you do reset your password, your password will need to be different from the one you previously used in order to save and proceed.

Position troubleshooting

If your positions aren’t flowing into your ATS, this could be due to your company and skill mappings. You may have a setting enabled to ignore unmapped positions, so if your position is in the” pending” column under company mappings, it won’t sync to the ATS, because it hasn’t been mapped for the company mappings. The same issue may happen with your skill mapping. This is why it’s important to check in daily with your company and skill mappings to see which positions are still pending.

Additionally, if you have positions that your end users only edit one part of – like, for example, the available positions number – but the entire job overwrites with all of the original information, Bullhorn can enable a feature called “ignore unchanged fields.” With this feature, the Bullhorn ATS will only change the field that was updated on the VMS position itself. If you would like this rule enabled, please reach out to your account manager or to Bullhorn Support. 

If you have ATS fields that are left blank, we can write rules to point to certain areas or fill in the information with “if” conditions – for example, if this job is located in California with this zip code, then set the job owner to this person. (If you have your own rules writing access, when writing to a Bullhorn user or client contact, you must put their user ID, not their name.)

If your ATS fields have incorrect data, that may be due to VMS platforms that don’t have a start date on their job – only a “created” date. Some Bullhorn clients remedy this by creating a rule called “date to math,” where they add a certain number of days to their created date to produce a start date. If you don’t have rules writing access, reach out to your account manager or to Bullhorn Support, and we can work with you to set up the rules you need.

By following these best practices, you can ensure that VMS Sync operates smoothly and efficiently, allowing your team to focus on high-value tasks, transform your recruitment process, and place more candidates with ease.

Missed the product updates last month? Check out the June 2024 release highlights while you’re here.

Updates to Bullhorn Copilot

Bullhorn Copilot

• Candidate card user experience updates: We have updated the formatting buttons and layout to be more user-friendly and provide a better experience when interacting with the LLM on a given prompt. Updates include clearer button labels and options, option selection indicators, and an updated layout.

Updates to Bullhorn ATS & CRM

Bullhorn ATS

• Saved search card: Now, when a saved search is selected on selected lists, users will be able to open the advanced search window and know that they’re viewing saved search criteria. This feature will be automatically seen on Payable Charges, Billable Charges, Timesheets, Invoices, and Compliance Manager Dashboard.

Bullhorn Automation product updates

Bullhorn Automation

• Semantic match enhancements: We’ve made some updates to our stored repository of postal codes to ensure accuracy. This update also includes some enhancements to our matching service that increases resilience to bad data by updating service to ignore any spaces, special characters, or commas in postal codes.

Bullhorn Analytics product updates

Bullhorn Analytics

• Edit/view access when sharing dashboards: Bullhorn Analytics users with the “Share Dashboards” permission can now grant either View or Edit access when sharing their Dashboards with other users. Any edits made to a shared Dashboard will be saved and applied to all users. 

Enhancements to Bullhorn’s Pay & Bill functionality

Bullhorn Pay & Bill

Time & Labor engine enhancements

• New guaranteed hours frequency: We have added the new frequency within the Guaranteed Hours rule to support Daily (Minimum Hours Worked per Day) so that hours are only guaranteed for the days with worked hours.

Updates to Bullhorn Onboarding solutions

Bullhorn Onboarding

Talent Platform

• Form I-9 & e-verify: We have simplified the user experience by eliminating redundant “Assign Section 2” and “I-9 In Progress” tabs from the navigation menu with I-9 Dashboard 2.0. Though tabs are hidden, users can still access information via I-9 Dashboard 2.0, promoting cleaner navigation without workflow disruption.
• Admin experience: We have renamed the column headers on the Translations page for better clarity: “Default Value” is now “Language Default Value” and “Custom Value” is now “Customer Translated Value,” clarifying the priority and context of translation values.
• Knowledge Base: Workforce Management Users can now quickly search for information via a new “Knowledge Base” menu item in the user settings dropdown, linking to the Bullhorn Knowledge Base for Talent Platform, improving efficiency and reducing support reliance.

Onboarding365

• Emails:  Agency administrators can now set up a custom sender email address under Settings > Agency Information, enabling transactional emails to be sent from their own domain instead of estaff365.com. This enhancement ensures that emails appear more personalized and trustworthy to recipients, with DNS verification status messages providing confidence in email delivery.

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

At Engage Boston 2024, we took a look back at all of the latest updates we’ve made to each of our offerings in the last several months; plus, we presented our product roadmaps to give attendees a sneak peek at what’s to come. 

Below, take a look at just a few of the product updates coming to Bullhorn in 2024 and find out how they can help you win new business, boost productivity, and ensure an incredible candidate experience.

Plus, for more Engage Boston content, check out our content hub!

Winning – and retaining – business

In our recent GRID Industry Trends Report, over 1,400 staffing professionals listed winning new business as their top priority. We’re focusing on product updates that help you and your team identify the most promising opportunities – and better serve and retain your existing clients. 

1. Sourcing AI: We’re building out our sourcing AI capabilities within Copilot to help you find the best candidates for clients – and the best jobs for candidates. Stay tuned for more information coming soon!

2. Client rating: To help you better serve your clients, Bullhorn Automation users will be able to collect candidate ratings from clients – for example, asking clients, “How would you rate this candidate from 1-10?” These ratings will then be written back and monitored within your ATS, allowing you to better tailor your candidates to match your clients’ needs.

3. Self-service metric creation: To help you track the KPIs you need to succeed, Bullhorn Analytics will soon be offering self-service metric creation. Users can add new metrics by duplicating or combining metrics with existing ones, adjust metric configuration from the Admin page, and apply filters to drill down to metric segments that matter. 

Employee productivity

Our GRID Industry Trends Report also found that top-performing firms are focused on improving their teams’ productivity and efficiency. That’s why we’re focused on helping your teams do more with less, speeding up sourcing and candidate engagement, and freeing up their time to focus on high-value tasks.

4. Copilot: In 2024, we’re looking to expand Copilot’s generative capabilities beyond the candidate record. We’ll also be including suggested and configurable prompts to provide recruiters with options that are more closely tailored to their own unique workflows.

5. Improved searching: In 2024, we’ll provide a new search experience for all Bullhorn ATS and CRM users, with reimagined UI and advanced AI options. With suggested searches, user customization, and AI-powered sourcing, Bullhorn users will be able to spend less time searching and more time building connections.

6. Timesheet adjustments: This year, we are adding the ability to adjust timesheets directly in Bullhorn One. This continues our long-term vision of bringing Time Management capabilities directly to the recruiter workflow. Although Bullhorn Time & Expense and Bullhorn One are integrated as part of the larger Bullhorn ecosystem, bringing Time Management into the recruiter workflow further consolidates features and allows for seamless switching between tasks. Plus, in-line editing will make adjustments a breeze! We’ll also further eliminate any friction in the future with Timesheet Change Requests, allowing recruiters to request a change for review by a payroll specialist.

7. Automated credential requirements: Your healthcare credentialing specialists can streamline the credentialing process by having the correct credential requirements flow from the client directly to the job as well as updated at placement and candidate as it is created with automation triggers for company, category, specialty, and state.

Talent experience

By streamlining the talent experience and letting technology handle rote tasks, recruiters can provide a consumer-grade, memorable talent experience that stands above the rest.

8. Calendar questions: Make scheduling interviews with candidates a breeze. We’ll be introducing calendar questions to Bullhorn Automation – during the calendar booking process, collect candidate phone numbers to provide recruiters with a verified number, or integrate with Microsoft Teams to automatically generate conference links.

To learn more about our 2024 product roadmaps, reach out to your Account Manager.

But taking the leap is worth it. Our recent GRID Industry Trends Report found that staffing firms that automate their processes see 39% more submissions per head and fill 22% more jobs.

If you’re looking for a place to start – or you’re already an automation master and simply looking for more inspiration and ideas – look no further than existing Bullhorn customers.

In our recent Automation User Group, we sat down with Brian Cunningham, Managing Director of Allen Recruitment Consulting, where he shared how his team transformed their recruitment process with automation. Read on for some of his key takeaways and tips.

1. Automate follow-ups

One of the most impactful strategies Cunningham’s team implemented was automating follow-ups after initial contact. When a recruiter makes a call, an automated system follows up with a text and an email. This ensures no candidate is forgotten and keeps the process moving smoothly. “They are our most successful automations,” says Cunningham.

2. Utilize dynamic email content

Creating emails that dynamically generate personalized content, like, for example, links to Calendly for booking appointments or job details, has been a game-changer. Dynamic email content improves engagement rates and tailors communication to each candidate, which means recruiters from Allen Recruitment rarely need to cold-call candidates. 

3. Broaden your candidate marketing

Instead of focusing narrowly on specific candidates, broaden your search criteria to include a wider range of potential fits. Send targeted emails to these candidates, highlighting job opportunities and encouraging them to engage with the recruitment process. When Cunningham and his team sent potential job fits to a larger group of candidates, “we’re getting responses from about 50-60% of people.”

4. Embrace AI for personalization

AI can be a powerful tool for personalizing communication. By referencing specific details like the candidate’s current job, skills, and previous interactions, you can create emails that resonate more effectively. Cunningham’s team has seen high open and click rates by making their emails relevant and timely. 

5. Implement exception lists

Using exception lists can improve your automation strategy by ensuring candidates who aren’t interested or haven’t responded are excluded from future emails for a set period. “It’s best to leave candidates alone for 60 to 90 days, depending on the type of job,” Cunningham explained. Though candidates may not be looking for a job at that moment, they may be a better fit for a future role down the road – and preventing them from receiving unwanted communications improves their overall recruitment experience.

6. Focus on the human aspect

Automation should enhance, not replace, the candidate experience. By automating routine tasks and follow-ups, recruiters can spend more time engaging in meaningful conversations with candidates. This approach has allowed Cunningham’s team to focus on high-value interactions and build relationships with talent.

7. Continuous candidate engagement

Develop a system to keep candidates engaged even after they have been turned down for a role. Cunningham’s team sends periodic emails with job search tips and relevant job opportunities: “We send candidates links to material that they can look at in order to make them better at interviewing or presentations.” This not only helps in maintaining a relationship with potential candidates but also improves the chances of matching them with future roles.

8. Survey for better insights

Sending a survey to candidates immediately after they apply can provide valuable insights. Cunningham’s team asks about current salary, visa status, location preferences, and top skills. This information helps recruiters quickly filter and prioritize candidates. “When they looked at the results, our recruiters were able to filter out candidates based on those answers very quickly. I highly recommend building a survey automation,” Cunningham said.

9. Use automation for data management

Automating data updates ensures that candidate records are always up-to-date. For instance, by updating job titles, locations, and employers based on the latest interactions, recruiters can ensure their databases remain relevant and accurate. (For more ideas on how to use automation to clean your data, check out our guide to spring cleaning your database.)

10. Create a positive candidate journey

Develop content that provides value to candidates beyond job offers. This could include interview tips, CV/resume writing advice, or industry insights. By adding value, you build a relationship with candidates, making them more likely to engage with your communications.

Cunningham’s experience shows that thoughtful automation can significantly improve recruitment processes. With these automations incorporated into your recruitment workflows, you’ll reduce administrative burdens on your team, create a better experience for your candidates, and watch your agency transform.

In the latest Invenias Product Roadmap session, John Hopkin, Product Manager at Bullhorn, kicked off the session by reiterating our mission to empower executive search professionals. 

During this product roadmap, Hopkin showcased two new features: AI-powered Copilot and a Power BI integration. Read on to learn how Invenias can help executive search teams deliver the very best talent with these features and more.

Introducing Invenias Copilot

Invenias Copilot – a feature that integrates AI into both desktop and web applications – is designed to streamline the content creation process for executive search professionals. It uses AI to draft personalized emails and other communications based on Invenias data. Hopkin illustrated this with a demo showing how a consultant could quickly generate a customized outreach email to a potential candidate.

Key features of Invenias Copilot include:

• AI-generated drafts: One-click prompts to create emails and summaries.
• Personalization: Context-specific responses tailored to individual candidates.
• Conversational adjustments: Users can refine AI responses through a chat interface.
• Bring your own LLM: Flexibility to choose between AI providers like OpenAI and Azure OpenAI, ensuring control over data security and compliance.

Copilot aims to enhance efficiency by reducing the time needed for initial content drafts, allowing executive search professionals to focus on strategic tasks. This feature is expected to be available by the end of June or Early July. 

Power BI Integration

The second major feature discussed was the integration of Power BI with Invenias. For those new to Power BI, it’s a powerful tool from Microsoft designed to help you bring your data to life with visually immersive and interactive dashboards. Power BI is renowned for its ability to collate and transform data into interactive visuals. Many of our customers are already familiar with Power BI, making it a natural choice for this integration.

Hopkin provided several examples of how to best use Power BI’s integration with Invenias. One example showcased a dashboard built around Invenias billing data. This dashboard provides a single view of billing activities, highlighting overdue billing, income sources, and engagement types. It’s a crucial tool for executive and billing teams to monitor financial performance and identify areas requiring attention.

Power BI can also plot activity on a map, offering a geographic perspective on data, such as billing information. Leadership can easily see where the most billing activity occurs and identify regions with overdue or paid billing. This visualization can be tailored to various levels of detail, from regional overviews to street-level insights, helping organizations pinpoint areas for growth or improvement.

Additional upcoming Invenias activities 

In addition to these features, we’re always working to ensure that Invenias is helping our customers to drive efficiency. In the months to come, customers can expect: 

• Enhanced data migration: A new data migration architecture reduces downtime for database updates, significantly speeding up the process and making projects like data cleansing or mergers more feasible.

• Expanded Automation capabilities: Automations have been expanded, allowing for more efficient workflows and the automatic categorization of assignments based on company data. 

• Hide off-limits warnings: New features also include the ability to hide off-limits warnings, saving users from repetitive clicks.

Recent enhancements

As we look back on Q1 of 2024, we’ve also added the following enhancements to Invenias:

• Users can now customize and save list views directly in the web app.
• Aesthetic updates to Invenias Web have modernized its appearance without disrupting user familiarity.
• Introduction of features like ‘last contact’ columns in people views helps maintain and rekindle client relationships efficiently.
• Huge marketplace growth. The Invenias marketplace continues to expand, integrating new partners like Ringover, who offer additional functionalities such as click-to-dial and WhatsApp integration.

Overall, these updates and features aim to improve data accessibility, operational efficiency, and user experience within the Invenias platform, ensuring that users can maximize the value derived from their data.

Watch the full webinar here to see everything we’ve added to Invenias in 2024 and get a look at what’s to come.

Missed the product updates last month? Check out the May 2024 release highlights while you’re here.

Updates to Bullhorn Copilot

Bullhorn Copilot

• Language enhancement: We’ve added a feature that will allow users to select a language when utilizing the Copilot Generative Candidate card. This enhancement improves the user experience by allowing users to choose from a variety of supported languages for the prompts generated by the user’s selected LLM.
• Enhanced error messaging: We’ve enhanced the error messaging on the Copilot Admin page to include which LLM field is causing an error when testing the connection to the selected LLM. This allows the user to effectively troubleshoot when setting up their LLM.

Bullhorn Automation product updates

Bullhorn Automation

• Update credential automation step: Users can now manage credential requirements through job-based automations with the new “Update Credential” automation step, which includes the ability to add, replace, and remove credential requirements from job records.
• Automation Task step for Salesforce: Salesforce customers can now configure their Bullhorn Automation instance to support the Add Task step, which unlocks the value of follow-on actions from marketing campaigns or data hygiene projects.

Bullhorn Analytics product updates

Bullhorn Analytics

• Original name: The “Original Name” has been added back to Metrics Admin for internal users, alongside the customer-specified display name. This saves time when viewing clients where metric names have been translated into a different language, for example. 

Updates to Bullhorn Healthcare solutions

Bullhorn Healthcare

• Display status for expired and expiring credentials 
  • A candidate’s Credential Status for a credential that has an expiration date in the past or in the next 30 days will display as Expired or Expiring in all areas of Compliance Manager.
  • The Credential Statuses display will revert to the original status once the expiration value is set to a date more than 30 days in the future. This update allows Compliance Specialists to take action to ensure the credential is updated where required.

Product Updates for Bullhorn VMS Sync

Bullhorn VMS

• HealthTrust Workforce Solutions (HWS) submittals integration: Accelerate speed to market and increase client manager productivity by submitting candidates to HWS VMS without leaving the Bullhorn ATS. 
• Simpliant requisition integration: Automatically have VMS requisitions from Simpliant land in your ATS with our new integration.

Updates to Data Replication

Data Replication

• Auto-updating version available: We made an update that detects version changes and automatically installs the latest version within your Data Replication environment so that it is always up to date and receives all the latest updates and fixes. This update enhances security to ensure that only valid files are installed. If interested, please contact your Bullhorn account manager so they can set you up for installation. 

Enhancements to Bullhorn’s Pay & Bill functionality

Bullhorn Pay & Bill

Time & Labor engine enhancements

• UI/UX enhancements: We have made several UI/UX enhancements for our Time & Labor customers. For example, we have added a Display Warning Modal when there are unsaved changes on Placement Pay/Bill Rules, ensuring a user does not navigate away and assume their change was saved. Check out the product release portal for all enhancements!

Updates to Bullhorn Onboarding solutions

Bullhorn Onboarding

Talent Platform

• ATS field mapping: The empty state UI in the Default Field Mappings configuration now offers clear guidance for administrators dealing with blank onboarding entity types or entities without field mappings, ensuring smoother navigation and setup processes.

Onboarding365

• Client business key: We are rolling out enhanced visibility of Business Keys throughout the app for easier searching and filtering. Now, Business Keys are prominently displayed in the Onboarding Client View, Clients Data List, and alongside Client or Client Location Names during the onboarding process.

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

Accurate data can help gain visibility into crucial processes, but data on its own can only go so far. With actionable insights, data visualizations, and real-time dashboards, Bullhorn Analytics takes your data a step further to help guide your decisions.

To dive into the functionality of Bullhorn Analytics, we sat down with Bullhorn’s Zelda Savage and Joseph Buckley in the latest two installments of the Bullhorn Basics series. They showed us the ins and outs of analytics, the six modules that comprise Bullhorn Analytics, and how to make the most of them to gain a complete picture of your firm.

Read on for the highlights, or watch the webinars here and here for an in-depth look.

1. Oneview

Regardless of your edition of Analytics, Oneview is your standard landing page. It’s meant to be customized and tailored to what metrics are most important for you and your team, so you can instantly track performance against targets for different users or groups. 

For those using the Enterprise edition of Analytics, everything below the priority metrics can also be customized. Plus, for businesses with split desks, separate pages can be set up for sales teams and recruiters, featuring metrics relevant to their roles. 

“It’s the intersection of what matters to you with what matters to the customer,” said Buckley.

2. Jobs pipeline

The Jobs pipeline module is designed to help recruiters and sales teams track and manage their job responsibilities and progress, all within one place. You can easily view jobs owned by a specific user, plus activities related to those jobs, regardless of who performed those activities. 

For Enterprise edition users (and as an option for Growth edition users), Analytics provides a choice between jobs pipeline and gamification features. When using the “assigned live jobs” metric, Analytics shifts the focus from job ownership to job assignment, giving recruiters clearer visibility on the status of jobs assigned to them, including those without any activity yet.

Jobs pipeline can also be toggled between sales and recruiting views. By using these toggles and additional options, you can filter to show all activity on jobs with contributions from specific individuals or focus solely on activities logged by a particular user. 

No matter how you set it up, the jobs pipeline module gives your recruiters better access and visibility to the jobs they’re focused on now – and those they should be working on in the future.

3. Onpoint

Onpoint is most commonly used to report over metrics, but can also be used to report over ratios. Onpoint provides metrics and ratios for your entire team and individual contributors, so you can see who’s performing well and who may need additional guidance.

Two key ratios to track that Savage highlighted are client submissions to interviews and interviews to placements. If a client submission to interview ratio is high, submissions may not be converting well; if that ratio is low, submissions are converting well to interviews. The same is true for interviews to placements – a low ratio suggests that interviews are converting to placements. Tracking ratios like these help you gain a holistic view of the recruitment lifecycle and better understand where obstacles may lie.

With these metrics and ratios at a glance, the onpoint function helps identify improvement areas, such as candidate control, job prioritization, and follow-up practices, ultimately better helping you to support team members in specific aspects of the recruitment process.

4. Dashboards

Dashboards are Bullhorn Analytics’ latest feature, providing a comprehensive overview of recruiter activities and outcomes, as well as actionable insights to help guide data-driven decision-making.

Tiles at the top of dashboards track core activities, such as recruiting calls, candidate calls, and internal submissions. Below, actionable insights highlight areas needing attention, such as new candidates missing essential information (e.g., job title, phone number, email). Dashboard metrics can follow a global dashboard timeframe or be set individually for different timeframes, allowing for easy comparison without switching views.

The next row in dashboards displays metrics recruiters want visibility over but don’t directly control, such as client submissions. This helps recruiters identify any issues that may arise and follow up as needed.

Dashboards also allow for ratio comparisons over different periods. For example, comparing the ratio of client submissions to placements over the last 12 months versus the last 90 days helps identify trends and potential areas for improvement.

Customizing dashboards to the metrics that matter the most for your business will help you and your team focus on increasing your return on effort – that is, accomplishing the tasks that are most likely to result in a placed candidate or a closed deal.

5. Slice & dice

Slice & dice is particularly helpful when it comes to tracking and analyzing customer relationships and identifying the most promising opportunities. By focusing on existing and promising clients, companies can improve their business development efforts and job fill rates efficiently. 

Reports built in slice & dice can be customized for more granular insights, including specific teams and additional activities. With these insights, you can quickly visualize trends, like clients with high placements, to identify cross-selling opportunities and analyze customer relationships in order to maximize business potential.

6. Trends

The Trends module is a powerful tool for tracking and visualizing performance metrics over time. Tracking metrics like job fill rate helps identify changes in client relationships that happen over time and helps guide your decisions to strengthen those relationships. Additionally, seeing the way metrics change over time enables better prediction and planning by recognizing patterns and seasonality in client hiring behaviors.

Leveraging the trends module helps you better understand top-level statistics and detailed trends that reveal the true dynamics of client interactions. By analyzing trends, you can identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to enhance overall performance. 

By customizing what’s inside these modules to your firm’s needs, you can spot areas for improvement, gain a complete picture of your firm, and secure growth for the long run.

And today, at Engage Boston 2024, we were thrilled to share that Bullhorn Copilot is now available on Bullhorn for Salesforce and Bullhorn Workforce Management.

Our continued goal is to provide the most complete AI solution within the staffing industry and put AI in the hands of recruiters exactly where and when they need it, regardless of which Bullhorn platform they’re using.

To learn what this means to you as a Bullhorn for Salesforce or Bullhorn Workforce Management user, keep reading for a rundown of Copilot Starter and how to get started.

Copilot Starter for Bullhorn Salesforce solutions 

Bullhorn Copilot, our suite of AI capabilities, will span the Bullhorn solutions on Salesforce and embed AI capabilities directly into the recruiters’ workflows.

Copilot Starter, the first release of these new capabilities, embeds generative AI functionality directly into Bullhorn for Salesforce and Bullhorn Workforce Management. Recruiters will be able to use Copilot Starter with tasks such as:

• Summarizing a candidate profile
• Writing pre-screening questions
• Pitching a job to a candidate
• Generating emails and text messages
• Improving a message

With Bullhorn Copilot, you can unlock new levels of productivity for your team and allow all of your recruiters, whether junior staff or seasoned professionals, to work more efficiently and with greater accuracy.

How can I get Copilot Starter?

Copilot Starter is available to Bullhorn customers who have Bullhorn for Salesforce, Bullhorn Workforce Edition, or Bullhorn Enterprise Edition ATS/CRM (or a bundle that includes these products).

Get started by contacting your Account Manager or filling out this form.

What resources can help me be successful with Copilot Starter?

We want you to get the most out of Copilot and Bullhorn’s solutions on Salesforce. Check out our collection of blog posts on AI in staffing, and keep reading for our top resources to get you started.

Understanding automation, AI, and generative AI in the staffing industry – AI is here to stay, and understanding the unique applications of these technologies is crucial for staffing industry pros. Read on for an overview of automation and AI and to explore their impact on staffing.

Preparing your business for AI adoption: Essential steps for success – Ready to roll out AI in your business? We’re breaking down the crucial steps every staffing firm must take to ensure seamless AI implementation and adoption

Getting started with AI – Everyone is talking about AI and how it can transform the staffing industry. We sat down with a few customers to learn their advice on incorporating AI into their day-to-day business

Protecting data and preventing bias: Creating a responsible AI strategy – As more businesses use AI, data privacy and security have risen to the forefront of the conversation. We sat down with Jason Heilman, SVP, Product – Automation & AI at Bullhorn, to learn about Bullhorn’s approach to AI and what customers should keep in mind when they build their responsible AI strategies 

We’re excited about what the future holds for Bullhorn Copilot. We encourage you to get started with Copilot and share your feedback and AI suggestions with our team so we can ensure our solutions continue to drive the staffing industry forward.

As clerical and light industrial firms look to expand their business into new geographies, it can be challenging to stay on top of varying legislation in different cities and states. Each state has its own ever-changing labor laws that affect how you do business – and the steps you’ll need to take to stay compliant and avoid legal ramifications. Brinker Restaurant Corp.’s $56 million settlement in the landmark Brinker Restaurant Corporation v. Superior Court case serves as a reminder that noncompliance can be costly.

In California, light industrial firms need to account for meal and rest breaks when paying workers. But it’s not just California; a growing number of other states are also adopting laws requiring firms to provide breaks after a certain number of hours worked. These laws may seem trivial, but the costs of not complying with them can add up for staffing firms. 

Let’s dive into what meal and rest breaks are and how Bullhorn can help you and your firm pay workers accurately, provide necessary breaks, and stay compliant with ease.

What are meal breaks?

California legislation stipulates that workers are provided with one uninterrupted, 30-minute long meal break for every five hours worked. During this time, employees must have no work duties. Employers may not discourage employees from taking these breaks. If workers are not provided with that meal break, they are owed one hour of penalty pay by their employer. If workers are on the clock for 10 hours, they receive another 30-minute long break. There are many nuances to the specific protections provided, and we recommend you consult a legal professional for a comprehensive overview.

If the number, timing, and duration of breaks taken by employees do not match the rules defined, a break exception occurs. The staffing industry has formulated three types of break exceptions: if the meal break is missing, if a worker takes their meal break too late, or if the meal break is too short. Each of these exceptions is filtered into one tab on your Bullhorn Time & Expense dashboard.

Meal breaks can be managed through web time entry or time clocks with Bullhorn. If your organization uses time clocks, you can easily manage short meal breaks by adding a punch restriction that doesn’t allow workers to clock back in unless they’ve taken the full 30 minutes for their meal.

Five hours can also be interpreted in several different ways. The California Standard Rule triggers the missing or late meal break exception after 300 minutes, but the California 301 Rule triggers these exceptions after 301 minutes. Employers can also choose to follow the Modified rule, which is similar to the California Standard Rule, but does not distinguish between late and missing meal breaks. Bullhorn provides more information on these rules in the Bullhorn Knowledge Base.

If a worker inputs their time and doesn’t indicate that they’ve taken a meal, or if their meal was late, missing, or short, they’ll be prompted to input why they didn’t take their meal break. Based on their answer to this prompt Bullhorn Time & Expense will automatically apply the penalty of an extra hour of pay if a worker did not voluntarily choose to miss their meal break. This worker prompt, which is unique to Bullhorn, is entirely customizable at the client level.

Bullhorn Time & Expense also allows you to include a waiver, which allows workers to waive their right to a meal period based on a signed agreement. They can rescind this at any time. Workers can sign this waiver at any point; most frequently, workers sign it during onboarding. 

Washington has similar legislation, with differences regarding penalty pay. Because state and federal legislation is always changing, we recommend speaking with a legal professional to learn what laws apply to your business.

What are rest breaks?

Rest breaks were introduced in late 2022 and operate similarly to meal breaks: California law stipulates that workers should have a ten-minute break for every four hours worked. If work duties prevent workers from taking their rest break, the pay penalty for employers, as with meal breaks, is one hour of pay. Unlike meal breaks, however, workers do not have to clock out for this break, so enforcing this break requires more management from your firm.

Bullhorn Time & Expense accounts for these rest breaks by prompting the worker to indicate whether they took all of their rest breaks. If they indicate that they didn’t, a pay penalty will be automatically added to their pay. As with meal breaks, the language of this prompt is entirely customizable. Rest breaks are currently supported in Web Time Entry, Tempo Time Clock, and Cloud Cock, and are coming soon to Mobile Punch.

What does this mean for my firm?

With automatic prompts and penalties applied during time entry, it’s easier than ever for light industrial staffing agencies to account for meal and rest breaks when tracking workers’ time. Automatically adding pay penalties saves precious pay and bill time and helps reduce your firm’s risk of liability by ensuring that penalty payments are paid.

“The addition of meal and rest period attestations in California and meal period attestations in Washington has been very beneficial in tracking employees’ missed meal periods,” said a Senior Analyst, Timekeeping & Compliance at Kelly Services. “It eliminates the manual work and the potential for a meal penalty payment to be missed and not paid properly, and helps create a positive employee experience.”

Bullhorn is always closely monitoring legislation to help give you the tools to be compliant. It’s up to you and your firm to leverage these tools, understand changes in legislation, follow best practices, and ensure compliance at every level of your organization.