Support Tip: Keeping up with Your Bullhorn Data
Welcome back to our ongoing series on data management. In our first post we discussed the importance of taking the time to evaluate your data needs as well as involving the team in testing to ensure success.
Once you’re confident you have a strong system it’s important to recognise that you cannot simply assume the system will sustain itself. You’ll want to put a check in place to ensure your data is accurate and you must clean your database regularly.
Make Decisions about your Data
As you likely noticed when you involved your team in the design of your database, change management is crucial. Change management allows you to actually implement the process you want to have others follow, rather than declaring a rule is in place and hoping everyone follows along.
Decide What you Want to do with your Exceptions
Every rule has an exception and oftentimes you’ll be faced with a top performer that brings in a substantial amount of business who also refuses to use your system.
Allowing certain users to be exceptions when it comes to data entry harms the accuracy of your data and gives your other users an out when they feel like they shouldn’t have to follow the rules.
You have to decide if the revenue being generated by these top performers outweighs the time and effort you’ll have to spend dealing with the lack of data and the impact on the rest of the team.
Dedicate an Admin
Most of the time when users hear Admin they think of privileges inside of Bullhorn. An admin can edit fields or change system settings.
Instead of permission sets, I’m referring to a steward of data integrity when I use the term Admin. Someone that checks on the data quality and ensures the team is entering information correctly.
The Admin can be responsible for:
- Training new users on data integrity requirements
- Transferring records from an old employee to a new one
- Troubleshooting general search issues
- Spot checking new and old records for data issues
In an ideal world literally every record would be checked for quality before it is saved into your system but in the real world this isn’t always possible. Someone might not have a phone number for a candidate just yet or maybe you’re entering data on your phone and can’t enter the whole set of desired information.
You’ll make exceptions and your data administrator will be there to make sure that the exceptions don’t become the standard.
Show – Don’t tell – Why it Matters
Between yourself, your data admins, and a few power users you should be able to identify common issues with your database. Maybe it’s impossible to search for how many years experience a candidate has or perhaps it’s a nightmare to try and do a proper radius search.
Identify the fields necessary to update or improve this process and show the users a proof of concept. Don’t promise your team it’ll “be great” rather show them how easy search can be if the right data exists in the right places.
One way to do this is to have a “Bullhorn only” day where you compete to close business using only candidates already inside of Bullhorn. Some users may balk at the idea but they’ll quickly realise the savings on time and effort when you’re reviewing an already vetted database of clients.
As you refine your processes and increase your user buy-in by showing them the benefits of a high-quality database, you’ll begin to shape your system into something you can use to jump-start your business.
In our next post, we’ll discuss what you can do with your database and how you can use reporting to make informed decisions about your business.