Customizing Your Hiring Workflow

As a Bullhorn administrator, you can modify the default hiring workflow to match your company's terminology and processes. This helps ensure all users follow a consistent, efficient workflow that meets your business needs.

When to Customize Your Workflow

You may need to customize your workflow if:

  • You want to rename the default workflow steps to match your company's internal terminology.

  • You need to add new submission statuses, such as "Pending Client Review" or "Second Interview Scheduled."

  • Your recruiters use specific activities, like "Pre-screening" or "Offer Extended," that you want to see at a glance on a job record.

  • Your team wants to track more detailed information than the standard workflow provides.

  • Your company's hiring process involves multiple, distinct steps that don't fit the default workflow.

Renaming Workflow Steps

You can rename three of the four default workflow steps to better reflect your company's terminology. This helps new users understand the process and keeps data entry consistent across your team.

  • Submission: Can be renamed to "Internal Submission," "Shortlisted," or similar.
  • Client Submission: Can be renamed to "Sendout" or "CV Sent."
  • Placement: Can be renamed to "Hire" or "Assignment."

To rename a workflow step, follow the instructions in Modifying Entity Titles.

The Interview step is hard-coded and can't be renamed.

Adding New Submission Statuses

You can add more specific or detailed stages to your workflow's default list of submission statuses. This helps you track and report on custom steps, such as a second client interview or a pending offer.

Bullhorn uses two system settings for submission statuses, so you can maintain a separate list for scheduled interviews.

  1. Go to Menu > Admin > System Settings and search for "jobResponseStatusList".

  2. Update the values as needed.

    • Separate each value with a comma and no spaces — for example: Submission Accepted,Interviewing With Client,Offer Accepted

  3. Click Save.

  4. Log out and back in to see your changes.

To update the statuses available on the Edit screen when scheduling an interview, use the "interviewScheduledJobResponseStatus" system setting instead.

Notes:

  • Submission statuses are limited to 30 characters and can't contain special characters.

  • Do not remove Offer Extended from the status list; standard reports require this to work correctly.

  • Don't add Client Submission or Placed as statuses; they're already hard-coded into the system.

For more on system settings generally, see Understanding Bullhorn System Settings.

Updating Submission Sources

Submission sources track where a candidate's submission originated — for example, a candidate search or an inbound call. You can customize this list to match your company's sourcing channels.

  1. Go to Menu > Admin > System Settings and search for "jobResponseSourceList".

  2. Update the values as needed.

    • Separate each value with a comma and no spaces — for example: Candidate Search,Job Match,Inbound Call,Other

  3. Click Save.

  4. Log out and back in to see your changes.

Notes:

  • Submission sources are limited to 100 characters and can't contain special characters.

  • If you remove a source already used on a job, the job keeps that source — you just won't be able to select or filter for it until you add it back.

  • Changing a source doesn't retroactively update existing job responses.

  • The Source filter in the Submissions list only returns results if the value also exists in the Job Submission > Source field mapping.

Adding Custom Workflow Steps

In addition to renaming steps, you can add new visual icons to the top of a record to represent actions your team performs, such as a pre-screening interview or an offer extended. These icons give users an immediate visual cue about a candidate's status.

You could add a "Pre-screen" icon that shades in when a recruiter adds an appointment with the Prescreen appointment type, or an "Offer Extended" icon that lights up when a submission status updates to Offer Extended.

 

Be selective with custom icons. Adding too many can clutter the record header. Focus on the actions that matter most for your recruiters to see at a glance.

For instructions, see Understanding Workflow System Settings.

Troubleshooting

I need to report on custom submission statuses

Bullhorn’s standard reports don't cover custom submission statuses. You may need to a custom report. Bullhorn Support for help.

A user can't select a custom submission status

Confirm that the status has been added to the jobResponseStatusList system setting, and that the user has permission to update submission statuses.

Custom steps aren't appearing on the Submissions tab

Custom workflow icons are visual aids only. They don't appear as sections on the Submissions tab, since that tab is hard-coded.