Understanding and Customizing Bullhorn's Hiring Process

Overview

Bullhorn's hiring process comprises the actions users must take in order to successfully place a candidate in a job. You can use Bullhorn’s default workflow or choose to customize it to match your company’s workflow.

The screenshots contained within this article are from the Bullhorn Novo interface. However, the concepts outlined are the same for Bullhorn S Release.

Understanding the Default Workflow

Out of the box, Bullhorn provides a hiring workflow comprising four major steps and several submission statuses directly related to those steps. Candidates move through the workflow as they are qualified, interviewed, and ultimately hired.

Submission. When a user submits a candidate to a job, Bullhorn adds an internal submission for the job owner to review. If a user works “both sides of the desk” (meaning, the same person who submits the candidate internally is also going to submit the candidate to the contact on the job), they can skip this step and proceed directly to the Client Submission. After this step, Bullhorn automatically changes the candidate’s submission status to Submitted. Then, after reviewing, if the job owner does not want to move forward, the user could change the candidate’s submission status to Sales Rep Rejected. Otherwise, the candidate proceeds to the client submission.
Client Submission. When the user submits the candidate to the contact, Bullhorn prompts the user to create a message containing the candidate’s information for the client and sends that message to the contact on the job for review. After this step, Bullhorn automatically changes the candidate’s submission status to Client Submission. Then, after reviewing, if the contact does not want to move forward, a user could change the candidate’s submission status to Client Rejected. Otherwise, the candidate proceeds to the interview.
Interview. Upon hearing back from the contact, the user creates an interview and Bullhorn prompts the user for appointment information, creating a calendar entry for the interview that contains all of the relevant information (the candidate, the job, the contact, etc.). After this step, Bullhorn automatically changes the candidate’s submission status to Interview Scheduled. Then, depending on either the candidate or contact’s reaction, a user could change the candidate’s submission status to any of the following: Candidate Interested, Candidate Not Interested, Client Rejected, Offer Extended, or Offer Rejected. If the reaction is positive from both parties, the candidate proceeds to the placement.
Placement. After the interview has occurred, the contact extends a job offer to the candidate, and the candidate accepts, the user creates a placement. Bullhorn automatically associates all of the relevant information about the candidate and the job with the placement. After this step, Bullhorn automatically changes the candidate’s submission status to Placed. Then, as an administrator, you may be required to complete a number of additional steps to fully log the placement in Bullhorn.

As you can see, Bullhorn uses submission statuses to provide detail about the candidate’s position in the hiring workflow; for example, a submission status can indicate the level of interest either the candidate has in the job or the contact has in the candidate. Common submission statuses include: Sales Rep Rejected, Candidate Interested, Candidate Not Interested, Client Rejected, Offer Extended, and Offer Rejected.

Viewing Workflow Information

To determine where a particular entity (e.g., candidate or job) is in the workflow, users can reference either of the following on a record:

Workflow Icons: At the top of all candidate, contact, company, and job records is a visual representation of each of the four default steps. These visual representations are called "workflow icons" and, as a user completes each step, Bullhorn shades it in, displaying below the icon the number of times that step has happened:
- In the example job record above, by looking at the workflow icons, a user can quickly determine that four candidates have been internally submitted to the Production Laborer job, two candidates have been submitted to the client and had interviews scheduled, and three candidates were placed in the job. Workflow icons provide a high-level snapshot; from this view, users do not know who these candidates are, the dates that they were submitted, who submitted them, nor their current submission statuses.
Submissions Tab: On the Submissions tab of a record, users get a much more detailed view:
- From this view, once a user expands the Submission section, they can see the names of the candidates, their current submission status, who the submissions were added by, the dates they were submitted, and more. Because of the greater level of detail, the Submissions tab should be a users’ main source for reviewing and updating workflow activity information.

Customizing the Default Workflow

There are a number of changes you can make to the default workflow, such as renaming the workflow steps, adding new submission statuses, and adding new workflow steps. You have the ability to make these changes yourself as per Understanding Workflow System Settings.

Renaming the Workflow Steps

You can change the names of three of the four steps to better reflect the terminology your company uses:

Submission (e.g., you might want to change this to "Internal Submission" or "Shortlisted").
Client Submission (e.g., you might want to change this to "Sendout" or "CV Sent").
Placement (e.g., you might want to change this to "Hire" or "Assignment").

You cannot change the name of the Interview step as it is hard-coded. For instructions on changing the names of the other three steps, view the Modifying Entity Titles article.

Adding Submission Statuses

You can modify the default list of submission statuses using the jobResponseStatusList system setting. For example, your company may require additional statuses such as More Information Needed, Client Phone Screen, Pending, etc. If your contacts typically like to interview your candidates more than once, you could add additional values to the interviewScheduledJobResponseStatus system setting such as Second Interview, Third Interview, etc. For more information and instructions, view the Understanding Bullhorn System Settings article.

Adding Workflow Steps

Often, companies choose to use certain note actions, appointment types, tasks, or submission statuses and represent them visually at the top of each record along with the default steps:

In this example, the company has chosen to add "Prescreen" as a visual step, which represents the in-house interview the recruiters have with the candidates before the client submission. Bullhorn shades this icon when the user adds an appointment that references the job and has an appointment type of Prescreen. The company has also chosen to add “Offer Extended,” as a visual step to indicate to other users that no more candidates should be submitted to the job. Bullhorn shades this icon when a user adds a submission referencing the job with a submission status of Offer Extended.

You have the ability to change this as per Understanding Workflow System Settings. Keep in mind that you probably do not want to add too many new workflow icons, as they can crowd the top of the record and not all of the information may be immediately relevant. Stick with actions that you think users will want to see right away. It’s also important to note that these new steps are essentially for the users’ visual reference only and will not appear as sections on the Submissions tab, as it is hard-coded.

However, if the workflow icons were added in the manner of the example described above, prescreen would still appear within the Appointments section of the Activity tab and extended offers would still be indicated as candidate submission statuses within the Submissions section of the Submissions tab. For more information on and guidance with adding new workflow icons that fit your own company’s needs, contact Bullhorn Support.

Scheduling Multiple Interviews

If you're located in the UK and are still using S-Release, the Interview Scheduler is an optional add-on that allows users to arrange multiple interviews with different candidates for the same job all at once. For more information, view both the Using the Interview Scheduler and articles.

Reporting on Workflow Activity

Activity related to the four default workflow steps can be tracked and analyzed using Bullhorn’s standard reports. Submission statuses, and therefore any additional workflow steps tied to submission statuses, are not reportable using these reports. As a result, custom reports may be required. For more information about Bullhorn's standard reports, view the article. For more information about custom reports, contact Bullhorn Support.