What you'll need

• Agreement on your inactivity threshold (five years is the most common starting point)
• Your firm's archived candidate status value in Bullhorn
• A list of status values to exclude from archiving, such as DNC, DNR, DNU, and currently placed

Build it

1. 1

   Create a candidate-based date automation

   In the Automations tab, click + Add Automation and select Blank Automation. Choose Candidate as the entity type and select Center on date field. Give the automation a name and save.

2. 2

   Set the anchor date

   Select your anchor date. Most firms use Last Activity Date or Last Note — pick whichever field your team actually uses to track candidate engagement. Last Activity Date captures system-level activity; Last Note reflects when a recruiter last made direct contact.

3. 3

   Build an Always Updated list

   Set the list to Always Updated. Add condition: Last Activity Date (or Last Note, depending on your anchor date choice) is more than five years before today. Add a second condition: Date Added is after the date you plan to activate this automation. This prevents the automation from processing all historical records at once.

4. 4

   Exclude candidates that should never be archived

   Add conditions to exclude status values such as DNC, DNR, DNU, or any active or placed status. These records should never be archived automatically.

5. 5

   Set the offset to five years

   Configure the automation to trigger when the Last Activity Date is five years in the past. Adjust this to match your firm's data retention policy.

6. 6

   Optional: add a notification before archiving

   Insert a notification step before the update to alert the record owner that a candidate in their book is about to be archived. This gives them a chance to take action first.

7. 7

   Add an Update step

   Set Candidate Status to your archived status value.

How to measure it

This automation is a data quality play. Track these metrics to confirm your database is staying clean over time:

• Records archived per month: how many candidate records the automation closes each month. A high initial number tapering off over time is a healthy pattern.
• Database size trend: total candidate records in active statuses, measured month over month. Should decrease or stabilize after activation.
• Percentage of inactive candidates: candidates with no activity in five-plus years as a share of your total database. Track this quarterly to measure improvement.
• Pre-activation list review rate: whether you ran and reviewed the list before activating. Not a Bullhorn Automation metric, but worth documenting as a process checkpoint each time you adjust the criteria.