Using Bullhorn Automation to Send Birthday Wishes

Everyone loves getting a “Happy Birthday” message! With Bullhorn Automation, you can make sure your team never misses a candidate’s special day.

Setting Up the Birthday Automation

The Happy Birthday automation works in Candidate-based automations and uses the "Birthday" event in a date-based automation.

You can use the "Happy Birthday!" blueprint to get started quickly, or build from scratch by selecting Birthday from the Center on date field dropdown.

For compliance reasons, the Birthday field is hidden in Bullhorn Automation, so you won’t see it in list building or advanced search. But don't worry - the system still uses this data to trigger the automation.

Timing Your Messages

You can send messages before or after the candidate's birthday by adding Wait Steps:

  • Before: Place a Wait Step and email/notification before the Birthday event (e.g., send one day before at 11:00 PM so it’s in their inbox first thing).

  • After: Use an "On Day" Wait Step after the Birthday event to send a message on the birthday itself.


  • Test first: Always send a test record through your automation to confirm it works as expected.

  • Skip the End Step: This allows the candidate to re-enter the automation next year.

  • Add extra Wait Steps: Placing a one-week Wait Step at the start or end can give you a preview of upcoming or recent birthdays.

  • Data matters: Candidates without a birthday value won’t enter the automation.

  • Timezone note: Asia-Pacific and Australian users may see slight date variations due to timezone changes.