Making Use of the Data in Your Bullhorn ATS
You know all those bits and bytes of information you’ve been gathering and storing in Bullhorn from years of sourcing and collecting resumes, candidate material, profiles and cover letters? Well, it’s time to blow the dust off that Bullhorn data and put it to good use.
Data as a Valuable Resource
According to The Economist, “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” This isn’t a new concept. Clive Humby, UK data scientist at Starcount, Mathematician and co-founder of Dunnhumby, is widely credited for coining the phrase, “Data is the new oil,” back in 2006. Big data is now considered one of our most prized resources.
What does this mean for you as a recruiting and staffing firm with all of your candidate data in your Bullhorn database? It means that your most valuable asset is going untapped. An article in Information Age, said it best, “It is how we make use of data that allows us to fully recognize its true value and potential … and from a business standpoint, measure it against the result of positive business outcomes.”
Your Bullhorn Data May be Sources in a Variety of Ways:
- Candidates responding or applying via email
- Applicants filling in application forms on your website
- Social connections or marketing campaigns on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook
- Searched or sourced material, ie: candidate profiles, CVs/resumes, applications
- Notes from calls and face-to-face meetings
Your Bullhorn Data May be in a Myriad of Formats:
- Word documents
- PDFs
- Emails
- Excel spreadsheets
- HTML files
- Compressed files
- Any number of other formats
So, how do you get this disparate data into one localized place and leverageable format? Unless you make this data work for you, what is the point of having stored it?
Finding a Data Management Solution
With the right tools, the approach of processing your Bullhorn data is simple. You will want a solution like DaXtra that can locate and index the many pieces of disparate data you have throughout your system and then upload that information directly to your Bullhorn ATS or CRM.
Records are constantly changing. Candidates move, get degrees, gain a new skill, have a job change, earn certifications. There are potentially hundreds of data tables of information like this contained in resumes and profiles that a state-of-the-art automation solution should be able to gather and index, updating existing profiles in your system or creating new candidate profiles. A solution that is able to constantly index, deduplicate and update the information you have is crucial for staying on top of this constant flux.
Not only should your solution be able to index all of this material, but it should also be able to convert the unstructured Bullhorn data into a rich structured format. It should enrich all incoming content going forward, ensuring that all resumes are parsed correctly and are enriching candidate profiles.
Candidate Nurturing
Did you know that one-third of Americans plan to look for a new job this year? This could mean it’s possible that one in three of the passive candidates in your database will become active as they’re looking for jobs again. Keeping in contact and nurturing the candidates you have is another critical aspect of a successful recruiting practice.
Some of the candidates who were previously in entry-level or junior-level positions may now be in more senior level positions. Some you may have placed, but now may be ready to move on from their current jobs. Right there is an extensive pool of candidates to draw from and it’s important to have their current information to be able to maintain contact and stay in touch, nurturing each along the way, so they progress along your pipeline. Once candidate shortlists are created, this tool should automate that process through other third parties in the ecosystem of your ATS or CRM, so texting platforms or automated emailing services are ready to jump in and do their part in the nurturing process.
Data Integrity
Your Bullhorn database is filled with pre-qualified candidates who are exclusive to your recruiting specialty. It’s filled with data that is unique to your business and to you as an organization. Many hesitate to mine from their own databases because they believe the data is bad: There are duplicates and outdated or incomplete information. Because of this bad data, their databases can be difficult to search over. You need tools that will help extract all of that information which is buried in unstructured formats, populate the data tables with information like work history, education, location data, contact information—and then normalize it. Simply put, you need to dedicate funds for tools used to clean up legacy data in order to make it searchable.
Use Your Data!
The key in all of this, is the ability to search over not only external sources but to be able to effectively, semantically search over the internal data on your Bullhorn database. Invest in tools that are able to clean up incoming as well as legacy data within your database. Instill a standard operating procedure in your recruitment process that follows searching your internal database before external searches are conducted. Set in place a process where your recruiters are required to search your database first before conducting costly external searches. A system that presents the local talent first is important. Take advantage of the information you already possess. You’ve spent a lot of money building your database, so use it.
