How IDR increased database-sourced submittals by 45% in one year

Build from the ground up, then let results do the convincing

IDR’s transformation didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t start with AI. It started with a decision to get serious about data quality and workflow discipline inside Bullhorn.

Leadership buy-in
Before any work started, the first goal was getting all leadership on-board with the new way of working. And they did. They rallied around “how to make it work” for real, instead of relying on workarounds.

Fix the data, fix the process
The team overhauled how jobs were posted and parsed, putting processes in place to stop applicants from getting lost in the system. They went all in on Amplify Screening and candidate enrichment, pouring 9 to 12 months of focused effort into improving data quality. This ensured recruiters found accurate, complete, and useful candidate profiles when searching the database.

That trust had to be earned before it could be leveraged.

The new hire experiment
Rather than forcing change on tenured recruiters who had their own routines, IDR took a different approach. Starting in June 2025, every new hire joined the team with one rule: their sourcing happened inside Bullhorn. No external sourcing access. No LinkedIn as a default. If they needed candidates, they had to find them in the system.

“We decided we wouldn’t change anything with our tenured staff, for now,” Burton explained. “We’d just bring new people in and train them so this is all they know.”

New hires, with no external crutches from day one, learned to be creative inside Bullhorn. The results were hard to argue with — some of those new recruits outperformed 20% of the longer-tenured colleagues.

“It’s been amazing to see how strong those newer recruiters are,” Burton said, “Because they’re not thinking ‘oh, I got stuck here, I’m gonna go over to LinkedIn.’ They stay in Bullhorn and keep going.”

Adding Amplify Chat: the final piece
With cleaner data, stronger workflows, and a team that was genuinely invested in making Bullhorn work, IDR introduced Amplify Chat. The impact was immediate because the foundation was solid.

“People trust the data now,” Burton said. “So when Amplify Chat came into the picture, they felt more confident knowing it was going to give them accurate results.”

IDR rolled out Amplify Chat in three deliberate phases. First, Burton identified champions, asking team leads to join a meeting with a prompt they had tested and could demonstrate to others. This built real buy-in from influential people, not just theoretical enthusiasm. Once Amplify Chat was introduced to the broader team, recruiters left with a list of 10 ready-to-use prompts they could apply at their desks the very same day.

The second phase was embedding Amplify Chat into actual workflows. When an account manager raised a problem with VMS candidates being rejected by AI filters, the answer wasn’t just a workaround. It was: “Let’s go to Amplify Chat and figure out what we can do to optimize.” Sitting down next to hesitant adopters and showing them a direct benefit proved more effective than traditional training.

Now, in the third phase, IDR tracks Amplify Chat usage across the team and uses the data proactively. Top users are sending more than 300 messages per month in Amplify Chat. Those using Amplify Chat the least get individual attention to learn more about what is holding them back. 

IDR’s Amplify Chat use cases span every part of the recruiting workflow: refining candidate searches, creating ranked call lists from high-volume applicant pools, writing polished client-facing submittal write-ups, coaching middle managers on team performance, optimizing for VMS requirements, and surfacing candidates who worked similar roles weeks earlier.

“We have this great data,” Burton said, “but how do we use it in the best way? Amplify Chat was the missing element that takes us to the next level.”

Anna’s advice to other staffing firm leaders considering Amplify:

• Don’t wait until everything is perfect.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting every detail figured out before introducing a new tool or process, but they saw a lot of value in getting started, learning, and iterating along the way.
• Your team probably has the best ideas for using Amplify.  Leaders can sometimes feel overwhelmed trying to determine the “right” way to use it. In reality, your team often has the best ideas because they’re closest to the work and dealing with these challenges every day. 
• Continuously share success stories across the organization. These stories create momentum and show people what’s possible when they start exploring the tool for themselves.