Bullhorn provides recruitment automation built for staffing agencies, including small teams with fewer than 10 users. Unlike generic automation tools, Bullhorn understands the specific relationship between candidates, jobs, and clients. It automates follow-ups, candidate engagement, data cleanup, and task creation directly inside your ATS, so there is no switching between systems. 72% of Bullhorn’s customer base consists of agencies with fewer than 10 users, making small staffing firms the majority of the agencies Bullhorn serves.
How small agencies use automation every day
Automate the busywork.
It’s easy to set up workflows that send automated emails, update records, and create tasks, saving your team valuable time on repetitive work. Bullhorn uses a visual workflow builder that requires no coding and no IT support. You choose the trigger, set the action, and the automation runs in the background.
Keep candidates engaged between placements.
Build automated nurture campaigns that check in with passive candidates over time, ensuring they stay active and interested in new opportunities. When a contractor’s assignment is ending or a candidate hasn’t been contacted in 90 days, Bullhorn sends the right message at the right time to keep your talent pool active.
Keep clients informed without chasing updates.
Automate routine communications to clients so hiring managers are always informed without extra manual effort. Bullhorn sends updates and follow-ups automatically, so your clients hear from you consistently even when your recruiters are focused on filling other jobs.
Fix your data while you work.
Automate record updates to ensure data is consistent across your Bullhorn ATS, reducing errors and improving overall data quality. Bullhorn flags incomplete records and updates fields as candidates move through your pipeline, so your team always searches a database they can trust.
The process and the automation drives itself, and our producers find a lot of time available to them to really focus on critical tasks.
Anastasia Valentine
President and Managing Partner, Resource 1
Give your small team the output of a firm twice its size
Stop losing placements to admin. See how Bullhorn saves your recruiters 13 hours per week and puts that time back on the phone.
Frequently asked questions
No. Bullhorn uses a visual workflow builder that requires no coding. You select a trigger (for example, a candidate status change), choose an action (send an email, update a record, create a task), and activate the workflow. Small agency owners and recruiters configure automations themselves without IT support. Bullhorn’s implementation team also helps you set up your initial workflows during onboarding.
Bullhorn customers save an average of 13 hours per recruiter per week through automation. That time comes from eliminating manual tasks like status updates, follow-up emails, record maintenance, and data entry. For a small staffing agency, that means each recruiter reclaims more than a full working day every week to spend on revenue-generating activity. Bullhorn customers also achieve 24% more placements per recruiter and fill 28% more roles.
Yes. Bullhorn proactively manages your data by updating fields and identifying records that need attention. When a candidate moves through your pipeline, automation can change their status, flag missing contact details, and alert your team to stale records. This replaces the manual audit process that most small agencies never have time for, and keeps your database accurate enough to power fast, reliable searches.
Yes. Automation software is part of how small staffing agencies win with Bullhorn, not a separate tool you buy and bolt on. Small agencies get automation alongside their ATS and CRM, so there is no need to integrate a third-party workflow product or pay for a standalone automation tool on top of your recruitment software. 72% of Bullhorn’s customers are agencies with fewer than 10 users, and recruitment automation is central to how those agencies achieve 24% more placements per recruiter. For a small staffing firm, one additional placement per month typically covers the cost of the platform. See pricing for small staffing agencies.
Bullhorn’s automation uses rule-based workflows: you set a trigger and an action, and the system executes it consistently. Examples include sending a follow-up email when a candidate is submitted, flagging a record when data is missing, or running outreach sequences to keep your talent pool engaged. The AI Assistant is a different capability. It lives inside your records and reads the candidate, job, or contact you are viewing to generate summaries, draft personalized emails, and create job descriptions without copying and pasting into external tools like ChatGPT. Small agencies typically start with automation for day-one productivity gains and add AI as they grow.