As a leading software provider in staffing and recruiting, Bullhorn has always been focused on streamlining their customers’ operations. For Ben Sommer, Senior Director of Global Solutions & DevOps, that translated into three core missions: deploying software, building efficient tools, and integrating customer products.

Bullhorn saw their biggest opportunity in that final bucket: integration. Staffing agencies needed to connect front office recruiting systems with back-office pay and bill platforms like ADP. This middle office space represented a chance to become the critical hub enabling seamless data flow across entire tech stacks.

However, when customers requested these integrations, “we did it completely bespoke with whatever software kits we had available,” Ben explains. “It was all over the place.”

The stakes were high. Staffing agencies needed to process payroll for their employees and manage billable charges for clients—transactions that could easily run into the billions each month. Any friction meant delayed payments, manual workarounds, and frustrated customers.

But the made-to-order approach wasn't sustainable or scalable. Each integration required 100-200 hours of engineering time. “It was all over the place,” Ben recalls. “It’s now firmly in the category of technical debt that we're looking to retire over time.”

To become the connective tissue for the entire staffing ecosystem, Bullhorn needed to make a strategic decision: invest significant R&D resources to continue building integrations in-house. Or, partner with a platform that could scale integrations while their engineering team focused on core product development.

Bullhorn partnered with Workato Embedded Platform to manage integrations behind-the-scenes, giving their team the power to build complex integrations without deep engineering expertise—or the extra overhead.

With Workato, Bullhorn’s services team can create repeatable, out-of-the-box integrations for their customers' most critical systems. They simply identify the platforms customers rely on most, build the connection once, then roll it out across the entire base.

“When a customer comes to us with a need for integrating with a certain system, we never say no,”
Ben explains. Data now flows seamlessly between front and back-office systems, with Bullhorn serving as the critical link.

With Workato, Bullhorn now tackles every integration request, but most importantly, customers can connect the tools they need without waiting on custom development.

Production-ready integrations that once required 100-200 hours of engineering work now take dozens of hours—and team members without engineering backgrounds can build them. This 10x speed improvement translates directly to the bottom line, saving Bullhorn $100,000 annually.

These integrations handle billions of payable and billable transactions each month, processing payroll for thousands of employees across staffing agencies. “The raw numbers and impact that it's making to our customers and their employees' lives is pretty significant,” Ben explains.

Looking ahead, the company is rolling out Workato environments as a native platform feature, making sophisticated integration tools accessible to even more customers.

For Ben, the roadmap is clear: more integrations, faster deployment, and deeper product innovation—all powered by Workato.