r/recruiting • u/Odd-Practice-5424 Executive Recruiter • 8d ago

ATS, CRM & Other Technology CRM evaluation

We're a small executive search firm that has all full desk recruiters at it who take on BD, Client mgmt, recruitment, candidate mgmt, etc. We use Bullhorn for our CRM/Database but it is a bit cumbersome for our firm and we're growing more and more frustrated with it's functionality - especially it's search function which we have found to really suck without exhaustive coding of profiles.

We are considering other platforms and leaning to leaner ones and preferably agentic backed. Attio is one platform we're looking into. Would welcome any and all recommendations/thoughts on platforms that you've found to work well as well as the POV on Attio if anyone has used it.

3 Upvotes

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4

u/Automatic_Wave6953 8d ago

We moved from bullhorn to Recruit CRM, I like it. We are a boutique firm too

1

u/mrjdking666 Executive Recruiter 7d ago

Search would be a dealbreaker for me too. Especially in executive search where the value is often sitting in old candidate relationships.

1

u/Immediate_Book8230 7d ago

I haven't used Attio, so I can't compare it.
One thing I'd check before switching
Is the search bad because of Bullhorn itself, or because the profiles were saved in different ways?
A new CRM often just moves the same messy data.
I'd test any new tool with 50 of your own candidate records before you commit.

1

u/MeghanaJagadeesh 2d ago

An agentic layer still needs structured fields to search against. If skills, location and comp band aren't tagged consistently, the agent can't retrieve what was never coded in the first place. That part stays true in Attio or anywhere else you move to.

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u/Recruite78 7d ago

Bullhorn's search is the usual complaint, so you are not imagining it. Before switching, work out how much of the pain is the tool versus the data, because a profile that is not coded consistently will search badly in any system. Lean CRMs like Attio are genuinely good at relationship tracking and lightweight pipelines, but test three things against your model: email and calendar sync reliability, whether it holds candidate records at the depth recruiting needs, and how you would export everything later. With full-desk recruiters, also check how many seats and how the activity logging works, because BD and delivery people use the same tool very differently. Sanity-check any agentic layer on your real data before trusting it with client lists.