Case Study Summary

Problem

Improving candidate communication requires access to candidate data from whichever ATS tool PivotCX customers' use.

Solution

PivotCX added 38 ATS tools in weeks using Merge ATS Unified API.

Outcome

Immediately the PivotCX teams racked up new customer wins and accelerated customer onboarding time from days to hours.

PivotCX

Factsheet

Who

PivotCX

Product

Candidate communication software

HQ

Indianapolis

Funding Round

Seed

Funding to Date

$2M

Merge Category
ATS
Merge Common Models
Candidates
Jobs
Activities
PROBLEM

Get recruiters the data they need to create the best candidate experience

PivotCX is a "communications hub for talent acquisition, coordinating candidate conversations across text, video, the web, and every channel that a recruiter uses," explains Mike Seidle, CTO and Co-Founder of PivotCX. This is key in a competitive talent market.

A typical firm speaks with "only 18% of the job candidates that apply," according to Mike. "With PivotCX we typically see our customers speak with 58% of candidates with a human-to-human conversation. This can nearly triple their recruiting pipeline."

Recruiters would love to offer a better candidate experience, but the PivotCX team finds that Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) "often don't do a great job of orchestrating communication promptly with candidates." However, given that ATS software is the system of record for recruiting, it's key for PivotCX to plug into the ATS that their customers already use.

Prior to Merge, PivotCX built several bespoke integrations with ATS systems and job boards. Each would take several weeks to a month to build. Then the development team would need to keep the integration running with ongoing maintenance. Given the level of required development investment it wasn't practical to build out all of the ATS integrations that their prospects wanted.

‍

How Merge Helps

PivotCX

1

Merge Link appears in the front end

Merge’s drop-in component allows the end user to provide authentication details without leaving the site

2

Merge syncs data from third-party platforms

Merge syncs standardized data models from third-party platforms via polling and webhooks which is made available to the backend through our Unified API

SOLUTION

Add 38 ATS integrations in a week with Merge's Unified ATS API

In order to satisfy the ATS integration requirements of their customers, PivotCX turned to Merge. "Merge helps PivotCX integrate our software with 38 different ATS systems and make the integration work much more manageable."

Not only does Merge enable PivotCX to integrate with a lot of different ATS tools, it makes the integration process seamless. "Our customer's data starts syncing right away," explains Mike," each customer that uses Merge to set up their ATS integration has been surprised at how easy the process was compared to previous integrations they've linked in other products."

From a technical perspective, Mike finds that a Unified API is the proper way to build out product integrations. "Merge fits right into how we architect everything. They take a very systematic approach to integrations. Instead of building bespoke integrations with Workday and Taleo and each ATS, Merge does it the right way with a Unified API. Merge creates a universal model for ATS data that greatly simplifies the work for my team."

Using a Unified API simplifies the work of PivotCX's development team and lets them use their time for other important projects. "I only have one integration, the one with Merge. Each ATS integration would take a similar amount of development effort to build and maintain as the single integration with Merge."

That frees up the PivotCX development team to focus on their roadmap. Mike explains that "I'd much rather have my developers building the best possible candidate experience so our customers can hire more people faster rather than keeping up with the latest changes in the Workday API."

David Bernstein, EVP Corp Dev & Strategy, summarizes the benefits of Merge in this way: "Merge frees up our development team to focus on bringing on new customers rather than building and maintaining integrations. Merge is a fundamental piece of our growth strategy."

‍

Mike Seidle

CTO and Co-Founder

PivotCX

PivotCX loads all the candidate data directly from the ATS so you can start conversations immediately. That ability just landed us a contract with the largest employer in our home state of Indiana.

OUTCOME

More customers, faster time to value, and a better candidate experience

Expanded TAM

Just a few weeks into offering 38 ATS integrations to their clients, the Unified API strategy is already bearing fruit. David describes how important Merge has been from a customer acquisition standpoint: “every ATS that we're compatible with allows us to sell to all the customers of that ATS. Merge accelerates our ability to sell new customers, get them production-ready, and make them successful." 

Competitive Advantage

Not only do integrations unlock new markets, they provide deeper competitive differentiation. Because PivotCX makes it possible to communicate with candidates, being able to load candidates directly from an ATS really differentiates PivotCX from competitors.

Mike explains that "many of our competitors use browser plugins which require their customers to manually copy and paste data one candidate at a time. PivotCX loads all the candidate data directly from the ATS so you can start conversations immediately. That ability just landed us a contract with the largest employer in our home state of Indiana."

A Superior Customer Experience

PivotCX is bringing on new customers and helping them transform their candidate experience immediately. Mike is excited that the PivotCX team "can onboard customers faster than ever. Our customers don't have to wait for weeks for us to build out a custom integration.

In fact, we just set up a customer this morning with 16,000 candidates in their recruiting database. It took less than an hour." ATS integrations not only improve the onboarding experience, they keep paying off as customers use the product. "Reducing the friction of making candidate data and conversations available to recruiters is a key part of building a better recruiting experience."

Mike, with 25 years of HR tech experience, sums it all up with an observation that "Merge has by far been the best of any HR tech solution I've used."

‍

One Step Ahead

We're the cheat code to your integrations strategy

Revolutionize your integrations strategy for HR, payroll, directory, ATS, project management, ticketing, accounting and CRM platforms.

Start for free or talk to our sales team and learn how Merge makes it easy to add all your integrations in days – not years.
Get API key
Get a demo