Migrate from People First to Zoho Recruit

People First Employee records map to Zoho Recruit Candidate records. Standard fields (full name, email, phone, job title, department) migrate to the Candidate module's corresponding fields. Zoho Recruit requires a Last Name value on every Candidate; we flag any People First records where last name is absent and substitute 'Not Provided' per Zoho's import specification. We preserve People First employee IDs in a custom Candidate field for audit traceability.

People First Department records represent the organisational hierarchy. Zoho Recruit has no native Departments object for candidates. We map department names to a custom Candidate picklist field (Department__c) or to Candidate Tags for filtering and pipeline segmentation. Parent-child department relationships are flattened into the custom field value for the primary department assignment.

People First admin and end-user accounts map to Zoho Recruit User records. We match by email address and flag any People First users who already have an active Zoho Recruit account (Zoho policy requires closure of duplicate accounts before import). We create a reconciliation queue for unmatched users and request the customer's admin to provision any missing Zoho Recruit accounts before the user migration phase.

People First benefit data (health, dental, pension configurations) has no native equivalent in Zoho Recruit's ATS schema. We migrate benefit data to a custom Zoho Recruit module (Benefit_Enrollment__c) with custom fields per benefit type. If the customer uses Zoho People alongside Zoho Recruit, we recommend migrating benefit data to Zoho People instead and linking benefit records to Candidate via a lookup relationship.

PTO balance data is not migratable to Zoho Recruit because PTO tracking is a time-and-attendance feature outside ATS scope. Zoho Recruit manages the hiring pipeline, not employee leave entitlements. We flag PTO balance records in the scoping document and recommend the customer evaluate Zoho People or another HCM platform for leave management post-migration.

People First engagement and recognition records (awards, recognition events, employee satisfaction scores) have no equivalent object in Zoho Recruit's ATS schema. We do not migrate these as data records. We include a written inventory of engagement data categories and record counts in the migration handoff document so the customer's HR admin can evaluate whether this data requires manual archival or transfer to a dedicated engagement platform.

People First employee documents (contracts, policies, certifications) migrate as file attachments to the corresponding Candidate record in Zoho Recruit. We use Zoho Recruit's document attachment support and map file names to include the employee identifier for traceability. If People First provides a document export archive, we unzip and attach documents individually per Candidate during the migration phase.

People First custom employee fields (employer-specific properties without a public schema) migrate to Zoho Recruit custom Candidate fields. We request the customer provides a field inventory before migration scoping is complete, including data type, picklist values, and any validation rules. We create each custom field in Zoho Recruit via the migration wizard's Create New Field function before importing the corresponding data.

If the customer maintains active job postings in People First, these map to Zoho Recruit Job Opening records. We extract job title, job description, department assignment, and hiring manager fields from People First and map them to the corresponding Zoho Recruit Job Opening fields. Status (active/closed/paused) maps to Zoho Recruit's Job Opening status field.

People First interview or assessment records (if available in the export) map to Zoho Recruit Interview records linked to the corresponding Candidate and Job Opening. We map interview date, interviewer, interview type, and outcome to the Interview module fields. If People First does not expose interview data in its export, we note this as a gap in the migration report.

If the migrating organisation is a staffing agency using People First to manage client relationships, client records map to Zoho Recruit Client objects. We extract client name, contact email, and placement history where available in the People First export and map to the Client module. This mapping only applies where People First holds client data; it is excluded for direct-employer customers.

People First notes attached to employee records migrate to Zoho Recruit Notes linked to the corresponding Candidate. We preserve the original note text, author, and timestamp. Notes without a corresponding Candidate record are held in a notes queue for manual linking during the post-migration review phase.