Migrate from TalentLyft to BambooHR

TalentLyft Candidates map to BambooHR Job Applicants. The mapping is not a direct field-to-field copy because BambooHR Applicants are structurally tied to a specific Job Opening, whereas TalentLyft Candidates exist independently. We first import all Job Openings, then import each Candidate as an Applicant linked to the Job Opening that the candidate's original Application referenced. First name, last name, email, phone, and source information transfer directly. Custom candidate-level fields migrate to custom applicant fields in BambooHR.

Applications are the junction record linking a Candidate to a Job in TalentLyft. In BambooHR, this junction is implicit — the Applicant record exists within a Job Opening's applicant list. We preserve the application date, the original source (referral, job board, direct), and any application-level custom fields. If a single Candidate has Applications to multiple Jobs, we create one Applicant record per Job Opening. Pipeline stage at time of migration is preserved separately (see Pipeline Stages mapping).

TalentLyft Jobs map directly to BambooHR Job Openings. We transfer job title, department assignment, location, employment type (full-time, part-time, contract), and job description. The job's BambooHR ID is required before any Applicant records can be linked, so Job Openings are imported first in the dependency order. Status (open, closed, archived) maps to BambooHR's Job Opening status field.

TalentLyft Pipeline Stages have no native equivalent in BambooHR. BambooHR's applicant tracking uses a flat Applicant list without ordered stage progression. We resolve this by creating a custom Applicant Status picklist field in BambooHR that enumerates the customer's active Pipeline Stage names in their original order. We import each Applicant's current stage as the value of this custom field at migration time. Full stage-move history (which candidate passed through which stage on what date) is preserved in a structured notes field or as a JSON attachment on the Applicant record.

Talent Pools are a core CRM concept in TalentLyft with no native BambooHR equivalent. We export each Talent Pool as a structured CSV containing pool name, member count, member names, emails, source dates, and any pool-level custom fields. In BambooHR, we create an Employee Lookup custom field (multi-select or tag-based) on the Employee record so that the customer's HR admin can manually associate employees with their Talent Pool origins post-migration. We also provide a rebuild plan recommending BambooHR's built-in Applicant Tags as a lightweight pool proxy for future sourcing.

Education records in TalentLyft are sub-records on Applications with degree, institution, field of study, and dates. BambooHR does not have a native Education object on Job Applicants. We map education data to custom Applicant fields (Education Degree, Institution, Field of Study, Graduation Date) when the number of education records is small. For candidates with multiple education entries, we attach a structured file or notes entry preserving the full education history per Applicant.

Experience records (work history) in TalentLyft are sub-records on Applications with employer, title, dates, and description. Same as education — BambooHR Applicant records do not have a native Experience object. We map experience data to custom Applicant fields (Previous Employer, Previous Title, Employment Dates) for the most recent role, and attach the full work history as a structured file or notes entry for candidates with multiple positions.

TalentLyft custom fields at the Candidate level vary per account and are fully user-defined. We retrieve field definitions via GET /v2/custom_fields before migration and build a typed mapping table that maps each custom field to a corresponding BambooHR custom Applicant field by name and type (text, number, date, dropdown). Customers with 10 or more custom fields require an explicit field-by-field mapping session during scoping. The custom field schema is account-specific — no two TalentLyft accounts have identical custom field sets.

Application-level custom fields in TalentLyft store per-application metadata such as interview scores, offer details, or compliance flags. We map these to BambooHR custom Applicant fields using the same typed mapping approach as Candidate-level fields. Application-level custom fields are prioritized over Candidate-level fields when field names overlap, since the Application-level value reflects the most recent stage context.

Departments in TalentLyft map directly to Departments in BambooHR. We preserve department names and IDs and link them to Job Openings at import time. Departments are imported before Jobs to satisfy the referential integrity requirement in BambooHR's hiring module.

TalentLyft Locations (sites) used on Jobs to specify where a role is based map to BambooHR Locations. We migrate location records and link them to Job Openings at the destination. BambooHR Locations are used across Jobs and the HR core module for employee home office or work site assignment.