Big Ambitions Demand the Right Foundation

Burtch Works recruiters had always known the Data Science and AI market better than almost anyone; they could evaluate a data scientist's portfolio before a client ever saw it and knew how to find a machine learning engineer who also spoke business. What they shouldn't have had to fight was their own technology.When Burtch Works was acquired, the business it inherited was still running on an externally managed applicant tracking system. There was no CRM and the feature gaps were real. As the company stood up a proper go-to-market motion, an enterprise sales team built for long-cycle revenue, a new-logo hunting team focused purely on acquisition, and ambitions for a true MQL engine, the old ATS became a ceiling rather than a foundation.

Underneath all of it sat something genuinely valuable: Burtch Works' proprietary compensation data, mean, median, and percentile benchmarks for data scientists, AI professionals, and data engineers. It was a real competitive asset with no infrastructure to support it. Burtch Works didn't need a bigger version of what it had. It needed a foundation built around how its recruiters actually worked, not one that made them adapt to it.

A Platform Built For How They Work

Asymbl approached Burtch Works the way it approaches every engagement: with defined jobs to be done and clear outcomes driving every decision. The work happened in multiple phases, each building on the last.

Job 1: Build The Foundation

Asymbl helped migrate Burtch Works' legacy-based candidate and job data into Asymbl’s Recruiter Suite as the firm's talent relationship management system and Salesforce’s Sales Cloud as its CRM. Central to the build was a native Job object, something Salesforce had never fully addressed for the staffing industry, which let recruiters (focused on candidates) and sales (focused on customers) collaborate inside one system instead of forcing Burtch Works to bend its process to fit the technology.

Outcomes: Recruiting and sales operating from a single connected system, with the business process defining the platform instead of the other way around.

Job 2: Deliver a Frictionless Candidate and Client Experience

Asymbl built a passwordless Experience Cloud portal, giving Burtch Works' candidates a seamless way to apply and track their applications on the same platform their recruiters work in. No separate login, no friction, just a few digits sent by email. Clients got the same visibility on their side: open roles, submitted candidates, and status updates, all without a phone call.

Outcomes: Internal and external stakeholders working from one connected platform, reducing manual touchpoints on both sides.

Job 3: Modernize How the Team Communicates

Asymbl advised Burtch Works through a shift from Microsoft Teams to Notion and then to Slack where all of their core platforms are connected, driving shared context through surfacing the right information to the right people. Slack helped drive efficiencies and scale throughout the company.

Outcomes: Consistent, real-time visibility across the org replacing a fragmented communication layer.

Job 4: Connect the Job Board Directly to the ATS

Asymbl built a sophisticated applicant funnel connecting Burtch Works' job board to Recruiter Suite, with dedicated vetting and curation routing applicants to the right recruiter based on job allocation.

Outcomes: Full visibility into applicant disposition, no manual triage required.

Job 5: Bring AI Directly Into the Workflow

Burtch Works recently deployed Claude as a true enterprise LLM, running headless alongside Slack. Recruiters now use AI agents to handle the high-volume work inside the recruiting funnel, freeing up time for the relationship-building and judgment calls only a person can make.

Outcomes: Fewer manual, repetitive tasks inside the recruiting funnel; higher submittal-to-interview conversion.

What Asymbl didn't do: Force Burtch Works to change how it recruits. Every build was designed around the firm's existing 180 model and business process, not the other way around.

A Partnership That Shows Up

Burtch Works chose Asymbl because of our approach. What tipped the decision wasn't a feature checklist. It was the discovery work Asymbl put in before a contract was even signed: a detailed assessment of Burtch Works' current state, a clear future-state plan, and a prioritized roadmap. Asymbl delivered all of it up front, before ever asking for a signature. It's an unusual level of investment before the sale, and it set the tone for everything that followed.

The partnership has had its share of real friction.. Burtch Works initially brought in a separate implementation partner for its Salesforce build, a decision the team now says, in hindsight, they'd change. When that implementation fell short, Asymbl stepped in to finish the build. . That's part of why the trust has deepened rather than faded: Asymbl showed up for the parts of the relationship that weren't its responsibility to fix.

Today, the relationship has grown from setting up a talent relationship management platform to a full-stack partnership spanning Recruiter Suite, Sales Cloud, Slack, and now Claude. Michael Butts continues to take reference calls for Asymbl, not because a contract requires it, but because he believes in the outcome.

What's next: Burtch Works has expressed interest in Talent Intelligence as it moves toward general availability, aimed at validating real technical quality (beyond resumes and pedigree) in a market Michael Butts describes as increasingly full of fraudulent or inflated candidate claims.

"We're really seeing the ROI from the tech stack, driving the efficiency but also the effectiveness within our human capital."

- Michael Butts, CEO, Burtch Works