How Dr. Bernhard Burger AG built a hiring engine in a niche industry that scales

Dr. Bernhard Burger AG is a family-run precious metals company based in Pforzheim, the traditional centre of German jewellery and goldsmithing. Its services range from precious metal recycling and refining, through in-house laboratory analysis, to precious metals trading and the production of semi-finished products and rings.

As the company grew, so did its hiring needs across a broad range of positions: skilled technical and craft staff, sales, and software developers. HR Officer Elke Sayer looks after recruiting. Alongside recruiting, she is responsible for all day-to-day HR work, with a student assistant to help her.

In 13 months the workforce grew from 62 to 80 employees, and the number of vacancies rose sharply. To handle that volume in an orderly way, Dr. Bernhard Burger AG built a central recruiting process in Join. Through Join the company filled three specialist roles, among other positions, after even external recruitment agencies had come up empty.

Before: applications scattered across inboxes, vacancies that did not fit the usual pool

When Elke Sayer took over HR, and with it recruiting, at Dr. Bernhard Burger AG, the company had 62 employees. Thirteen months later it had 80. At times up to twelve vacancies were open at once, from production and engineering through sales and customer service to a key specialist role in the existing IT department.

Elke runs the whole recruiting process with the help of a student assistant. As the vacancies grew in number and variety, it soon became clear that handling applications through email inboxes was no longer workable.

Applications in different inboxes. They arrived in various mailboxes, had to be matched to the right vacancy by hand and tracked through the rest of the selection process.

“We used to manage everything through Outlook inboxes, which simply became very hard to keep track of as our recruiting volume grew. It’s nothing like the way we work today.”

Specialist roles outside the usual candidate pool. Some positions lay beyond the usual candidate pool of a precious metals company, such as a developer for Odoo, the company’s new ERP platform. Even with external recruitment agencies, some of these roles stayed open for a long time.

Very high application numbers. For some vacancies more than 200 applications came in. Each one was reviewed. Communicating with candidates, above all writing and sending individual rejections, took a great deal of time.

“I look at every single application myself. That’s certainly not a small number, and it takes a lot of time.”

Involving hiring managers. The people responsible for each team needed to join the selection process without application documents and feedback going back and forth by email.

What changed: an existing account became the central recruiting platform

When Elke took over recruiting, a Join account already existed but had barely been used. She made Join the central tool for candidate management at Dr. Bernhard Burger AG and used it to build one consistent recruiting process.

One central process instead of several inboxes. Applications now come in through Join and are linked directly to their vacancy. There is no more searching across mailboxes, and a glance shows which applications exist for a role and how far along the selection process is. “I no longer have to search my inbox to see who has applied for a role. I just click on the vacancy and all the applications are immediately visible,” says Elke.

Job ads on several platforms reached new audiences. With multiposting, Dr. Bernhard Burger AG publishes its job ads on platforms such as Indeed, Stepstone and meinestadt.de. That brought in candidates for positions that had stayed open for a long time even with recruitment agencies. “Join found us three new colleagues in a technical area where our agencies simply couldn’t make progress. Compared with what an agency placement costs, that saves us real money.”

Planned communication for a better candidate experience. Even with high application numbers, it matters to Elke how and when candidates hear back. Email templates and delayed sending make communication easier and allow a more considered approach to rejections: they can be scheduled for the start of the week instead of going out just before the weekend. “I know the application process from personal experience, so I know how it feels. I’d rather schedule these emails for the start of the week than have someone get a rejection just before the weekend.”

Hiring managers take part directly in the selection process. With role-based access rights, the managers responsible see the applications that concern them in Join and give their assessment. Around ten people from different areas now take part in selection processes this way. “Everyone simply gets a link by email to log in, and they all managed it without any problems.” Application documents no longer need to be forwarded. Everyone works from the same information and gives feedback directly in the system.

Support that keeps up with short-notice change. As the company grew, its hiring needs kept shifting at short notice. When more vacancies or more budget were needed, Elke says adjustments could be arranged flexibly with Join. “I work with several other support teams from different providers, but none comes close to Join’s.”

The result: more structure at a much higher volume

About 13 months after introducing the structured process in earnest, Dr. Bernhard Burger AG handles its candidate management centrally on one platform. A much higher hiring volume is now handled in a more structured way than with separate inboxes.

62 to 80 employees within 13 months. Alongside this growth, a large number of very different positions were filled. Join helped the company organise and manage a much larger recruiting process in one place.

Three specialists hired through Join. Their roles had previously stayed unfilled even with external recruitment agencies. The job ads on various platforms reached additional audiences.

Around ten managers and department leads are directly involved. They review the candidates relevant to them in Join and give their assessment, without documents and feedback being sent back and forth by email.

“Our hiring process has become much more structured. Before, everything was far less organised.”

Beyond the figures, what has changed most is how people work together. Managers contribute directly to their own selection process, applications and feedback sit in one place, and candidate communication is simpler to manage and more considered. Despite the higher volume, Elke still looks at every single application herself.

Recruiting remains a priority at Dr. Bernhard Burger AG. Sales and technical roles still need filling, and the company plans to keep Join as its central platform for candidate management.