A Glossary of Essential Automation & Webhook Terms for HR Professionals

In today’s fast-paced HR and recruiting landscape, leveraging automation and integration technologies is no longer a luxury but a necessity for efficiency and strategic impact. This glossary provides HR and recruiting professionals with clear, authoritative definitions of key terms related to automation, webhooks, and data integration. Understanding these concepts is crucial for streamlining workflows, enhancing candidate experiences, and freeing up valuable time for high-impact activities within your organization.

Automation

Automation in an HR context refers to the use of technology to perform tasks or processes with minimal human intervention. This can range from simple, rule-based tasks like sending automated follow-up emails to candidates, scheduling interviews, or onboarding new hires, to complex, multi-step workflows. For HR professionals, automation aims to reduce manual data entry, eliminate repetitive administrative burdens, improve data accuracy, and ensure compliance. By automating routine tasks, HR teams can reallocate their focus to strategic initiatives such as talent development, employee engagement, and complex problem-solving, ultimately increasing overall departmental efficiency and impact.

Webhook

A webhook is an automated message sent from an app when a specific event occurs. It’s essentially a “user-defined HTTP callback” that allows real-time data flow between different software applications. In recruiting, a webhook might notify an external system (like a CRM or communication platform) when a new applicant applies in an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), when a candidate changes status, or when an interview is scheduled. Unlike traditional APIs that require polling for updates, webhooks push information instantly, enabling immediate actions and significantly reducing delays in critical HR workflows, such as triggering an assessment, sending a personalized welcome email, or updating a candidate’s profile across integrated platforms.

API (Application Programming Interface)

An API acts as a set of rules and protocols that allow different software applications to communicate and interact with each other. It defines the methods and data formats that apps can use to request and exchange information. For HR professionals, APIs are fundamental to integrating various HR technologies, such as connecting an ATS with an HRIS (Human Resources Information System), a payroll system, or a background check service. This seamless communication eliminates manual data transfer, reduces errors, and creates a unified data ecosystem. By leveraging APIs, recruiting teams can ensure that candidate data, employee information, and other critical HR insights are consistent and up-to-date across all their platforms, fostering a single source of truth.

Low-Code/No-Code

Low-code and no-code platforms provide environments that allow users to create applications and automate workflows with minimal or no traditional programming knowledge. No-code tools offer drag-and-drop interfaces for visual development, while low-code platforms provide similar visual tools but also allow developers to add custom code for more complex functionalities. For HR and recruiting professionals, these platforms (like Make.com) democratize automation, enabling them to build custom solutions for candidate nurturing, onboarding checklists, interview scheduling, or reporting without relying heavily on IT departments. This empowers HR teams to rapidly prototype and implement solutions tailored to their specific needs, accelerating innovation and responsiveness to business challenges.

ATS (Applicant Tracking System)

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application designed to manage the recruiting and hiring process. It helps companies organize and streamline their talent acquisition efforts, from posting job openings and collecting applications to screening candidates, scheduling interviews, and making job offers. A robust ATS is central to modern recruiting, acting as a database for all candidate information. When integrated with other HR technologies via APIs or webhooks, an ATS can automate resume parsing, send automated candidate communications, manage interview feedback, and provide analytics on the hiring pipeline, significantly enhancing recruiter productivity and the overall candidate experience.

CRM (Candidate Relationship Management)

Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) refers to strategies and software designed to manage and improve an organization’s interactions with prospective candidates throughout the entire hiring lifecycle, even before they apply. Similar to a sales CRM, a recruiting CRM focuses on building a talent pipeline, nurturing relationships with passive candidates, and maintaining engagement with silver medalists. For HR and recruiting professionals, a CRM helps personalize communication, track candidate interactions, and segment talent pools for future opportunities. By effectively utilizing a CRM, companies can cultivate a strong employer brand, reduce time-to-hire for critical roles, and proactively engage with top talent, fostering long-term relationships that bolster talent acquisition strategies.

Workflow Automation

Workflow automation involves designing and implementing automated sequences of tasks that execute based on predefined rules or triggers. In HR, this can encompass a wide range of processes, from the initial stages of candidate sourcing to employee offboarding. Examples include automating the distribution of new job applications to relevant hiring managers, initiating background checks once a conditional offer is accepted, or automatically enrolling new hires in benefits programs. The core benefit for HR professionals is the elimination of manual handoffs, reduction of human error, and acceleration of critical processes, leading to faster hiring cycles, improved data consistency, and a more positive experience for candidates and employees alike.

Data Integration

Data integration is the process of combining data from various disparate sources into a unified view. In HR, this means connecting data from your ATS, HRIS, payroll system, learning management system, and other HR tech tools. The goal is to create a single, consistent, and comprehensive source of truth for all employee and candidate information. For HR and recruiting professionals, robust data integration eliminates data silos, reduces manual data entry and reconciliation, and provides holistic insights for strategic decision-making. This unified data empowers better reporting on everything from time-to-hire and cost-per-hire to employee retention and performance analytics, driving more informed and impactful HR strategies.

Payload

In the context of webhooks and APIs, a “payload” refers to the actual data being transmitted within a request. When an event triggers a webhook, the payload is the block of data sent to the receiving application, containing all the relevant information about that event. For HR professionals integrating systems, understanding the payload is crucial for configuring how different applications exchange information. For instance, an ATS webhook might send a payload containing a candidate’s name, email, resume link, and application status. Knowing how to interpret and map this data allows for seamless updates across integrated platforms, ensuring that critical candidate or employee information is accurately transferred and processed.

Trigger

A trigger is the specific event or condition that initiates an automated workflow or process. It’s the “if” part of an “if this, then that” statement. In HR automation, common triggers include a new candidate applying to a job, an employee’s hire date, a manager approving a request, or a specific date on a calendar. For recruiting professionals, setting up appropriate triggers is the foundational step in designing effective automations. For example, a trigger could be a candidate moving to “Interview Scheduled” status in the ATS, which then automatically sends a confirmation email to the candidate and creates a calendar event for the interviewer, ensuring timely and consistent communication.

Action

An action is the specific task or operation performed by an automation when a trigger event occurs. It’s the “then that” part of an “if this, then that” statement. Following a trigger, one or more actions are executed sequentially or in parallel. In HR automation, actions could include sending an email, creating a record in a database, updating a candidate’s status, generating a document, or initiating a background check. For recruiting professionals, defining precise actions ensures that the desired outcomes of an automation are met. For example, after a “new application” trigger, actions might include parsing the resume, creating a candidate profile, and sending an initial acknowledgment email, all without manual intervention.

Parsing

Parsing is the process of analyzing a string of symbols or data according to the rules of a formal grammar. In HR and recruiting, it most commonly refers to “resume parsing” – the automated extraction of key information (like contact details, work experience, skills, and education) from a resume document into structured, usable data fields within an ATS or CRM. This process significantly reduces the manual effort of data entry and improves data accuracy. Beyond resumes, parsing can apply to extracting information from job descriptions, performance reviews, or other documents, enabling HR professionals to quickly categorize and analyze large volumes of text-based data for better candidate matching, talent management, and reporting.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

JSON is a lightweight, human-readable data-interchange format that is widely used for transmitting data between a server and web application, and between different APIs. It organizes data in key-value pairs and arrays, making it easy for both humans to read and machines to parse. In HR tech, JSON is the prevalent format for payloads sent via webhooks and APIs when systems exchange candidate or employee data. For HR professionals working with automation platforms, understanding the basic structure of JSON helps in configuring integrations, mapping data fields between systems, and troubleshooting data flow issues, ensuring that information like a candidate’s application details or an employee’s profile updates are correctly transmitted.

REST API

A REST (Representational State Transfer) API is a set of architectural principles for designing networked applications. It’s the most common type of API used for connecting web services due to its statelessness and flexibility. REST APIs allow applications to perform operations (like creating, reading, updating, or deleting data) on resources identified by URLs. In HR and recruiting, a REST API might be used to programmatically add a new job posting to an ATS, retrieve a list of all candidates for a specific role, update an employee’s address in an HRIS, or trigger a custom report. Its standardized approach simplifies integration, enabling HR teams to build robust connections between their various software tools.

AI in Recruiting

AI (Artificial Intelligence) in recruiting refers to the application of machine learning, natural language processing, and other AI technologies to enhance various aspects of the hiring process. This includes AI-powered tools for resume screening, candidate sourcing, chatbot-driven candidate communication, interview scheduling, and even predicting candidate success or turnover risk. For HR and recruiting professionals, AI can significantly improve efficiency by automating routine tasks, reduce bias through objective screening criteria, and identify best-fit candidates more rapidly. While AI augments human decision-making rather than replacing it, it allows recruiters to focus on strategic engagement and relationship building, ultimately leading to faster, smarter, and more profitable hires.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Automating HR & Recruiting Workflows: The Path to 25% More Time