• Enclose array definitions, etc. in <code>-blocks
• It's not link="", but link => "", or you'll get a syntax error
• Capitalisation increases legibility ;-)

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

sub returnParsedRec {
   my ($array, $index, $level) = @_;
   my $levelhash = {};
   my $otherfields;
   while ($index < @$array) {
      last if ($array->[$index]->{'level'} < $level);
      if ($array->[$index]->{'level'} == $level) {
         $otherfields = {};
         for (keys %{$array->[$index]}) {
            $otherfields->{$_} = $array->[$index]->{$_}
               unless ($_ eq 'level' or $_ eq 'department');
         }
         $levelhash->{$array->[$index]->{'department'}}
            = [ $otherfields, returnParsedRec($array, $index + 1, $lev
+el + 1) ];
      }
      ++$index;
   }
   return $levelhash;
}

sub unParseRec {
   my ($levelhash, $result, $level) = @_;
   my $tmphash;
   for (sort keys %$levelhash) {
      $tmphash = $levelhash->{$_}->[0];
      $tmphash->{'department'} = $_;
      $tmphash->{'level'} = $level;
      push @$result, $tmphash;
      unParseRec($levelhash->{$_}->[1], $result, $level + 1);
   }
   return $result;
}

sub returnParsed {
   return returnParsedRec(shift, 0, 1);
}

sub unParse {
   unParseRec(shift, [], 1);
}

my @array = (
{ level => 1,department => 'Office of President', linkdetails => "some
+thing"},
{ level => 2, department => 'Recruiting',linkdetails => "something1" }
+,
{ level => 2, department => 'Software', linkdetails => "something2"},)
+;

my $struct = returnParsed(\@array);
print Dumper($struct);
#print Dumper \@array;
print "\n" . "=" x 70 . "\n\n";
print Dumper(unParse($struct));
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