Recruitment, Training, Bullhorn, Automation, AI, Analytics Tips

Bullhorn Power Webinar ~ BD Campaigns That Sell

Which Bullhorn Automation campaigns win new business, how to power them up, and why good campaigns get cancelled too soon? Free webinar!🏃TL;DRRegister for our free 30-minute webinar for recruitment leaders who need stronger sales:Which recruitment campaigns work?How to power them up.How to not get spooked by complaints - internal and external.REGISTER HEREMost recruitment businesses are sitting on years of Bullhorn data. Client contacts. Past placements. Hiring managers who've used you before. Relationships your team worked hard to build.And yet when the pipeline goes quiet, the go-to move may still be cold calling, buying lead lists or chasing the same handful of clients.But hope is not a strategy!Data rich. Candidate and client poor. Sound familiar?Bullhorn Automation can change that.It turns the client community you already own into new conversations, new roles and new business - and keeps your consultants focused on the right clients at the right time.Done well, it could save you tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of £$€ in advertising and precious time!Plus, you place faster, invoice quicker, and manage your teams easier.‼️But here's the catch - most Bullhorn Automation campaigns never get the chance to really deliver.So we're running a free 30-minute webinar for recruitment leaders who want real ROI from Bullhorn Automation.When: Wednesday 21 October 2026, 3pm BSTHow long: 30 minutesCost: freeREGISTER HEREPart 1: Which campaigns actually win business?We'll talk you through campaigns that activate your Bullhorn data and get clients and prospects talking to you again. The kind that fill diaries with BD meetings, not just inboxes.None of them rely on cold calling.Part 2: Why do most automations just sit there?Building an automation and pressing go isn't a strategy. (Hope rarely is.)We'll share the tips most recruitment businesses never use - the ones that power up an automation so it keeps working long after launch day. And so your recruiters know exactly who to speak to next, and when.Part 3: Why do good campaigns get cancelled?This is the one most leaders don't see coming.Good campaigns get pulled far too early. Not because they failed - because something in the first few days felt like bad news, and someone hit pause.We'll share what we tell our clients before the first send. How to keep the business focused, hold your nerve, and give a campaign the time it needs to pay you back.Who's it for?💸Recruitment leaders using Bullhorn who want more from their data, their community and their Bullhorn Automation investment - and less reliance on cold out reach.🧠30 minutes. Practical and honest, with ideas you can act on the next day.📅21 October, 3pm BSTREGISTER HEREBullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI ROIWe are Bullhorn experts obsessed with how recruiters can increase sales, reduce costs, speed up sourcing, and improve productivity.We help you optimise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
Hold Your Nerve: Activating Your Bullhorn Data Without the Panic

I've seen recruitment leaders kill great automated BD campaigns after one send - here is what you're throwing away if you pause too soon.🏃TL;DRMany Bullhorn Automation campaigns are shut down prematurely after send #1 due to initial knee-jerk reactions (unsubscribes, bounces, annoyed clients). Stopping an automated recruitment campaign early causes you to bear the full cost of data cleanup without ever reaching the ROI phase.Our next free webinar will cover which Bullhorn Automation campaigns win new business, how to power them up, and why good campaigns get cancelled too soon. And we'll tackle how to not get spooked by "bad campaigns"!REGISTER HEREI've seen a few recruitment email campaigns switched off after one send.Not because they didn't work.Because recruiters and recruitment leaders got nervous.Scenario:The Bullhorn Automation campaign goes out to the whole database on a Tuesday.By lunchtime there's a pile of unsubscribes, a load of bounce notifications, and a few grumpy replies from clients who haven't heard from you in a year or more.Someone forward them to a leader.By Thursday the campaign is "paused while we have a think".So what should a recruitment leader expect from an automated email campaign?Firstly, something messier than the benchmarks that you'll find if you Google "give me average recruitment campaign open rates and hard bounce rates".If your recruiters (or recruitment marketing function) have not emailed your Bullhorn database properly for a while (if ever), that first campaign will find everyone who's moved on (and roughly 20-30% of B2B data goes stale every year, so there'll be plenty).On a first send into old data, expect:10-20% hard bounces (the steady-state average is about 2.5%)2-3% unsubscribes (versus around 0.9% normally)open rates that look better than they really are (bots!)That's not the campaign failing - that's your data getting a long overdue health check.Bounces are people who've moved, often to a business you'd love as a client. Re-trace them, add them into Bullhorn as leads, and that "bad" result has just topped up your BD pipeline. (Read more about how to turn hard bounce and unsubscribes into revenue here.)Why are my click rates so high?Bots, mostly. Sorry.Email security tools open messages and click every link within seconds to check they're safe - roughly 30% of clicks from Outlook and 20%+ from Gmail aren't human.You can't stop it, so don't build your reporting on it. Measure what a bot can't do: replies, calls, form fills, meetings booked, jobs on, CVs in. Log those in Bullhorn and you'll know what's working.Will we upset some clients?Probably a few - and I'd rather you heard it from me now. If you've gone quiet on clients for a year or two and then pop up in their inbox, the odd one will be short with you. That says more about the gap than the email.Build a suppression list in Bullhorn before every send (clients mid-negotiation, placed candidates, anyone who's already asked you to stop). Agree who answers the prickly replies before anything goes out. And check every unsubscribe for live clients - then pick up the phone.You won't get unsubscribes to zero. Nobody does.How bad can a mistake really be?One cold database campaign we saw sent the same email twice (it happens). 7,771 contacts, 245 unsubscribes - and only six of those were down to the duplicate. The other 239 would have gone anyway.Plan for both outcomes, then hold your nerveBefore you activate a campaign, agree with your leadership team what success looks like (meetings, jobs on, placements - not opens) and what a wobbly first week looks like. Results come in a J-curve: the heavy lifting on your data comes first, the pipeline comes after. Pause halfway and you've done the hard bit for nothing.Want to talk it through?We love paying it forward!BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATIONPlus, we're covering all of this in our free 30-minute Bullhorn Power Webinar: BD Campaigns to Win Business:: Which campaigns win businessWhy Bullhorn Automation stalls after launch dayHow to hold your nerve until it pays back.When: Wednesday 21 October 2026, 3pm BSTHow long: 30 minutesCost: freeREGISTER HERE
How Recruiters Can Turn Bounces and Unsubscribes into $£€

If your recruitment database is full of hard bounces and unsubscribes, you're throwing away £$€thousands.🏃TL;DRDon't view an unsubscribe or bounce as a total loss. Instead of just deleting the contact or forgetting about them, treat them as data points that prompt a process review or an alternative approach.Recruiters, marketers, automators... If you’re regularly emailing candidates or clients - especially using tools like Bullhorn Automation - you’ve likely become familiar with two things: unsubscribes and hard bounces.Our next free webinar will cover which Bullhorn Automation campaigns win new business, how to power them up, and why good campaigns get cancelled too soon. And we'll tackle hard bounces and unsubscribes head on!REGISTER HEREAt first glance, hard bounces and unsubscribes can feel like a blow to your efforts - but they’re not always what they seem. In fact, how you respond to them is where the real sourcing and sales opportunities lie.Through the free consultation calls I have with recruiters who have Bullhorn, a hot topic is unsubscribes and hard bounces. Neither outcome gives a nice fuzzy feeling. If someone unsubscribes it limits your chances of reaching out to them again.If you get a hard bounce, their email has failed or the server has blocked you.But rather than get frustrated, slowing down your marketing / automation efforts, get active and turn these apparent dead ends into business opportunities. I've got some tips to help you monetise the "no"!💡Be sure to also read my other blog: Tired of Unsubscribes? 5 Email Tips Every Recruiter Should Knowto help you reduce the volume of unsubscribes.Unsubscribes and Hard Bounces Aren’t Always the EndTake it from someone who sends regular campaigns with Bullhorn/Automation/Sales/Sourcing tips. Here’s what I’ve learned:When you start poking around a database that hasn’t been touched in a while, you need to plan for:Inevitable bad, dirty dataLow trust due to radio silence / low communication volumeBounces and unsubscribesSo:1️⃣ Don’t burn out your entire database all at once and overwhelm your recruiters with pointless "leads". A flood of bounces and unsubscribes is overwhelming—and tempting to ignore. Instead, work with your recruiters to identify the data that matters most (roles, skills, locations), so responses are relevant and recruiters engage.2️⃣ Stagger your outreach. A gradual send schedule helps you build a better picture of your data, keeps your sender reputation healthy, and gives you the time to review and action what’s coming back.3️⃣ Use and A/B testing to tell you what works (and what bombs).4️⃣Then, and this bit is crucial, have a battle plan to turn what seems like a "no" into an opportunity.Not Every Unsubscribe or Hard Bounce is Final🏴Unsubscribes: What we often see—especially in recruitment—is that many unsubscribes are "false flags". It’s not the person opting out; it’s often their old email being shut down or a system admin / manager clearing mailboxes.Often, that person hasn’t unsubscribed —they’ve moved to another company.⛔Hard bounces should be an opportunity to follow the follow the leaver to their new company - and rekindle a relationship.Instead of blindly trusting your email system, build a workflow to monetise the "no".Here’s how I manage unsubscribes at Barclay Jones:Two months after each mailer, I check the unsubscribes.I investigate if they’ve left the company or simply moved jobs.If they’ve moved, I update their details in the CRM and re-engage them.I do the same with hard bounces by checking LinkedIn and updating records.Recruiters can recover valuable contacts this way—some of those “dead” leads could be placements waiting to happen! 💸Campaign the Clean ~ Create the Opps!Treat every email/automation campaign not just as marketing—but as a data quality (and data wealth) activity.Hard bounces? Check if the contact has left.Unsubscribes? Investigate the source.Build this into your CRM workflows—it doesn’t have to be hard or time-consuming.With the right process, they’re signals—not setbacks.Want help building an outreach and automation strategy to keep candidates and clients opted in?📅 Let’s talk!I offer free consultations to help leaders, recruiters, and automators unlock the power of their Bullhorn database.BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATIONOur next free Bullhorn webinar will cover which Bullhorn Automation campaigns win new business, how to power them up, and why good campaigns get cancelled too soon.REGISTER HERE
Podcast: How Can Agencies Scale Without More Headcount? And Is AI Really the Fix?

The recruitment agencies scaling fastest right now aren't hiring more people. They're using their tech that's sitting idle.During my latest recruitment leaders podcast I sat down with Jonathan Abraham from Bullhorn to talk about the question every recruitment agency owner is quietly asking right now:How do you scale a recruitment agency without just throwing more headcount at the problem?Recruitment agencies have always grown the same way.Win more clientsTake on more jobsHire more recruiters to cover it.Jonathan's argument is that this model is breaking, and it's breaking because of who your competition actually is now.Your competitors aren't just the agency down the road anymore, it's software. Candidates can now fire off a thousand applications in an hour, and none of them land the strongest relationships.That's not a small shift for recruitment agency leaders to absorb. If a candidate can self-serve their entire application through a platform, the traditional recruiter advantage, being the one with access to the job, disappears.What's left is the relationship, and Jonathan argues that's now the only genuine USP recruitment agencies have.The four A's most recruitment agencies get wrongWe used my own framework for this conversation: ATS, analytics, automation and adoption, with AI sitting inside automation. Most recruitment agencies have all four. Very few are using all four properly - and they're often not bothering to connect them.Take analytics.Most recruitment agencies use it for one thing: a board report at the end of the month. Looking backwards at what already happened, rather than forwards at what a recruiter should do today.So what's the biggest AI opportunity for recruitment agencies right now?Jonathan points to two specific areas, and they're both about data your recruitment agency already owns.Not new data you need to buy, data sitting in your CRM right now, under-used. How fast you can surface it, and how it flows into the everyday routines and candidate communications your consultants are already running. He walks through exactly where in the episode.We're still meeting recruitment agency clients with automation that's barely doing 5% of what it's capable of doing.Read that again. 5%!I see this every day! Most recruitment agencies aren't short of technology. They're short of using the technology they've already paid for.Do recruitment agencies need to hire less as they grow?Not necessarily less, but growth doesn't have to mean headcount anymore.Jonathan's view is that efficiency, not team size, is what now separates recruitment agencies that scale from recruitment agencies that just get busier and more stressed.I call this Return on Effort (ROE), not just ROI. It's not only what a placement earns, it's how much effort, stress and time it cost to get there.Jonathan shared a story about a recruitment agency client who wanted AI rebuilt from the ground up into their process, not bolted on as an afterthought. They built a virtual candidate manager into their workflow. It got so embedded that candidates now call the office and ask for it by name.Is this about replacing recruiters with AI?No, and Jonathan is blunt about it.I share that view. Many recruiters, if they were honest about their day, are actually recruitment administrators, not recruitment consultants.You're not going to earn money updating fields manually or chasing statuses. You earn money building relationships. And knowing exactly when to use them.Jonathan adds...Recruiters don't measure how much time they spend, but oh my God, are they spending it, and they're wasting it.AI isn't there to replace the consultant role. It's there to remove the admin: the manual updates, the status chasing, the parts of the job that were never where the money or the value came from anyway. What that frees a recruiter up to do instead is the part Jonathan gets specific on in the full conversation.We finish on something every recruitment agency leader should be asking their own database this week, not guessing at it internally, but literally asking your own candidates the question. What is it?You'll have to watch.Watch my vodcast on how recruitment agencies are using AI to scaleWatch the full 26 minute conversation with Jonathan from Bullhorn now. See exactly where AI is already helping recruitment agencies scale.Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI ROIWe are Bullhorn experts obsessed with how recruiters can increase sales, reduce costs, speed up sourcing, and improve productivity.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
The One Bullhorn Habit That's Silently Bleeding You of Fees and Sales

While you've moved on from that lost job, your competitor hasn't and it's costing you £$€thousands.Are you missing this Bullhorn follow-up BD process that most recruitment leaders are missing?🏃TL;DRThe "Silent Bleeding" Habit: Recruiters immediately abandon candidates and clients after losing a job opportunity to a competitor or direct hire, never following up again.Why It Costs You Money: About 20% of placed candidates regret their decision within a few months. When placements fail, recruiters who walk away miss out on easy repeat business, replacement placement fees, and client re-engagement.Solution? If you have Bullhorn, you likely have the kit you need to fix this problem of lost fees.In a recent Bullhorn 4 BD webinar Lisa said that this is what she often sees in happening on recruitment desks across the industry:Lost a job, hung up the phone, and thought "right, next." Never gave it another thought. I see this too:Lost that job?Placed somewhere else?Move on.Exit stage right, never to speak to that client again. It's the most natural reaction in the world. Nobody wants to dwell on a loss. But if you're leading a recruitment business, this reflex is likely costing you money you don't even know you're missing.Are your recruiters tenacious enough to be in the wings for an inevitable rekindling of that sale? And what is your process for ensuring that you do not lose precious fees?🤔The recruitment stat that stopped me in my tracks One in five candidates are unhappy in their new role within a few months of starting. Think about your own rebate numbers. What's the average in your business?Now think about how many of those unhappy candidates you're still talking to when that unhappiness kicks in. For most recruitment businesses I work with, the answer is "not enough". Somewhere in your Bullhorn database right now, there are candidates who took a job through a competitor, or through the client going direct, and they're already regretting it.The consultant who lost that job has probably moved on too. There's a door sitting wide open. Nobody's walking through it. 🤨 Leaving the sales process to the candidate and client isn't a great strategy Here's the bit people miss. When you lose a job, it doesn't just go to another candidate. Sometimes the client hires through a competitor. Sometimes they go direct. Either way, that placement can go wrong too. So the follow-up process shouldn't stop at the candidate.Building in a reason to check back with the client as well could be a simple trick to re-engaging the lead!Did the hire work out?How's it going?Are they still happy they went that route?(So satisfying when you can think "I told you so!) You're not gloating.You're just staying visible, staying warm, and staying front of mind - that's sales!Because if it hasn't worked out, you want to be the first call they make, not the fifth. Be ready to let them fall straight back into your arms. 🫡This is a leadership problem, not a recruitment consultant problem Here's the bit that matters if you're the one running the business. You can't fix this by hoping your team remembers.You fix it by building a process, and making it part of how your business operates: Close jobs properly. Status set correctly, every time. It's one field, and it's the one that gets left by the wayside. Everything downstream depends on it. Set the cadence, both sides. Know when the successful candidate started, then touch base with the candidate *and* the client at one, three, six and twelve months. Assign ownership. Is this account management or BD? Decide, and make someone accountable. If it belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one. That's a strategy decision. It's not something you leave a busy consultant to remember off the back of a good night's sleep.Hope is not a strategy (or a process!) 💪Bullhorn already has what you need Bullhorn wasn't built to be an admin system. It was built to be a relationship management system, and this is a perfect example of it doing its job properly. Automation can nudge and notify your team the moment a lost job hits a follow-up milestone. Nobody has to remember anything. Analytics can report on lost jobs across the whole business. How many, which clients, whether contact was actually made. What do you have set up currently, and:Is it fit for purpose?Is it actually being used?Do you have full visibility over what it's reporting on and whether or not your team are actually adopting this process and delivering on it? Ask yourself: how watertight is this sales process for your business. Is it delivering results?😇 The relationship didn't end - the job did That's the mindset shift for anyone leading a recruitment team.Losing a job isn't the end of a relationship. It's a trigger telling you exactly when to check back in. Get this nailed at a leadership level, build it into the process rather than hoping it happens, and Bullhorn will quietly hand you rebates and repeat business you'd otherwise never see. --- More BD Tips?This was one of five tips from our Bullhorn Power Series webinar on using your ATS, automation and analytics to drive business development.Catch the other four, and watch the full sessionWATCH THE BULLHORN FOR BD TIPS WEBINARBullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI ROIWe are Bullhorn experts obsessed with how recruiters can increase sales, reduce costs, speed up sourcing, and improve productivity.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
Podcast: Recruitment AI ~ How to Use Tech Without Losing the Human Touch

Is Your Recruitment Tech Stack Keeping You Human, or Just Keeping You Busy? And Where Does AI Fit and Not Fit?I recently sat down with Raymond Pennie, the founder and CEO of Kyloe Partners, for as part of my recruitment leaders' podcast series that went deep into the messy, exciting, and often confusing world of recruitment technology, and AI.If you’ve ever felt like your Bullhorn CRM/ATS is more of a "data graveyard" than a goldmine, or if the mere mention of AI makes you want to hide under your desk, this conversation was for you.Raymond and I didn't just talk about "plugging things in"; we talked about why so many recruitment leaders are currently suffocating under a mountain of manual admin, and tech and data, while trying to "stay human."Here’s a teaser of the big questions we tackled (and why you’ll want to catch the full recording):🤔The Recruitment AI Paradox: Why Leaders Overestimate Short-Term AI and Underestimate Long-Term ImpactAI is the smallest word having the biggest impact right now.Raymond dropped a truth bomb: most people are overestimating AI in the short term but massively underestimating it in the long run.Is AI going to be your best manager - keeping you on track and stripping away the boring bits - or your worst nightmare by micromanaging your every missed task?🤖We also discussed a terrifying new reality: AI vs. AI.When every candidate uses AI to craft a "perfect" resume/CV that matches your job description exactly, how do you actually screen for talent?Raymond shares a simple strategy to use recruitment technology to prioritise the right candidates and clients so you can get back to the human-to-human influence that AI simply can't touch.⛔Why Buying AI Recruitment Tools Isn't Enough (The 'Bandwagon' Problem)One of my favourite parts of our chat was about the "AI Bandwagon."Raymond’s advice?Buy the AI, but for heaven's sake, use it.Too many leaders buy recruitment tech as a defense mechanism or a "quota" to feel better about themselves or feel that they can at least say that they have what they need, only to end up trapped in long contracts with tools they don't understand.Ultimately the goal needs to be Bullhorn ROI, not simply lots of tech.We talked about the "Bruce Lee method" of recruitment leadership: why you might need to slow down in order to speed up.💸Data Enrichment in Recruitment: Working the Funnel from the Money EndWe moved on to the "V" word: Value. Not the fluffy kind, but the actual monetization of your data. Raymond explained why you should stop trying to "clean" a million records just for the sake of it. Instead, he shared a targeted approach—working from the "money end" of the funnel backwards.If you want to know how to stop "throwing crap at the wall" and start using data enrichment to find replacements before a candidate even leaves their role, you need to hear Raymond’s take on "Data Enrichment 101."The Bottom Line?Efficiency is one thing, but effectiveness is the next level. Don't let your recruitment technology prevent you or your recruiters from being human. Use it to ring-fence your candidate and client time so you can actually deliver a sustainable recruitment pipeline.Stay curious, stop panicking, and start picking the one or two things that actually resonate with your recruitment business goals.Ready to spend a speedy 19 minutes thinking about how to make your recruitment process more human with tech?Watch my 19 Minute Podcast with RaymondBullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI RoIWe are Bullhorn experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses to increase speed and sales.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
How Can Recruiters Place More Candidates Quicker?

How Can Recruiters Place More Candidates Quicker?I've been in recruitment since 2000 and spent a good chunk of that time helping recruitment businesses do what we call "Bullhorn1st" - automating their sourcing, screening, sales, and placements.Along the way I've picked up a fair bit about data, automation, AI, and what actually makes a recruitment process profitable.Here's what still holds true, and what's changed.1. 📊 Too Much Recruitment Data, Not Enough PipelineMost recruiters have plenty of data. Often too much.They're sourcing it, buying it, scraping it, storing it - but not turning it into fees. A lot of it sits in systems outside the CRM, which just creates lag, cost, and risk.Data only has value if you actually do something with it. Candidate applications and client leads go cold fast if you don't get to them quickly.Most recruiters are trying to manage far more records than they can realistically keep on top of. There's a reason Dunbar's number keeps coming up in this conversation - people can only maintain so many real relationships at once.Get real about what you can actually manage, and focus there.2. 📱 All the Gear, No IdeaPlenty of recruiters still aren't showing up with any confidence in the channels where their candidates and clients actually spend time. Candidates expect more than phone and email now, and that gap has only got wider.The default response is usually "get on the phone more." That doesn't hold up when the average recruiter is sitting on thousands of records.Even where the tech is there to help, a lot of teams were never properly trained to use it. Distraction, FOMO, and a habit of leaning too hard on LinkedIn and job boards still cost recruiters time and money.3. 📉 Leads Generated, Sales SuppressedRecruiters are generally good at generating leads. They're much less consistent at converting them.Leads go cold within about 24 hours. It typically takes 8-15 touches to convert one - yet most recruiters give up after three.That gap between generating leads and actually closing them is where a lot of revenue quietly disappears.4. 🤖 AI Has Moved the GoalpostsThis is the bit that's changed most since I last wrote about this.Bullhorn's latest GRID research found that only 35% of candidates now go to a recruitment agency first when job hunting - down on the year before, with job boards picking up the difference. That's not great news on its own.But the same research found candidates respond well when agencies actually use AI properly:77% report a positive experience with AI in the process88% rate voice agents as good as, or better than, a human interviewAutomated onboarding pushes candidate loyalty up to 85%87% of contingent workers who get the hours they want stick with the firm that placed themNone of that means recruiters get replaced. It means AI and automation are now doing a decent job of clearing up the data and process problems from points 1 and 2.That frees recruiters up to spend their time on the bit candidates still can't get from a job board - a person who actually knows them.5. 🧭 It's All About the Journey (and Dunbar, Again)Most recruiters put too much effort into the start of a relationship - adverts, acknowledgements, screening. Not nearly enough goes into what happens after "hello."That's still the fix: less effort front-loaded, more consistent contact throughout.It usually comes down to three things: too much data, not enough process, and not really knowing what candidates and clients want. AI and automation can sort out the first two. The third is still down to you.✅ TakeawaysTreat your data like your most valuable asset - less hoarding, more placing.Get real about what a recruiter can actually manage in a day; less is more.Use automation and AI to keep your data warm and turn it into fees.Free up your recruiters to do the job they're actually paid for: building relationships and closing deals.Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI ROIWe are Bullhorn experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses to increase speed and sales.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
Podcast: Is AI Recruitment's Superpower, Or Its Blind Spot?

Is Recruitment AI the Superpower Everyone's Raving About? Or Are You Missing Something Obvious?I recently caught up with George Whalley from Bullhorn for the latest in my recruitment leaders' podcast series. AI, automation, cost reduction, compassionate recruitment, manual work, and dogs, were the topics.George's day job is bringing net new clients onto Bullhorn and then, unusually, staying on as their account manager afterwards. So unlike a lot of people selling you tech, he actually has to live with the consequences of what he sells you. That makes him worth listening to.We had 22 minutes to talk about the reality of AI in recruitment and what recruitment leaders need to factor into growing their businesses with this vital tech.💰 Your data is your superpower, so stop buying more of itI started by by asking George, a very pertinent question:How is AI (and automation) actually impacting recruitment right now?George's answer was basically - not as much as it should be. Why? Because recruiters are only using it for the boring bit (generating text) and ignoring it to help them monetise the data goldmine already sat in their own Bullhorn.Anyone can scrape LinkedIn.Anyone can buy the same 100,000 candidates as their competitor.That's cold data.Anyone can use AI to find and clean data - but don't get blindsided. It's what you do with it that counts!What George calls your actual superpower is the stuff already living in your notes and conversations that never made it into a proper field, that you can use AI to "power up" your pipeline.Recruiters are "crawling over warm data on their Bullhorn to get to cold data outside of Bullhorn". Sounds mad when you say it like that, doesn't it? But that's most agencies right now.What's the fix? (Watch the video to find out!)👇🧠 What can humans actually do that AI can't?This was George's favourite question and I can see why.His answer was blunt - AI can do a LOT to save time and costs, and drive process, but AI can't put a suit on and sit in a room with a client.It can't understand the stuff that actually matters more than the business on paper. We chatted about why 40% of consultants have left the industry in the last 18 months.Not because they were bad at their jobs.Because recruitment stopped needing what they were good at, and started needing something they'd never had to be good at before. Then George said something that's been rattling round my head all week - is AI really dehumanising recruitment, or is it de-manualising it?Humans = manual. Really? Is that as good as it gets?Watch the video 👇for more insights on how to de-manualise your recruitment process and do what only humans can do!🐕 Are you using tech to do what your website says you do?(And what has that got to do with your dog's God complex?)We chatted about the open secret in recruitment: what recruiters say they do - and what they really do - often poles apart. Too much data, and too little process makes for a lack of productivity and ultimately profit.It also makes for a very expensive tech stack, which leaves the average recruitment leader wondering why they need to spend so much money on tech just to stand still.What did George suggest you need to do to manage the threat and opportunity? Watch the video to find out...👇My recruitment leaders' podcast with George is a cute 22minutes long. Grab a coffee and get watching!Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI ROIWe are Bullhorn experts obsessed with how recruiters can increase sales, reduce costs, speed up sourcing, and improve productivity.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
Bullhorn Webinar Power ~ Stop Missing Out on Sales: 5 Tips to Use Your ATS, Automation, and Analytics to Drive BD

For many of my clients, Recruitment is now officially in a BD-first market.For recruitment leaders, the challenge isn’t just finding new business; it’s finding the right business and winning it before the competition even wakes up. If your recruiters are still manually scouring the database or "spraying and praying" cold emails, and paying external systems like LinkedIn, Indeed, and job boards for leads, you are losing revenue to firms that have turned their Bullhorn stack into a high-precision sales machine.Scroll down to watch the webinar.👇🔢The Maths of Modern Business DevelopmentRecent data from Bullhorn Grid shows a staggering divide between "traditional" recruitment firms and "automated" ones:The Speed Gap: High-growth firms are 3.5x more likely to use automation to beat competitors to the first CV send.The Admin Tax: The average recruiter loses 12+ hours a week to manual data entry. That’s two full days of lost selling time.The Gold Mine: 76% of placements come from people already in your database, yet most BD teams ignore their own "warm" data in favour of cold outreach.⁉️Are You Paying for a Recruitment Database or a Graveyard?Most ATS/CRM platforms are graveyard-like: full of data, but nothing is moving - candidates, clients, sales - are stuck!But the true ROI from Bullhorn comes when you combine Bullhorn’s core power with Automation, AI, and Analytics. You empower your humans to turn that graveyard into a "Predictive Sales Engine."Instead of asking your team to "hit the phones harder," imagine a world where:Analytics tells you exactly which clients are worth your time (and which ones to fire).Automation nurtures prospects in the background while your recruiters are closing deals.The ATS surfaces the perfect candidate for a "spec call" before the client even posts the job.🚨Watch Our Bullhorn 4 BD WebinarI see too many recruitment leaders struggling with "activity for the sake of activity." It’s time to move from "busy" to "profitable."I audit too many recruitment workflows where BD has been made hard to manage and measure - mainly due to lack of structure and too many systems and too much dirty data.This webinar recording is specifically for recruitment leaders who want to power up their Bullhorn tech stack for new business sales. I’ll be diving into the stats above and sharing at least 5 actionable tips across your Bullhorn ATS/CRM, Analytics, and Automation systems which you can implement immediately to:Identify high-probability prospects.Automate your processes to land more deals.Reduce your team's "admin tax" to free up hours of crucial sales time per week.Plus, we'll share at least 12 brilliant Bullhorn tactics you can give to your recruiters to help them use Bullhorn for sales.Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI ROIWe are Bullhorn experts obsessed with how recruiters can increase sales, reduce costs, speed up sourcing, and improve productivity.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
Podcast: Death to Spreadsheets: Is Your Agency’s Future Hiding in a Tab?

In our latest recruitment leaders podcast, which could be renamed as "Keeping Up with the Joneses," I sat down with Carl Jones, founder of Konquest, to tackle a truth that many recruitment leaders are still trying to avoid: the era of "wit and whiteboard pens" is officially over.If you’re still running your recruitment agency’s most critical processes on disparate spreadsheets, you aren’t just being "old school" - you might be making your business completely uncompetitive in an AI-driven market. Here are the 3 big questions we posed that every leader needs to answer1️⃣Is Your Data "Siloed" or Scalable?Carl highlighted a terrifying reality: as you scale, spreadsheets become "damaging".They are slow, corruptible, and unauditable.But the real FOMO trigger?If your data isn't in a scalable, database format today, you will be "completely screwed" when trying to leverage the AI agents of tomorrow. ❓Ask yourself: Are you building a data asset you can interrogate, or are you just "hoping" your team knows what’s going on? 2️⃣Are You Leading by "Facts" or "Feelings"?We’ve all been there. We've made decisions based on gut instinct or ego. But in a shifting market with new legislative changes and complex compensation needs, "facts not feelings" is the only way to retain your best staff. ❓The Question: Can you answer why you’re making a strategic change with "unequivocal data," or is it just subjective guesswork? 3️⃣What Are the Most Profitable Agencies Doing Differently?💡This was the "money shot" of our conversation.Carl revealed that Konquest has identified a dozen different "signals" that separate the fastest-growing agencies from the rest. These are signals from how they incentivise managers to the specific nature of their commission thresholds. Most recruitment leaders are getting commission wrong simply because the data hasn't been available.❓Are you overpaying or underpaying your recruiters? Or is your management setup simply years behind the industry standard? 🚨Stop Scrambling and Start SystematisingThe goal isn't just to have "shiny buttons" on a CRM/ATS.It’s about creating an "objective reality" for your business. As Carl put it, we are entering a period where leaders will soon be "scrambling" to get their data out of spreadsheets. Don't be the recruitment leader left behind while your competitors (which includes your own clients) are already using their data as a high-value weapon. Want to see how you benchmark against the rest of the industry? Carl and the team at Konquest have launched a live, free Recruiter Commission Census. It provides a personalised report on those 12 secret signals so you can finally see if your agency is at risk or ahead of the curve. Ready to spend a speedy 17 minutes thinking about your recruitment data and how to get it powering your recruitment business?Watch the full 17 minute podcast with Konquest now. Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI RoIWe are Bullhorn experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses to increase speed and sales.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
Before You Jump on the AI Bandwagon: How Recruitment Leaders Get Tech Right

Buying Recruitment AI might not fix a broken recruitment process — it may just help you break it faster.I recently had an inspiring chat with a recruitment leader, and it struck me how many recruitment businesses are currently throwing themselves into tech pilots - especially AI - just because they don't want to get left behind.The pressure is real, but if you aren't careful, you’ll end up with a business full of "shiny new things" that don't actually fix your biggest recruitment problems.Here are 5 ways I believe recruitment leaders can cut through the noise and ensure they are getting the right tech for their recruitment businesses.1️⃣You Aren't Testing Tech; You’re Fixing a Business IssueThe biggest mistake I see is recruitment businesses testing a system rather than the thing they are trying to fix. Before you even look at a new tool, ask yourself:What is the actual problem? Is it data health? Recruiter productivity? Speed to market? Sales? Stronger client and candidate relationships?Does this process even need to exist? Sometimes we buy tech to "fix" a process that we should have just deleted in the first place.2️⃣Beware of "Frankenstein" Processes and DataOver the years, many recruitment firms have built what I call "Frankenstein tech" - those extra bits and pieces plugged in that create more complexity than they solve. (Expensive luxuries...)Frankenstein Data: Are you spending money to enrich data that you then do nothing with? Frankenstein Processes: Are your recruiters multitasking to the point of exhaustion because the tech doesn't serve a clear purpose? AI / Automation / Analytics should be the surgeon that cuts away the "Frankenstein" parts, not another bolt-on limb.3️⃣Tackle the "Admin Tax" and "Integration Debt" (and Myths)Every time a recruiter has to manually format a CV or move between non-integrated systems, they are paying a "tax" with their time.The Win: One leader I spoke with successfully rolled out a CV formatter that turned a half-day wait into a minutes-long task. This solved a genuine business problem: time to submit.The Debt: If your tech doesn't talk to each other, your recruiter becomes the "integrator," stuck in the middle of chaos. Be sure of what that means and how you manage that.The "Fully Integrated" Myth? I'm often told by leaders that they want a fully integrated tech stack. They want everything joined up... But, you may still need humans to be part of the integration. I'm ok with that - just be sure which parts of the recruitment lifecycle you genuinely need them to do and when... But please, please aim for as much integration as you can.4️⃣Solve the "What’s In It For Me?" (WIIFM)Your recruiters might be scared of AI, Automation, and Analytics. They think it’s coming for their jobs.To get buy-in, you have to move past "this will make the company more money". Would you believe that there is an ever increasing strata in recruitment that are not motivated by earning more?Find their motivation: Is it a shorter lunch break? More time at the gym? Getting home to their kids? The Enabler: Position tech as the tool that lets them go faster and stay human.5️⃣Remember the "DAD" ModelWhen analysing your current processes, run them through this filter that I often use with my clients when conducting a Bullhorn RoI Vision program:Delete: Do you really need this process? Automate/AI/Analytics: Can these tool do this better and faster? Delegate: If you can’t automate / Ai / analyse it, can you give it to someone else? (in-source / outsource?Final Thought: Slow Down to Go FasterDo what Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee advocate: Slow down to go faster. (Thanks for the insight, Jo!)Don't be afraid to take stock, briefly pause your pilots, and ensure your tech is truly moving the needle on your bottom line - not just adding to the noise and cost.Are you ready to audit your "Frankenstein" processes? Let’s chat about how we can get your humans and tech working in harmony. BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATIONBullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI RoIWe are Bullhorn experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses to increase speed and sales.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
How to Get ROI from Your Colouring-In Department (Recruitment Marketing)

If recruitment is ultimately a sales job, then modern recruitment marketing is a technology job.Yet, many recruitment businesses still inadvertently sideline their marketing teams, dismissing them as the 'colouring-in department' tasked only with making things look pretty.It’s time to change the narrative.When aligned with your CRM, data, and overall business strategy, marketing transforms from a luxury overhead into a powerhouse for generating clients, candidates, and consultants. Here is how to unlock the true ROI of your marketing function.Recruitment Marketing and Recruitment Sales are DisconnectedI recently had dinner with a recruitment leader (anonymous) and we were talking about her goals for the year…Profit, Bullhorn ROI, more sales…Then she said:I want to get more ROI from my colouring-in department!In our Bullhorn RoI and Bullhorn Automation Buddy programs we often come across Recruitment Marketing departments who are disconnected from Sales – disconnected enough to warrant a (healthy) scepticism. This is often demonstrated by graphs showing community sizes rather than fees generated from marketing activities. Plus, they sometimes are not Bullhorn or Bullhorn Automation / Bullhorn Analytics super-users (sometimes they barely even login).Why? We often find that this is due to a complete lack of understanding (by Sales) of what Marketing is there for. Marketing are often not equipped to generate leads, and if they do, Sales sometimes don’t stop cold calling or working bad pipelines long enough to convert them.Perhaps the data is bad, or candidate/client personas are not mapped, or too much time is being spent on content?Who Cares About Your LinkedIn Followers and Website Clicks? Recruiters Want Candidates to Apply for Jobs, and Clients to Give Them JobsMarketing often struggles from a lack of perceived ROI. This can be down to vanity stats - web clicks, job application #s, blogs posted, LinkedIn follower #s - as opposed to sanity stats - viable leads, calls booked, jobs logged, placements etc...Sanity stats are generated by marketing tasks delivered by a robust, targeted, connected blend of sales and marketing functions.Marketers should actively drive lead generation – not simply be focused on brand and blogs - AKA "colouring in".Plus, systems' knowledge and adoption is crucial. Connecting your website to Bullhorn (and not simply to post jobs), and using Automation to drive viable business opportunities and is a must.5 Things You Can Do to Get Your Marketing Department to Put Their Crayons Down (and Generate ROI)1️⃣Target your market. "Ready, aim, fire", is better than "Ready, fire, aim". Who do your recruiters need to speak to? What are their personas? Is your content strategy about them, or about you?2️⃣Data needs to be owned by sales and marketing and seen as an asset rather than a hobby (something to keep in case it's needed). It needs to flow, not stall.3️⃣Websites and content need to be setup for sales as well as candidate attraction. Optimise, manage, measure.4️⃣Automation needs to clean cold data, wake up dormant data, warm up and drive heat into monetisable data.5️⃣And, crucially... ...all 4 points above need to be connected so you can place and retain the candidates and clients you already have in your CRM (Bullhorn). (Spending crazy amounts of time and money on LinkedIn and PPC may not be necessary if you monetise what you already have!)📍Final Thought: Create A Connected and Tech-First Sales and Marketing Recruitment Strategy to Get Warm Leads and Real OpportunitiesWant help building an automation and outreach strategy to wake up your community of candidates and clients and keep them warm? Let’s talk.I offer free consultations to help leaders / recruiters / automators unlock the power of their Bullhorn database and website and create opportunities .BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION

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