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In today's turbulent recruitment market, Business Development (BD) has never been more vital—or more challenging.
With the economy unstable and client attention easily diverted, successful BD can't rely on guesswork or chasing cold leads. It demands:
A deliberate strategy...
Plus, leveraging your existing technology.
In our recent free Bullhorn 4 BD webinar, we discussed how to use your Bullhorn system, automation, and AI not just as separate tools, but as one unified sales engine. Here are the key takeaways you can implement today to make BD easier, quicker, and more rewarding.
WATCH THE BULLHORN 4 BD TIPS WEBINAR
♻️ Convert Candidates to Contacts: Monetise Your Success
We highlighted the single biggest Bullhorn tip for BD: converting placed candidates into sales contacts.
Think about it: you've guided a candidate through interviews, secured them a great offer, and got them their dream job. They think you're fantastic! Why wouldn't they want to work with you when they start hiring in their new role?
This is a 15-second job in Bullhorn (via the Actions menu) and immediately gives you a "warm" BD contact who is already familiar with your value. It’s the easiest way to turn one placement into three.
🧹 Stop Wasting Time: Cleanse Your Data for Profit
While mass mailing and automation are powerful, they are useless with dirty data. We stressed the need to monetise hard bounces and unsubscribes.
Most recruiters simply move on from a hard bounce (email address doesn't exist) or an unsubscribe. This is a missed opportunity!
Investigate Bounces: A hard bounce often means the person has left the company, which signals a potential new BD lead (where did they go?) and a vacancy at their old firm.
Track Unsubscribes: An unsubscribe might not be genuine; it could be a manager clearing out a departed employee’s inbox. Follow the contact to find their new details.
We do this ourselves. We build time into our diaries to track the "money" in bounces and unsubscribes weekly, often resulting in new placements. It’s not about buying more data; it's about making your existing data work harder.
🏃➡️Strategise Your Tech: Are You AI'ing the Process?
When it comes to your Bullhorn investment—including Automation, Analytics, and AI—you must ask: "Are we AI'ing the process, or processing the AI?"
Technology should be implemented as a tool to do specific jobs, not just as a piece of technology you feel obligated to use.
Use AI to Enhance, Not Replace
Bullhorn’s AI Assistant is designed to speed up the mundane, time-consuming parts of BD:
Email Generation: Need to ask a sales contact about hiring plans? The AI can quickly draft the email, setting the tone, length, and language. Crucially, it's a start point, not an end point. You add the relationship grabbers and personalisation.
Candidate Pitches: The AI can generate a candidate pitch based on both the candidate’s profile and the client’s profile, potentially halving the 5–10 minutes it typically takes to craft a strong, tailored email.
If you leverage AI for the baseline work, you free your recruiters to focus on the human element that AI can't replace.
🤖Get Tenacious: Let Automation Forgive the Follow-Up
The data shows that most recruiters give up way too soon—a lack of tenacity that costs the industry millions.
Automation can forgive this common human failing.
Advanced Note Search: Use Bullhorn's advanced search feature to find out who you haven't spoken to in three, six, or 12 months, and specifically search notes for old conversations (e.g., "mentioned hiring in Q4"). This instantly generates a warm call list.
Automated Follow-Up: Use the Follow Up Sales Contact Call automation (which should be built into your system). When a recruiter logs a BD call, the system automatically sends a follow-up email and sets a task reminder for the next touchpoint. This ensures the required 7 touchpoints to make a sale are hit without the recruiter having to track every single one manually.
Stop doing the admin, and start having the right conversations.
💡Next Steps for Recruitment Leaders and Recruiters
We run these free recruiter tips webinar to help leaders, like you, turn the market chaos and distractions into a competitive advantage. If your team needs to shift their mindset and skill set, our programmes focus on Bullhorn ROI, Automation, Analytics, and Recruiter Training.
Let us help you drive growth by focusing on the right strategic investments.
READ MORE ABOUT OUR BULLHORN VISION SERVICE
READ ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION / ANALYTICS BUDDY SERVICE
BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
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Wayne Barclay
Blog
3 Ways to Automate Away the Counter Offer and Drop Out
Recruiters who want to prevent counter offers and drop outs have several choices.They sit and do nothing, assuming the candidate remained loyal to them and was not flattered or hood winked into accepting a counter-offer.They know that prevention is better than cure, and set manual reminders engage the candidate as and when they think it’s best.They use automation to engage and manage the candidate, whilst controlling the narrative and the process.💡Every successful recruiter knows that the key to eliminating dropouts lies in consistent, timely intervention.🪄This is where automation transforms a good process into a great one.In our previous blog "Stop Losing Placements: Your 3-Step Plan to Pre-empt the Counter Offer or Drop Out" we offered a straightforward guide to preventing counter offers, armed with the data you need to make the case.Try Our 3️⃣ Powerful Ways to Use Automation to Prevent Counter Offers and Drop Outs1️⃣️ Automated "Reality Check" Content DripYou need to proactively arm candidates with the necessary data before they even receive an offer. This content drip focuses on education, addressing the emotional allure of a counter offer with cold, hard facts.How to Automate: Set up an email automation sequence that triggers immediately after a candidate successfully completes a key interview stage (e.g., after the screening or first stage interview, or when a final offer is imminent).The Content: The sequence should deliver the statistics we discussed (e.g., 9 out of 10 people leave anyway, the cost to the employer, etc.) and explore the non-monetary reasons for leaving. Use short, sharp emails with a professional, advisory tone.Goal: To normalise the counter offer as a business tactic and pre-frame it as a short-term distraction from their long-term career goals. This makes the eventual counter offer less of a surprise or a compelling "olive branch."2️⃣ 📝 Automated Counter Offer Acknowledgment FormThis tool formalises the discussion you have with the candidate, ensuring they have verbally and electronically confirmed their awareness of the risks.How to Automate: Integrate a simple form into your candidate management system or send it via an automated link after the final offer is extended.The Requirement: The form should ask the candidate to confirm that they have:Discussed the likelihood of a counter offer with their recruiter.Reviewed the long-term career statistics associated with accepting a counter offer.Understood that the underlying reasons for their resignation (e.g., culture, progression) are unlikely to be resolved by a temporary pay bump.Goal: The act of filling out this form forces one last moment of reflection, significantly reducing the chances of an impulsive, emotional decision, and provides a documented record of the candidate's commitment.3️⃣ 📅 Automated "Resignation Prep" ResourceThe most dangerous time is the moment of resignation, often delivered in a high-pressure, emotional meeting. Automation can deliver a just-in-time resource to guide the candidate through this moment.How to Automate: Set up a final email to be delivered the day before the candidate plans to hand in their notice.The Content: This resource is a concise, step-by-step guide on how to resign professionally. Crucially, it includes:Scripted Responses: Suggested brief, professional phrases to use when a counter offer is made (e.g., "I appreciate the offer, but my decision is final and based on long-term career factors, not just compensation.").Focus Points: A checklist of their original motivations for leaving (e.g., "Remember why you started this search: lack of flexible working, no clear path to management.").Goal: To help the candidate manage the conversation gracefully, stick to their pre-agreed decision, and resist emotional manipulation in the moment.🔐The Automation Advantage: Protecting Your Fee and Their FutureThe counter offer is a recruitment industry reality, but a drop-out is not an inevitability.By combining pre-emptive, data-driven candidate coaching with a strategic approach to automation, you move beyond simply hoping a candidate will decline a counter offer.Instead, you build a robust, repeatable recruitment process that manages risk, documents commitment, and ensures your candidate resigns fully prepared and focused on their long-term career move.💡Embracing automation isn't about replacing the human element; it's about making the human element.Your invaluable advice and counsel is more impactful. It guarantees the right advice is delivered at the right time, securing your placement and protecting your candidate from a decision they would almost certainly regret down the line.Be sure to not run your recruitment process on good intentions - back it up with the tech you need to boost your process and pipeline!Automation Buddy / Bullhorn RoIWe are Automation Buddies set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to increase speed and sales.We coach to inspire, and build your automations so you can recruit and sell!Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.READ MORE ABOUT OUR BULLHORN VISION SERVICEREAD ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICEBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
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Rose Megson
Blog
Bullhorn Tip - Place More Jobs
We've got a simple 1-minute Bullhorn tip to help you place more jobs. It's time to filter, work and place (and earn!)Having too many jobs and not enough placements can be beyond frustrating. But we have a Bullhorn tip for you to help you focus on the jobs you can (and should) place! There's plenty Bullhorn can do to help you manage your jobs pipeline and recruitment workflow. It's Time to Place Your Jobs!Here's a quick bullhorn tip about why you should regularly update your job statuses in Bullhorn.Get focussed on the most profitable opportunities.Prioritise your efforts.Boost your earnings. Watch this 1-minute Bullhorn tip - then spend a few easy minutes creating focus and an easy path to placing more jobs. Watch Our 1-Minute Bullhorn Tip on How to Place Jobs QuickerNeed more Bullhorn / Automation Tips? Try our 1-minute tips.Be sure to sign up for (or watch the recordings of) our regular free Bullhorn and Automation webinars.CHECK OUT OUR WEBINARSAutomation Buddy / Bullhorn RoIWe are Automation and Bullhorn Buddies set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to increase speed and sales.We coach to inspire, and build your automations so you can recruit and sell!Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.READ MORE ABOUT OUR BULLHORN VISION SERVICEREAD ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICEBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
