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There’s no doubt that AI is reshaping recruitment—but is the recruitment industry truly ready for it?
In a recent battle planning chat with a client, I raised concerns about the readiness of most recruitment businesses to adopt AI meaningfully. While AI is already being used for tasks like note-taking, blog writing, research, creating prompts to help with screening and sales, I think that real transformation requires much more thought and time.
For most recruitment firms, poor data quality and fragmented recruitment processes remain major barriers. If last year was the year of AI curiosity, this year needs to be the year of AI readiness.
Get Your Recruitment House in Order First
I think that recruitment leaders need to use the next 6–12 months to improve internal systems, particularly focusing on data hygiene (data wealth) and process automation. Too many firms are chasing shiny AI tools before ensuring their candidate and client data is clean, current, and usable. In fact, many recruitment CRMs are disorganised—polls show that messy and unstable databases are the norm, not the exception.
You could start by booking a free 30-minute Bullhorn RoI consult with my team - Bullhorn adoption ideas / automation strategies / data health insight etc..
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Automation Struggles
Even the biggest players are feeling the pinch. I often hear of large enterprises struggling to get automation really driving performance due to internal resistance and territorial "leave my data alone" behaviour. Siloed departments, and change-averse individuals can inadvertently block progress, making it difficult to implement even basic automations and change.
Plus, as much as the industry is keen to adopt efficiencies and tech, it's often not driving change through continuous, engaging, recruitment training.
Automation and AI needs to be "sold" to recruiters with a WIIFM (What's in it for me?) approach. Even the best-intentioned recruiter may find it hard to step into the space that automation and AI creates for them.
Have you been hired, or been the one doing the hiring, in the last 5 years? The turbulence, blind-siding, speed of change, means that stopping to take a breath and ensure best practice is a big ask!
AI Can’t Replace Relationships (Yet!)
My client gave a compelling example of AI not really driving the best outcome when their client was trying to use AI instead of their recruitment business.
Luckily my client had the time and knowledge to step in and prevent their client from making a mistake.
AI had failed to select the right candidate for a role, missing vital nuances only a seasoned recruitment consultant would catch. They campaigned for the candidate that AI had rejected. The client interviewed and offered!
It’s a strong reminder that recruitment remains a relationship-driven business. AI can support consultants, but it can’t replace their ability to read people, understand market subtleties, or build long-term trust. (Yet...)
Getting Back to Being Recruitment CONSULTANTS
I encourage recruitment leaders to rethink traditional recruiting models—especially the classic 360 / 180 recruitment role.
With automation and AI streamlining admin and sourcing, do you really need consultants to do everything? This could be the moment to specialise, refocus roles, and hire people who are better suited to today’s more tech-enabled recruitment landscape.
There are way too many recruitment consultants who are actually recruitment co-ordinators / administrators. Large, dirty data sets, managed by untrained recruiters makes for a very transactional process, and this is at a time when recruiters really need to get back to consulting. (The clue is in the job title...)
From Vicious to Virtuous
The recruitment industry’s heavy reliance on LinkedIn— which I think is one of the dirtiest databases—is another sign that recruiting firms aren’t maximising their own data or opportunity. The irony? Many of the best candidates are already sitting in your CRMs, but are overlooked in favour of job boards and external sourcing. This results in a vicious cycle of wasted time, rising costs, and lost opportunities.
A recent poll confirmed this.
Instead, recruitment businesses must create a virtuous cycle: invest in clean data, automate wisely, and help consultants to focus on consulting. With proper engagement, re-engaged candidates and clients can convert faster and generate more revenue than cold leads.
The Road Ahead for Recruiters
My client summed it up well: their goals for the next six months are about efficiency, pushing back against unfair client demands, and focusing on higher-value deals.
Yes! This is the mindset the industry needs.
AI isn’t magic—but with smart preparation, clean data, and clear processes, it can be a game-changer for recruitment. Let this year be the year your recruitment business gets truly AI-ready.
You could start by booking a free 30-minute Bullhorn RoI consult with my team - Bullhorn adoption ideas / automation strategies / data health insight etc..
BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
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Lisa Jones
Blog
Vodcast: 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' vodcast 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 itHow 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' vodcast 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
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Wayne Barclay
Blog
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.Here's the Bullhorn follow-up process most recruitment leaders are missing...I've watched it happen at desk after desk, recruitment business after recruitment business.Lost a job, hung up the phone, and thought "right, next." Never gave it another thought. I see recruiters doing exactly the same thing today.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? 🤔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
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Wayne Barclay
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Bullhorn Power Series ~ Stop Missing Out on Sales: 5 Tips to Use Your ATS, Automation, and Analytics to Drive BD
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Wayne Barclay
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Automation RoI Webinar Series: Unlock Bullhorn Part 6 ~ Data Wealth
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Lisa Jones
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Recruiter Productivity Series: Optimise Bullhorn Part 6 ~ Easy Candidate Management
