As a recruitment marketer and recruitment leader you’ll be focused on ROI: adding real value to your recruiters and helping them attract the 3Cs – candidates, clients, and colleagues. (And ideally help them convert these into cash!)
But often, marketing is seen as merely admin - and in many recruitment business, it is. But it should be sales!
Marketing is SALES if Done Right - It's ADMIN if Done Wrong!
As an award-winning Affiliate of APSCo, my team of recruitment trainers and I have a passion for ROI. We work with recruiters and their marketers to deliver what we call the 4Cs – candidates, clients, colleagues, and cash.
Recruitment Marketing ROI should never be just theory - if you plan for candidate attraction, client leads and colleague job applications, they will happen!
But often, when I start mentoring Recruitment Marketers, they are beyond busy. Busy doing lots for things which can often lead to very little ROI.
Sales is not connected to marketing in reality or even in theory. Lots of marketing tasks lead to a lack of the 4Cs - and ultimately a disconnected approach which forces recruiters to have tenuous (and stressful) pipelines.
This also means that the data on your Bullhorn, Adapt (and etc...) recruitment system is so worthless that extra systems are needed just to find candidates. What a massive waste of time and money.
Recruiters need to spend an average 13 hours per week sourcing outside of their key recruitment system
80% of leads are never followed up
Recruiters get very little time to get on the phone and improve candidate and client experience, so that their own experience is not great
43% is the average attrition rate of a recruiter (25% higher than the "norm")
72% of the placements made last year were with candidates already on your Recruitment system, before you wasted crucial time sourcing them from elsewhere
76% of recruitment marketers can't use the recruitment system you have, or the data contained within it
But still sales is sales and marketing is marketing...? No - sales is marketing, if done right! Both marketers and sales need to get SMART.
This Has to Be a Smart Year - Connecting Sales and Marketing
As the new co-chair of APSCo's Recruitment Marketing Forum I recently spoke at their quarterly event. My slide deck below talks about:
How to get sales and marketing connected – and avoid the colouring-in-department badge!
What ROI is crucial in 2020 and how to measure it
What tech hacks I use in my mentoring and coaching of Recruitment Marketers and Sales Leaders
Flick Through My Recruitment Marketing 2020 Slidedeck
Need Recruitment Marketing to Deliver ROI in 2020?
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Blog
Stop Sourcing, Start Selling: Is Your Data Working or Just Sitting There?
Recruiters, let’s be honest: 80% of your day is likely spent on the wrong tasks. Even more staggering? 72% of the candidates you place were already on your system before you spent hours sourcing them elsewhere.You are sitting on a goldmine (eg. Bullhorn), but you're still digging in the woods and mining data from countless other sources like LinkedIn, Job Boards etc...How do you stop the procrastination loop and start weaponising your data to drive ROI?Here are the three most common questions I get from recruitment leaders on using data to dominate the market.1️⃣How can recruiters use data to drive the sales process?📌Clean data = Data Health = Data Wealth.This is the backbone of a successful desk. The best recruiters don't just "find people"; they provide a service that sets them apart through market intelligence.Market Intelligence builds credibility. Sharing real-time trends like salary shifts, candidate flow, or niche skills gaps positions you as a trusted partner rather than just another CV flinger.Master the "Trigger Event". Don’t call cold; call when it’s hot. Use data to track funding rounds, senior leadership changes, or office expansions.Example: If a startup hits Series B funding, they aren't just "busy"—they are scaling. If your tech alerts you the moment that deal closes, you can be the first to engage and have candidates ready to spec in.2️⃣Business Development vs. Account Management: Where is the leak?📌Reconverting existing clients is critical.It is significantly cheaper than winning new ones, yet many recruiters let these relationships go cold.Spot the weak links. Use analytics to identify accounts with declining activity. If your star client hasn't logged a job in 60 days, you shouldn't find out by accident.Map the client. Use automation to map out your clients’ entire org charts. Ensure you are seeing all of their jobs so you aren’t losing deals to competitors simply because you were only talking to one person in the department.3️⃣How do we kill procrastination and find focus in recruitment?📌Recruitment is one of the most complex roles out there.We ask consultants to be researchers, data entry clerks, negotiators, and marketers all at once. It is no wonder procrastination is rife.Automate the busy work. Automate data health checks, initial searching, and basic BD outreach.Cure message paralysis. Use AI to draft the first version of your outreach. Don’t stare at a blank screen; let the tech give you the bulk of the work, then you add the human flair.Analyse the data, tasks, and time: Use Analytics to drive meaningful and mindful activities.The phone is king. By automating the data drudgery, you clear the headspace to do what you do best: get on the phone and build relationships.💪Conclusion: Data is Your Competitive EdgeThe "post and pray" era of recruitment is over.In a crowded market, the recruiters who win are those who treat their database as a living, breathing sales tool rather than a digital filing cabinet. By embracing AI, Analytics, and Automation, you aren't replacing the human element. You are freeing your team up to finally be more human.📌Stop searching for what you already have. Start using your data to win.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
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Blog
Why Your Bullhorn Stack is the Secret to Rehumanising Recruitment
In the high-stakes world of UK recruitment, there’s a nagging anxiety that sits like a ghost in the machine: the "roboticisation" of the industry.Many recruitment agency owners I speak with worry that leaning too heavily into their tech stack (specifically a powerhouse like Bullhorn) risks turning their recruiters and resourcers into data-entry admins and their candidates and clients into mere serial numbers.There's a distinct lack of picking up the phone, at a time when it's never been more important.But if you’re viewing recruitment technology as a barrier to human connection, you’re looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope.RehumanisationThe primary goal for almost every high-performing recruitment and staffing agency I partner with isn't to automate people out of the business.It is to use technology to rehumanise the process.Here are 3 ways how we move beyond the theory of tech driving stronger relationships and rehumanising the recruitment process.1️⃣The Paradox of Manual LabourThe irony of modern recruitment is that the "human touch" is often killed by "robotic" manual tasks. When a consultant spends three hours a day manually parsing CVs, dragging files into folders, and sending "just checking in" emails, they aren't being human. They are acting like a slow, expensive algorithm.And they are likely missing the point of recruitment:Managing relationships.Spotting opportunities.Protecting pipelines.By the time they actually get a candidate or client on the phone, they’re drained and distracted.When we optimise Bullhorn by Bullhorn Automation, Analytics and AI, we aren't replacing the recruiter. We are stripping away the administrative "noise" that prevents them from being present. True automation handles the repetitive, low-value chores so your team can focus on the high-value, high-emotion conversations that actually land placements.Great analytics helps create meaningful time management and tasks to drive targets!AI creates space for mindful recruitment!📌These 3 As lead to a crucial 4th A - adoption! What's often missing from a recruiter's day is a great adoption of process.2️⃣Restoring the Candidate (and Client) ExperienceMany candidates have been on the receiving end of "robotic" recruitment: weeks of radio silence followed by a generic rejection email. Plus, clients often feel under managed and engaged with, and go elsewhere.That isn't the fault of the tech; it’s a failure to use it.📌A rehumanised process uses the ecosystem to ensure no one feels ignored.In a sophisticated Bullhorn setup:Speed is Empathy: Candidates and clients receive updates the moment a status changes because your workflow is triggered by their journey, not by a recruiter’s busy diary.Personalisation at Scale: You can reference a candidate's / client's specific niche, need, or career aspirations automatically, proving you’ve actually engaged with their profile.Consistency: Every contact receives a gold-standard experience, regardless of how many roles a consultant is juggling that week.3️⃣Data: The Compass for ConnectionData isn't cold; it’s context.When your Bullhorn data is clean and your tech is configured correctly, you gain a massive competitive advantage in relationship building. And your recruiters and resourcers value it, want to use it - RoI is achieved!Automations don't feel automatedAnalytics tell the right truth and drive brilliant activityAI releases procrastinationCandidates and clients are managed - everyone wins!Imagine a consultant calling a client and knowing exactly when they last spoke, the specific pain points mentioned six months ago, and exactly which candidate profiles resonated most. That isn't tech "taking over". Tech provides the insights needed to be a true consultant rather than just a CV chaser.💸💸The Bottom LineTechnology shouldn't be a wall between you and your market; it should be the bridge.My mission is to help you move past the "human vs. machine" debate and start seeing Bullhorn as the ultimate tool for liberation.When you automate the mundane, you empower your people to do what only humans can do: negotiate, empathise, and consult.I been in recruitment since 2000. This year, more than any other year, means that your human-connected-tech strategy has never been more important.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