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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 it
I 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 ROI
We 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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Hold Your Nerve: Activating Your Bullhorn Data Without the Panic
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