Blogs by tag - Sales · Barclay Jones

Stop Automating Chaos: Why You Need a Strategy for Recruitment BD Success

As a recruitment leader, you know the drill: the market shifts, sales feel tough, and the immediate instinct is to buy a new piece of tech or blindly activate every automation feature available in your Bullhorn or CRM.A potential outcome? A flurry of activity, confused recruiters, and ultimately, zero measurable ROI.😱(I saw this with CRM, then Automation, and now AI... history repeating itself.)Automation is a sales engine, but like any powerful machine, it requires a careful, deliberate strategy to run efficiently. Simply turning it on often leads to automating poor processes, resulting in spam, bad data, and wasted money.If you’re ready to turn that engine into a competitive advantage, you need to step back and apply this 9-point strategy to your Business Development (BD) automation.💡My 9-Point Strategy for Automation Success1️⃣ Agree on Your Strategy and PlanBefore you click ‘Activate,’ define your objectives.Are you focused on converting candidates to contacts? Re-engaging lapsed clients? Generating referrals?Your plan must clearly outline the who, what, and when of every automated action to ensure alignment with your overall BD goals.2️⃣ Define OwnershipChaos reigns when responsibility is murky. You must clearly define who owns the data and relationships you are selling.Is it the marketing team, the BD manager, or the individual recruiter?Establishing clear ownership prevents duplicate outreach, inconsistent messaging, and ensures accountability for follow-up.3️⃣ Get Buy-In: Educate Your TeamA great strategy is useless if your recruiters don't trust it. You must actively educate your team on the why behind the change.Show them how automation will take the admin burden away, allowing them to focus on high-value relationship building—the part of BD they actually enjoy. Without genuine buy-in, they will always revert to manual, time-consuming habits.4️⃣ Test and Setup TrialsNever roll out a massive change across the entire firm at once. Setup trials with a small, engaged group first. Test the message cadence, measure the response rate, and iterate quickly. This limits risk and generates early success stories you can use to persuade the rest of the company.5️⃣ PR: Celebrate SuccessesRecruiters are motivated by success.Use your test group’s wins—a faster BD conversion, a higher email open rate, or a cleaner call list—as internal PR. Celebrate these successes openly to generate FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and drive wider adoption.6️⃣ Data Wealth: The Opportunity to CleanseAutomation and data quality are two sides of the same coin.Automating outreach to a dirty database only accelerates your move toward the spam folder. Use the setup phase as an opportunity to cleanse data, confirming emails, purging old contacts, and identifying incomplete records. Clean data is not just healthy; it's profitable.7️⃣ Cadence: Establish Weekly BD SessionsAutomation is a tool, not a replacement for human effort.To embed the strategy, implement weekly BD sessions. Use this dedicated time to review the automated pipeline, address bottlenecks, practice outreach, and ensure the technology is being used correctly to drive human conversation.8️⃣ Score! Set KPIs and GamificationWhat gets measured gets done.Set clear KPIs for your automation success—not just activity, but results (e.g., number of re-engaged clients, contacts moved to the "warm" status). Use Analytics to gamify the process, creating healthy competition that encourages consistent use of the new platform and strategy.9️⃣ Turn No into $£€! Monetise Bounces and UnsubsDon't view hard bounces and unsubscribes as dead ends; view them as sales intelligence and opportunities.Monetise the bounces and unsubs by investigating them. A hard bounce might mean a contact has moved companies—a prime BD opportunity! An unsubscribe could be a flag for a poor sales approach. Use this feedback loop to keep your data fresh and your strategy sharp.Strategise the CashflowBy following these 9️⃣ strategic steps, you ensure:Investment in BD automation delivers maximum return,Saving your recruiters a whopping 64% of their non-selling time...Allowing them to focus on what they do best......Building the relationships that drive placements and profit.Nice! ☎️I'd love to pay it forward to chat with you about your automation / BD strategy.BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION👇Scroll down for a cute graphic of my 9-point strategy.🏃‍➡️PS. Want to go even further?Check out our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" and Optimise Bullhorn for Recruiters webinars here.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 CONSULTATIONGrab My 9-Point Strategy for Automation Success Below - Which can you tick off or need to do?
Recruiter Productivity Series: Optimise Bullhorn Part 6 ~ Easy Candidate Management

Recruiters – do you often think "life would be so much easier without candidates"? 🤔 Do you spend hours sourcing and qualifying talent, but too often lose candidates along the way?Drop outs, counter offers, tricky candidates, and a tough economy, can test even the most patient and organised of recruiters.Part 6 of our free Optimise Bullhorn webinar series will share crucial time-saving and data mining tips on how to manage your candidate data with ease, speed, and joy! REGISTER NOW8️⃣Reasons to Come to our Bullhorn for Candidate Management Webinar Yes, candidates can be tricky, but perhaps your candidate engagement isn’t consistent and you need to work on it.The data around candidate psychology and recruitment shows it clearly:⌚28% of candidates drop out because the process took too long. Delays hurt engagement and result in candidate drop-off. ⌛25% of candidates say they drop out for that same reason — the process is too long. 🚫30% of candidates drop out because the role did not match expectations. Misaligned expectations (role, salary, responsibilities) lead to disengagement. 🤔23% cite poor communication as a reason they disengaged. 💩49% of candidates have turned down a job offer because of a poor hiring experience. Even at the final stage, candidate engagement matters — a bad experience during hiring can sink an offer. 👻45% of candidates are ghosted by recruiters after an initial conversation. 😱27% of UK employers have been ghosted by new recruits on their first day.🙊72% of candidates say the smoothness of the interview process would affect their final decision on whether or not to take the job. (Sources: TotalJobs / HR Hire / CIPD)So, before lose even more candidates and have to work harder at sourcing more, let's get smart at candidate management. 🧠What You’ll Learn in our Bullhorn for Candidate Management Webinar Part 6 of our free "Optimise Bullhorn" webinar series is packed with tips you can use immediately to proactively manage your precious candidates and make your desk, targets, and home-life balance easier! ✅Manage expectations ~ stay in control and protect your pipeline.✅Prevent drop outs / counter offers / ghosting.✅Strengthen your relationships - place quicker, get referrals.✅Move them through the recruitment cycle speedily and with ease.✅An automation to help you manage your candidates whilst you sleep.🤚 Stop wasting time and money sourcing, screening and interviewing, just to lose the candidate down the line (and likely annoy your clients in the process!) 👉 Join our free Bullhorn for Candidate Management webinar and learn how to turn your CRM into a true revenue machine. 🗓️Wednesday 05 November: 13:30 BST REGISTER NOWPS. Want to go even further? Check out our full "Optimise Bullhorn" webinar series.🔍 Engage, nurture, place, and re-place. Watch the recording💬 Source faster and easier. Watch the recording📈 Sell faster and easier. Watch the recording💡 Place faster and easier. Watch the recording🎯 Easy BD ~ 08 October 2025: Register now💪 Easy Candidate Management ~ 05 November. Register NowRecruitment and Bullhorn TrainingWe deliver the best live Bullhorn ROI webinar training, and you'll find other tips and tricks in Recruitment HIIT, our online recruitment training platform.Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.TRY HIIT FREE HEREBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
4 BD Tips for Recruiters: Convert, Cleanse, Process, Forgive

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 SuccessWe 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 ProfitWhile mass mailing and automation are powerful, they are useless with dirty data. Lisa 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.Lisa confirms this works: she builds time into her diary to track the "money" in her 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 ReplaceBullhorn’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-UpThe 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 RecruitersWe 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 SERVICEREAD ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION / ANALYTICS BUDDY SERVICEBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
Automation RoI Webinar Series: Unlock Bullhorn Part 6 ~ Data Wealth

Leaders and automators...Whether you want your data to be clean or healthy, you need it to make you wealthy!Recruitment can often be hard enough, let alone if you and your teams are constantly compensating for poor data.You're blowing profit on external systems and being held to ransom by LinkedIn / Job Boards / IndeedYour recruiters and resourcers are drowning in time-consuming sourcing and adminYour recruitment process is lagging and you're not able to really see the benefit of automation / analytics / AISo, Part 6 of our free Unlock Bullhorn webinar series will share tips on how to use Bullhorn Automation to make your data clean, healthy, and worth something!REGISTER NOW10 Stats to Ensure You Focus on Recruitment Data Health30% of CRM data becomes outdated each year 👉 For recruiters, that means almost a third of candidate and client records may be inaccurate if not maintained.Dirty data costs companies an average of 12% of revenue annually 👉 In recruitment, this translates to lost placements, wasted marketing spend, and poor ROI on tech.Recruiters lose an average of 4.3 hours per week fixing bad data 👉 That’s over 5 working weeks per recruiter, per year spent on admin instead of billable tasks.51% of firms say their CRM data isn’t accurate enough to use 👉 Meaning half of recruitment businesses risk making decisions based on poor-quality information.Clean data can increase sales productivity by up to 14.6% 👉 For recruiters, this means more effective BD, faster sourcing, and stronger candidate engagement.Only 30% of CRM records are fully complete 👉 Incomplete profiles = missed candidates, poor client intel, and wasted recruiter effort.74% of businesses say inaccurate data impacts customer trust 👉 For recruiters, that means weaker candidate experience and damaged client relationships.60% of businesses cite dirty data as the biggest barrier to successful CRM adoption 👉 Meaning even the best tech (Bullhorn, etc.) fails if the underlying data is poor.40% of business objectives fail due to poor data quality 👉 In recruitment, that could mean missed hiring targets, weak BD pipelines, and lost fees.Data decay is accelerating at 2–3% per month 👉 Recruiters working with out-of-date contacts are constantly chasing ghosts instead of live opportunities.(Sources: Bullhorn / Gartner / Sirius / Salesforce)Plus ask yourself...How much $£€ are you spending not using your own data, on LinkedIn / Job Boards / Indeed?How much time are you wasting by not being able to weaponise your automations / analytics / AI / and lovely human recruiters if your data is so poor?🧠What You’ll Learn in the Webinar - Starting and Stopping!"Join us for Part 6 of our Unlock Bullhorn with Automation Webinar Series, where we’ll show you:⛔ Three things to stop doing to your data🚀 Three things to start doing so your data is cleaner and makes you money, easier!Clean Up Your Data - Free Up Your Recruiters!Automation isn’t about replacing recruiters or making your recruitment business feel robotic. It’s about empowering them to focus on the conversations, and creating more time and space for relationships - the bit that AI can't replace (yet).👉Register now for our free Bullhorn Automation webinar and learn how to clean up your data - and keep it clean! 🗓️Wednesday 12 November 15:00 BSTREGISTER NOWPS. Want to go even further? Check out our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" series.🔍 Automate sourcing to find qualified candidates faster and with less effort. Watch the recording💬 Engage with candidates on autopilot and nurture relationships effectively. Watch the recording📈 Sell easier and faster. Watch the recording💡 Place easier and faster .Watch the recording🎯Easy BD ~ 15 October 2025 Register Now🧹Data health ~ 12 November 2025 Register NowAutomation 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
Automation RoI Webinar Series: Unlock Bullhorn Part 5 ~ Easy BD

Leaders and automators...Too many of your recruiters need a stronger BD strategy and process. When sales feels tough, it’s not always because the market is slow—it’s often because your data and processes aren’t working hard enough for you.Part 5 of our Unlock Bullhorn webinar series will share tips on how to turn Bullhorn Automation into a sales engine—and start winning more business. Our latest webinar will show you how to turn time-wasting tasks into seamless, automated workflows that free your recruiters to do what they do best—build relationships and win business.REGISTER NOW5️⃣Reasons Why Recruitment Automation is the Secret to Easy BDLook at the stats from Bullhorn / HubSpot / LinkedIn:📉 Recruiters spend up to 64% of their time on non-selling tasks. That’s the equivalent of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday being almost totally unproductive. Automation takes away the repetitive admin so recruiters can spend more time on revenue-generating BD.🌱 Leads nurtured via CRM systems make 47% larger purchases. Nurturing is where automation shines. Automated reminders, email cadences, and follow-ups keep you front of mind without the manual effort—and deliver bigger, better deals.📞 80% of sales require 5+ follow-ups—but 44% of recruiters give up after just one. Imagine the lost opportunities. With automation, follow-ups happen without fail, ensuring resilience is baked into your BD strategy.🎯 CRM users are 3x more likely to hit their sales targets. In fact, companies using CRM effectively are 86% more likely to surpass their goals. Combine CRM with automation, and your recruiters don’t just manage BD—they master it.⚡ Re-engaged clients in your CRM convert 2x faster than cold leads. But only if you find them and follow them up. Automation helps you spot these opportunities, re-engage warm relationships, and accelerate conversions.🧠What You’ll Learn in the Webinar - Starting and Stopping!"Join us for Part 5 of our Unlock Bullhorn with Automation Webinar Series, where we’ll show you:👍 Three things to start doing to drive your BD success.⛔ Three things to stop doing which may be hurting your BD efforts.💡 Nail the Stuff AI Can't Replace Automation isn’t about replacing recruiters or making your recruitment business feel robotic — it’s about empowering them to focus on the conversations, and creating more time and space for relationships - the bit that AI can't replace (yet).👉 Register now for our Bullhorn Automation webinar and learn how to make BD easier, smarter, and more profitable.🗓️Wednesday 15 October 15:00 BSTREGISTER NOWPS. Want to go even further? Check out our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" series.🔍 Automate sourcing to find qualified candidates faster and with less effort. Watch the recording💬 Engage with candidates on autopilot and nurture relationships effectively. Watch the recording📈 Sell easier and faster. Watch the recording💡 Place easier and faster .Watch the recording🎯Easy BD ~ 15 October 2025 Register Now🧹Data health ~ 12 November 2025 Register NowAutomation 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
Tired of Unsubscribes? 5 Email Tips Every Recruiter Should Know

Recruiters, marketers, automators... If you’re running regular email campaigns to candidates or clients, with tech like Bullhorn Automation, unsubscribes are either a fact of life or something you dread, and may even be the reason you are not ambitious enough with your outreach.Through the free consultation calls I have with recruiter / leaders / automators who have Bullhorn, I’ve been finding myself talking a lot about managing recruitment campaign outputs, and dreaded unsubscribes.Unsubscribes can feel like a blow to your efforts, but there are ways to prevent them which I'll explore below.💡Be sure to also read my other blog: How Recruiters Can Turn Bounces and Unsubscribes into $£€- so that when you get an unsubscribe or hard bounce, you could actually create more recruitment opportunities.5 Ways to Reduce Your Candidates and Clients from UnsubscribingI've got lots of tips to share, that we coach in our Automation Buddy programs, but here's 5 to get you started today.1️⃣Clean up / segment your data I guarantee you have data which you no longer need (old sectors / job titles you no longer recruit for).Perhaps the data you need isn't coded well enough for you to segment it, hence you risk hitting parts of your community with the wrong content.But, don't procrastinate over this - you don't need a 100% clean database to start a campaign, or to make an approach. Clean up some data, and hit it. Then move on to the next layer to attack.2️⃣Subject lines need to punch above their weightKeep them short and sweet, but personalised (about them, not you (or recruitment) and relevant to your community.Think "mobile first" and ensure that your subject line can actually be read on a mobile device. For example, the Mail app on iPhones displays up to 78 characters in the subject line area.Emojis can help you stand out in a big list of emails, too.3️⃣Content, creating contentment (not consternation)I'm still seeing way too much recruitment content online, and not enough sector-specific content form recruiters.I yawn at interview tips / what to wear to interviews etc... It works less well than content aimed at your sector and job titles.At a stretch "Interview tips for Accountants" is better than a more generic topic, but even so, if that's the best content you can create, you need to try harder.What tech does your community use? Find out and talk about it.How is AI / world events affecting them? Find out and talk about it.It's never been easier to find out more about what makes your community tick - ask them, ask Google, ask AI!4️⃣Formatting to attract attention (but be WCAG-aware)I recently spotted a recruitment campaign where the email content was centred throughout and black and white - very uninspiring, and actually quite difficult to engage with.In the very least breath your brand colours into your content and check WCAG guidelines to ensure that you're not inadvertently muting your content.If your community uses Instagram / Facebook etc... be sure that they expect your content to have a life beyond black and white copy. Colour, emojis, personality - shine!5️⃣"Pitch" the unsubscribeWhat does the unsubscribe footer in your mailers look like?Is it simply an invite to unsubscribe? Or have you pitched that if they do, they'll miss out on future helpful content, and life-changing jobs?I see way too many campaigns that look like the goal is to generate unsubscribes! Ironically the footer is often more engaging than the mailer itself."We're fixated on helping our teaching community stay up to speed with the best tips, tricks, and jobs. You can unsubscribe, but then you may miss your next best teaching hack, or career move"...is better than..."Unsubscribe".A great tip is to allow candidates and clients to "Update their Preferences" which can provide your community with a way to help you make ore relevant the communications you are sending to them and/or update you on what they do find interesting. This can be done within Bullhorn Automation and is a useful way to reduce the Unsubscribes.📍Final Thought: Create Recruitment Campaigns to Keep Your Community SubscribedYour data, message, design are crucial to keeping your community from opting out.By keeping your content relevant, valuable, and human—you’ll build a database that’s active, engaged, and ready to work with you.Want help building an automation and outreach strategy to keep your community of candidates and clients opted in? Let’s talk.I offer free consultations to help leaders / recruiters / automators unlock the power of their Bullhorn database and create opportunities .BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
Recruiter Productivity Series: Optimise Bullhorn Part 5 ~ Easy BD

Recruiters – let’s be honest.Sales may feel tough right now, and even if you've got lots of jobs to work, are they easy wins, or hard gains?Your Bullhorn data is a goldmine waiting to be tapped. Work it right, and you’ll sell faster, smarter, and with less stress.So, before you burn more time (and budget) on job boards, LinkedIn, or costly marketing, start with the data you already own.Part 5 of our Optimise Bullhorn webinar series will share some tips on how to turn your Bullhorn CRM into a sales engine—and start winning more business....scroll down to watch6️⃣Reasons to Come to our Bullhorn for BD Tips for Recruiters Webinar💪CRM drives revenue and BD effectiveness. Plus, a well-utilized CRM can boost lead conversion rates by up to 300% thanks to personalised outreach and streamlined communication. (Source: Astersense)🎯CRM users hit their sales targets—more often. 86% of businesses that use a CRM exceed their sales goals, versus just a small fraction that don’t use one.3️⃣Smash your sales targets. Effective use of your CRM can increase your chances of smashing your targets by 3 times!🚀Be more productive! CRM for BD boosts productivity by up to 34%, freeing up time to focus on meaningful BD tasks.🪴Nurturing pays off. Leads nurtured through CRM workflows result in 47% larger purchases compared to cold outreach.💘Faster conversions. Re-engaged clients convert 2x faster than cold leads, giving recruiters a powerful edge when leveraging existing relationships.(Sources = HubSpot / Salesforce / Freshdesk)All of the above are convincing stats and compelling reasons to watch our webinar and get rocking and rolling with your Bullhorn system and drive your BD smarter and faster.🧠What You’ll Learn in our Bullhorn 4 BD WebinarPart 5 of our "Optimise Bullhorn" webinar series is packed with tips you can use immediately to drive your sales / BD tasks.✅Find easy to convert leads.✅Advanced searching to locate hidden gems.✅Use AI to uncover opportunities and drive a smarter process.✅An automation to save time and generate wins.🤚 Stop leaving money in your database—or opportunities for your competitors to convert your prospects.👉 Join our Bullhorn for BD webinar and learn how to turn your CRM into a true revenue machine.Watch Our Free Bullhorn 4 BD Tips Webinar for RecruitersPS. Want to go even further? Check out our full "Optimise Bullhorn" webinar series.🔍 Engage, nurture, place, and re-place. Watch the recording💬 Source faster and easier. Watch the recording📈 Sell faster and easier. Watch the recording💡 Place faster and easier. Watch the recording🎯 Easy BD. Watch it above💪 Easy Candidate Management ~ 05 November. Register NowRecruitment and Bullhorn TrainingWe deliver the best live Bullhorn ROI webinar training, and you'll find other tips and tricks in Recruitment HIIT, our online recruitment training platform.Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.TRY HIIT FREE HEREBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
How Recruiters Can Turn Bounces and Unsubscribes into $£€

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.At first glance, they 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 CONSULTATION
3 Ways to Make More Money from Bullhorn - "Bullhorn for Sales" Tips Inside!

Winning more deals, placing more candidates, having more long-term (profitable) relationships, and making more money, is a key goal for recruiters and leaders. But often, the path to making a sale isn't smooth, straight, easy, or quick!The whole point of tech is that it's supposed to help, not hinder recruiters. BOOK YOUR FREE BULLHORN 4 SALES CONSULTATIONSales Prevention or Enablement?But, too much data, and not enough process or phone time is paralysing many recruiters. And many recruitment leaders are asking "why can't they just pick up the phone?"As a recruitment leader / recruiter, you should be able to rely on your Bullhorn CRM to power productivity and sales pipelines.But is Bullhorn really driving sales, or simply increasing costs?Why does using Bullhorn for sales matter?💪Recruiters that use their CRM effectively can improve sales by up to 29%. Plus, sales productivity increases by up to 34%, and sales forecast accuracy by 42%.💞It costs 6x more to attract a new lead than to nurture one already in your CRM. Reaching out to warm clients already in your system isn’t just faster—it’s smarter for your bottom line.😱Recruiters spend up to 64% of their time on non-selling tasks. Imagine Wednesday, Thursday, Friday being almost totally unproductive and not selling!💸Leads nurtured via CRM systems make 47% larger purchases. Who knew that nurturing a contact means you sell more to them?🔁80% of sales require 5+ follow-ups—but 44% of recruiters give up after 1. How many opps are not being converted due to a lack of resilience?🎯CRM users are 3x more likely to hit their sales targets. Compelling, and the ultimate reason to engage with Bullhorn.(Sources: Salesforce / Annuitas / Bullhorn)In short: Using your Bullhorn CRM for sales is a winner!But there's a catch! Perhaps your business doesn't feel that Bullhorn is the key to sales!💩Only 30% of recruiter CRMs are considered “clean and current”. Is a lack of faith in your system driving costs up? Do you need more systems and data to tackle this lack of confidence / adoption / productivity?How much is that costing your business?BOOK YOUR FREE BULLHORN 4 SALES CONSULTATIONHow Useful is Your Bullhorn CRM for Sales?We asked recruiters to give us one word to describe how they feel about using Bullhorn for sales and they said...Oh dear...And this is why you are potentially reliant on systems outside of Bullhorn for sales - eg. LinkedIn / Job Boards etc...Our Winning 3-Step TLC Strategy for Using Bullhorn to Make More MoneyChanging how Bullhorn is perceived and used for sales is critical!We help recruitment businesses weaponise their Bullhorn CRMs into clean, revenue-generating machines with a simple framework "TLC":Train recruiters to use Bullhorn for sales, help them understand WIIFM? “What’s in it for me?”, and get them loving using Bullhorn to drive sales.Legacy cleanse and activate: Find account management opportunities and create call lists based on existing data. Which leads already exist in Bullhorn that need re-activating?Campaigns: Create engaging outbound campaigns to new / legacy data to generate call lists / leads.No expensive tools. No time-zapping system overhauls. Just smart fixes that work with what you already have.📍 Book a Free "Bullhorn 4 Sales" ConsultationI’d love to hear how you’re tackling improving sales with Bullhorn —and pay it forward with a free 30-minute call to share ideas and insights from the 1000s of recruiters we've work with.Identify quick-winsShare smart tools and automation optionsWhether your recruiters and resourcers struggle with account management, spotting and nurturing leads, speedy placements, we can help you build a practical, profitable, recruiter-friendly fix.Ready to give your Bullhorn and recruiters some TLC, and get Bullhorn driving sales?BOOK YOUR FREE BULLHORN 4 SALES CONSULTATION🚀 Why Now?Because recruitment is too competitive to be slowed down by bad data, and unrewarding processes. The difference between making a placement and missing out is often just how quickly and accurately you can find and reach the right person.If your consultants / resourcers are wasting time not converting or placing —or worse, avoiding your Bullhorn CRM altogether—this is your chance to fix it for good.Bullhorn shouldn't be a necessary evil / nice to have / data dump - it should be a revenue generating business-critical recruitment system. Let’s get yours working the way it should.
Why Recruitment Data Health is Critical, 3 Ways to Long-Term Data Wealth

Recruitment and it's tech is moving faster than ever. But if your ATS/CRM is full of duplicates, outdated records, or incomplete contact details, you’re not just losing time—you’re losing revenue.Plus, Lisa recently attended Bullhorn's Automation and AI summit and the key "disabler" for engaging effectively with automation and AI was data health (or lack of!)Data Stealth or Data Wealth?As a recruitment leader, you rely on your CRM to power your recruiters' productivity, candidate/client experience, and bottom-line performance. But how confident are you in the health / quality of your data?Why does data health matter?💩 30% of CRM data becomes outdated each year🐌 Recruiters lose 4.3 hours/week to manual data issues📉 Dirty data can slash revenue by 12%😱 51% of UK firms say their CRM data isn't accurate enough to use🤒 Only 30% of CRM records are fully up to date🥳 Clean data boosts productivity by 14.6%(Sources: IBM / Experian / Bullhorn)In short: Bad data = missed placements, wasted time, lost revenue.If your Recruitment CRM has incomplete profiles, inconsistent job titles, or duplicate records, it’s not just frustrating—it’s slowing your team down.And if your candidate and client pools aren’t engaged, you're working blindfolded, hands tied behind your back, in a storm. (Metaphors galore!)1 Word to Describe Your DataWe asked recruiters to give us one word to describe their Bullhorn data and they said... Oh dear...Pointless Strategies to Clean Your Recruitment DataSome "popular" (but pointless) strategies include:Handing it to a temp / admin with zero sector knowledgeAsking recruiters to do it in their "free time"Ignoring it and piling in more dataThese are great strategies if you have money and time to burn, and data accuracy is not a goal.Our Winning 3-Step TLC Strategy for Data Health and WealthCleaning up your recruitment data involves more than simply giving it a spring clean every now and again. Your data needs to feed today's, tomorrow's, and next year's pipeline.We help recruitment businesses turn messy Bullhorn CRMs into clean, revenue-generating machines with a simple framework:Train recruiters on the “What’s in it for me?” angle so they take ownership of their data.Legacy cleanse: deduplicate, delete, or reactivate cold records.Campaign: engage and enrich new data automatically.No expensive tools. No time-zapping system overhauls. Just smart fixes that work with what you already have.📍 Book a Free Recruitment Data Health ConsultationI’d love to hear how you’re tackling data challenges—and pay it forward with a free 30-minute call to share ideas and insights from the 1000s of recruiters we've work with.Identify quick-win cleanup opportunitiesShare smart tools and automation optionsWhether your recruiters and resourcers struggle with poor candidate matches, too many duplicate records, or “ghost” contacts no one has touched in over a year, we can help you build a practical, recruiter-friendly fix.Ready to clean up your data, reduce costs, and speed up your placements?BOOK YOUR FREE DATA HEALTH CONSULTATION🚀 Why Now?Because recruitment is too competitive to be slowed down by bad data. The difference between making a placement and missing out is often just how quickly and accurately you can find and reach the right person.If your consultants / resourcers are wasting time cleaning up data manually—or worse, avoiding your Bullhorn CRM altogether—this is your chance to fix it for good.Clean recruitment data isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s a competitive advantage. Let’s get yours working the way it should.
Recruiter Productivity Series: Optimise Bullhorn Part 4 ~ Place Faster with Less Effort

Let’s be honest—placing top talent isn’t just about sourcing and sending CVs. It’s about building smart, fast, and proactive processes to manage both your candidates and your clients. And if you’re using Bullhorn, you already have the tools—you just need to use them!Part 4 of our "Optimise Bullhorn" webinar series is for busy recruiters who need to protect and drive their placement processes. Leaving it to candidates and clients is not a great strategy! Scroll down to watch...Bullhorn Tips to Drive Placement SuccessRecruitment is fast-moving, competitive, and let’s face it, a little chaotic at times. If you’re not managing your placement processes effectively, you’re likely either making life hard for yourself or losing out. The data from Bullhorn / CIPD / LinkedIn tells us:📉 57% of candidates say they lose interest when communication drops off. That’s over half your shortlist potentially ghosting you.⏳ The best candidates are off the market in just 10 days—meaning delayed client feedback or disjointed processes can kill your placement before it even starts.💼 80% of placements come from just 20% of your Bullhorn database—so if you’re only looking outward and not reactivating past candidates, you’re leaving money on the table.🎯80% of candidates expect to be placed in less than 20 days.🧠 60% of clients say they want better communication from their recruiter. Not more CVs—more value.💑 Only 29% of customers are fully engaged.All of these stats have one thing in common: you need to take control of your process, and not assume that the candidate / client has your (or even their) best interest at heart!And that starts with better Bullhorn usage.🧠What You’ll Learn in the WebinarPart 4 of our "Optimise Bullhorn" webinar series is packed with tips you can use immediately to manage your time, tasks, and targets.✅ Smarter candidate engagement: How to set tasks and workflows that make follow-up a breeze (and stop candidates slipping through the cracks).✅ Client comms that convert: Use Bullhorn to track touchpoints, get reminders, and maintain proactive communication that wins trust and repeat business.✅ Automation that actually works: We'll talk about how automation can free you up to make more placements.💪Stop Playing Catch-UpIf you and your team is spending too long on admin, or even too long placing, or struggling to manage candidate and client expectations and experience —this free Bullhorn Tips webinar is for you.Your Bullhorn CRM should be your greatest time, task, and target management tool—not a dumping ground. Let’s "work it"!Watch the "Place Faster and Easier with Bullhorn" Webinar NowPS. Want to go even further? Check out our full "Optimise Bullhorn" webinar series.🔍 Engage, nurture, place, and re-place. Watch the recording💬 Source faster and easier. Watch the recording📈 Sell faster and easier. Watch the recording💡 Place faster and easier. Watch the recording🎯 Easy BD. Watch the recording💪 Easy Candidate Management ~ 05 November. Register NowRecruitment and Bullhorn TrainingWe deliver the best live Bullhorn ROI webinar training, and you'll find other tips and tricks in Recruitment HIIT, our online recruitment training platform.Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.TRY HIIT FREE HEREBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
Bullhorn Tip - Convert Candidates to Sales Contacts

We've got an easy Bullhorn 1-minute tip to help you easily get more sales leads. Nice!Picking up the phone and building, driving, and monetising your relationships is key to a successful recruitment desk.Cold calling is crucial of course... But warm calling may be better and more effective.Question: How many candidates have you placed, or got interviews for, that you could work as sales contacts? Likely plenty?Easy Sales Leads for RecruitersFocussing on the candidates you have helped and converting them into sales contacts is a must. Using Bullhorn to do this makes this task a breeze! This is a really fast and really simple tip to help you with your business development.By using your existing data, your candidates don't just have to be limited to generating new fees. By placing them, you could convert them into sales contacts in Bullhorn to create brand new leads and brand new opportunities to work. Let's see How to convert your candidates into sales contacts. Watch our 1-minute Bullhorn tip - then log in to Bullhorn and find your warm candidates. How many do you have? Which ones are your fans? Who can you call to get intel, referrals and leads from? Watch Our 1-Minute Bullhorn Tip to Help You Get More Sales LeadsNeed more LinkedIn / Bullhorn / Automation / Recruitment 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 WEBINARSRecruitment and Bullhorn TrainingWe deliver the best live Bullhorn ROI webinar training, and you'll find other recruitment and RecTec tips and tricks in Recruitment HIIT, our online recruitment training platform.Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people, so you have even less need for LinkedIn!TRY HIIT FREE HEREBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION