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
Vodcast: Recruitment AI ~ How to Use Tech Without Losing the Human Touch
Is Your Recruitment Tech Stack Keeping You Human, or Just Keeping You Busy? And Where Does AI Fit and Not Fit?I recently sat down with Raymond Pennie, the founder and CEO of Kyloe Partners, for as part of my recruitment leaders' vodcast series that went deep into the messy, exciting, and often confusing world of recruitment technology, and AI.If you’ve ever felt like your Bullhorn CRM/ATS is more of a "data graveyard" than a goldmine, or if the mere mention of AI makes you want to hide under your desk, this conversation was for you.Raymond and I didn't just talk about "plugging things in"; we talked about why so many recruitment leaders are currently suffocating under a mountain of manual admin, and tech and data, while trying to "stay human."Here’s a teaser of the big questions we tackled (and why you’ll want to catch the full recording):🤔The Recruitment AI Paradox: Why Leaders Overestimate Short-Term AI and Underestimate Long-Term ImpactAI is the smallest word having the biggest impact right now.Raymond dropped a truth bomb: most people are overestimating AI in the short term but massively underestimating it in the long run.Is AI going to be your best manager - keeping you on track and stripping away the boring bits - or your worst nightmare by micromanaging your every missed task?🤖We also discussed a terrifying new reality: AI vs. AI.When every candidate uses AI to craft a "perfect" resume/CV that matches your job description exactly, how do you actually screen for talent?Raymond shares a simple strategy to use recruitment technology to prioritise the right candidates and clients so you can get back to the human-to-human influence that AI simply can't touch.⛔Why Buying AI Recruitment Tools Isn't Enough (The 'Bandwagon' Problem)One of my favourite parts of our chat was about the "AI Bandwagon."Raymond’s advice?Buy the AI, but for heaven's sake, use it.Too many leaders buy recruitment tech as a defense mechanism or a "quota" to feel better about themselves or feel that they can at least say that they have what they need, only to end up trapped in long contracts with tools they don't understand.Ultimately the goal needs to be Bullhorn ROI, not simply lots of tech.We talked about the "Bruce Lee method" of recruitment leadership: why you might need to slow down in order to speed up.💸Data Enrichment in Recruitment: Working the Funnel from the Money EndWe moved on to the "V" word: Value. Not the fluffy kind, but the actual monetization of your data. Raymond explained why you should stop trying to "clean" a million records just for the sake of it. Instead, he shared a targeted approach—working from the "money end" of the funnel backwards.If you want to know how to stop "throwing crap at the wall" and start using data enrichment to find replacements before a candidate even leaves their role, you need to hear Raymond’s take on "Data Enrichment 101."The Bottom Line?Efficiency is one thing, but effectiveness is the next level. Don't let your recruitment technology prevent you or your recruiters from being human. Use it to ring-fence your candidate and client time so you can actually deliver a sustainable recruitment pipeline.Stay curious, stop panicking, and start picking the one or two things that actually resonate with your recruitment business goals.Ready to spend a speedy 19 minutes thinking about how to make your recruitment process more human with tech?Watch my 19 Minute Vodcast with RaymondBullhorn 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
Vodcast: Death to Spreadsheets: Is Your Agency’s Future Hiding in a Tab?
In our latest vodcast, which could be renamed as "Keeping Up with the Joneses," I sat down with Carl Jones, founder of Konquest, to tackle a truth that many recruitment leaders are still trying to avoid: the era of "wit and whiteboard pens" is officially over.If you’re still running your recruitment agency’s most critical processes on disparate spreadsheets, you aren’t just being "old school" - you might be making your business completely uncompetitive in an AI-driven market. Here are the 3 big questions we posed that every leader needs to answer1️⃣Is Your Data "Siloed" or Scalable?Carl highlighted a terrifying reality: as you scale, spreadsheets become "damaging".They are slow, corruptible, and unauditable.But the real FOMO trigger?If your data isn't in a scalable, database format today, you will be "completely screwed" when trying to leverage the AI agents of tomorrow. ❓Ask yourself: Are you building a data asset you can interrogate, or are you just "hoping" your team knows what’s going on? 2️⃣Are You Leading by "Facts" or "Feelings"?We’ve all been there. We've made decisions based on gut instinct or ego. But in a shifting market with new legislative changes and complex compensation needs, "facts not feelings" is the only way to retain your best staff. ❓The Question: Can you answer why you’re making a strategic change with "unequivocal data," or is it just subjective guesswork? 3️⃣What Are the Most Profitable Agencies Doing Differently?💡This was the "money shot" of our conversation.Carl revealed that Konquest has identified a dozen different "signals" that separate the fastest-growing agencies from the rest. These are signals from how they incentivise managers to the specific nature of their commission thresholds. Most recruitment leaders are getting commission wrong simply because the data hasn't been available.❓Are you overpaying or underpaying your recruiters? Or is your management setup simply years behind the industry standard? 🚨Stop Scrambling and Start SystematisingThe goal isn't just to have "shiny buttons" on a CRM/ATS.It’s about creating an "objective reality" for your business. As Carl put it, we are entering a period where leaders will soon be "scrambling" to get their data out of spreadsheets. Don't be the recruitment leader left behind while your competitors (which includes your own clients) are already using their data as a high-value weapon. Want to see how you benchmark against the rest of the industry? Carl and the team at Konquest have launched a live, free Recruiter Commission Census. It provides a personalised report on those 12 secret signals so you can finally see if your agency is at risk or ahead of the curve. Ready to spend a speedy 17 minutes thinking about your recruitment data and how to get it powering your recruitment business?Watch the full 17 minute vodcast with Konquest now. 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
Vodcast: Rehumanising Recruitment ~ Recruiters Versus Tech
Your Bullhorn already holds 95% of the answer, but most agencies just keep buying tools to avoid looking at it.I recently had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with a true recruitment "myth and legend," Keith Southern.For those who don't know Keith, he was the seventh person to join Progressive - the company that eventually became the global powerhouse S3.With a career spanning back to the early 90s, he has seen it all: the highs, the recessions, and the technological revolutions.Today, Keith leads The Power Hive, a community of over 170 recruitment leaders dedicated to helping agency owners move from just working in their business to working on it.Over a speedy 19minutes, we dove deep into why the "old school" ways, coupled with data, automation, and AI, might actually be the key to every recruitment leaders' future.💪Beyond ROI: The Power of "Return on Effort"We started by discussing a concept close to both of our hearts: Return on Effort (ROE). In an industry obsessed with the next shiny recruitment tech tool, many recruitment leaders are accidentally building what we called "Frankenstein tech stacks" - collections of expensive tools and data that don't talk to each other and often create "integration debt" and more admin than they solve. (I call this "Admin Tax".)We talked about how many sales floors today are eerily quiet because recruiters are hiding behind CRMs and marketing tech instead of picking up the phone, and Keith's ideas for:Using recruitment tech to free your consultants up to have more human conversations (and removing the "admin tax").Auditing your tech stack to see if you’re actually using what you’re paying for, or whether you're actually in "integration debt".🪙Turning Old Data into GoldOne of the most striking parts of our conversation was about the "gold nuggets" sitting right under our noses. Your "old to gold" could be data, processes, tech, people...Keith argues that most agencies already have 95% of the data they need in their own CRM, yet they continue to spend a fortune on expensive external job boards and LinkedIn licenses.We discussed "rehumanising" the process by using technology to lift the heavy weights so that recruiters can focus on building resilience and genuine relationships.We chatted about how to:Preventing your recruiters heading straight to LinkedIn / Job Boards to resource instead of looking "back home" at your own database.Training your recruiters to master the fundamental tasks, like a perfect candidate interview prep, before moving to the next part of the process.🤔Are You the Recruiter Your Website Says You Are?We ended with a challenge for the industry. Many agencies claim to be "at the heart of their sector" on their websites, but the reality is often a messy database and a reliance on reactive advertising. Keith’s advice for this year is simple: stop the abdication to technology and start driving your business with strategy again.This vodcast was a masterclass in recruitment leadership. Watch it to hear more about Keith's "war stories" from the S3 days and how to weaponise the data, systems, and people you already have.Ready to spend a speedy 19 minutes thinking about your recruitment process and how to keep it human with tech?Watch the full 19minute vodcast with The Power Hive now.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
Vodcast: Stop "Lifting and Shifting" ~ How to Weaponize Your Recruitment Tech
If you feel like your recruitment team is "paralysed" by too many tools or you're just moving old, broken processes into a shiny new Bullhorn environment, this one is for you. Here’s a teaser of what we covered in a meeting with Zack from Bullhorn to help you turn your CRM into a high-performance engine. Are You Actually Making Money From Your Tech Stack?It was a blast sitting down with Zack from Bullhorn for the his very first "Tech Stack with Zach" to dive into how recruitment agencies can stop wasting their tech and time and start making more money. Most ambitious recruitment businesses have the tools, but very few have the adoption required to see a real return on investment.During our session, we challenged the status quo of "lifting and shifting" data and processes and looked at how to actually "weaponize" your consultants - after all - aren't they your "coolest tool"?🧠The "Why" Behind Your Recruitment Tech Move We see it all the time: agencies trying to repeat past mistakes in a new system.We discussed: Secret Weapon: Why your middle managers are the secret weapon (or the hidden anchor) for software adoption.Over-engineered: The danger of "over-engineering" your system before you even go live.Expectations: Why we believe the project truly begins on the day you go live, not the day you sign the contract.🪄The Bullhorn Features You’re Probably IgnoringAre your recruiters using Bullhorn to manage their time, or just to "dump data" to hit a KPI?We took a deep dive into:Game Changers: A specific "list view" that most recruiters still don't understand, despite it being a total game-changer for organisation.Productivity: How to transition from "back to basics" to "brilliant basics" to make every consultant more productive.Time Machines: Why "time" is the most underrated currency in your business, and how to manage it.🤖Building a "Time Machine" with Bullhorn AutomationTime is the only non-recyclable resource your recruiters have.We shared a real-world example of how automation acts as a "time machine" for our clients.Speed Up Your Fill Rate: Do you know which two linked automations can slash your time-to-fill by 20 days?The LinkedIn "Tax": Why looking external (to LinkedIn or job boards) first is costing you a fortune in "procrastination."Ambition-Led Tech: How to use the "art of the possible" to expect more from your tech and more from your humans.💪The "Take No Prisoners" Approach to SuccessFinally, we wrapped up with our non-negotiables for a successful CRM / Tech rollout. If you want to know the one-line secret to making a Bullhorn rollout work, you’ll need to catch the full episode.Ready to stop buying tech and hoping?Watch the full interview with Zack, Wayne and myself to get the practical, actionable advice you need to future-proof your business.WATCH TECH STACK WITH ZACKBullhorn 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
Vodcast: How Can Recruiters Be More Targeted with Their Time? Analytics
Recruiters have limited time to make a difference to their candidates, clients, colleagues, and pipeline. But this is the year when agile and focused performance is critical. But with so many systems, often too much data, being focused and targeted is hard.Everything, Everywhere, All At Once!Recruiters are often pulled in multiple directions all at once. Keeping candidates and clients happy, whilst navigating multiple platforms and dirty data sets, makes for a hopeful strategy. All of this is during a year where minds are being changed at speed.But ironically, recruiters have the data which can help target their time. And if analysed, data tells the truth:It speaks of past performanceIt predicts future performanceBut, in some recruitment businesses the truth hurts. Recruiters should be using analytics to tell the truth, then improve their performance. In the very least they could be using data to look for quick wins and business opportunities to, for example, recycle contractors, and focus their time on at-risk clients for repeat business.Recruitment Leaders Navigating Through Tough TimesRecruitment leaders could be using analytics to manage and lead their teams - and help them navigate through troubled times.Recent years have seen a seismic shift in the recruiting market. 1. Experienced recruiters leaving the market and taking their knowledge with them.2. Lots of new startups resulting from larger recruiters downsizing. 3. Recruitment leaders have likely scaled quickly, and during a booming year. New recruiters, new problems.This leaves knowledge gaps, process gaps, and opportunities for a 'spray and pray' approach to recruitment. This can only be fixed by luck and an active and analytical approach by leaders.Leadership would be wise to not wait for luck, but to analyse, automate, enable their recruiters, and yell "let's do this!"Let's Do This!As I'm writing this blog, I'm getting excited for my clients who have not shied away from the data. They are automating it, de-administrating their recruiters, and creating space for best practice and training. But, I'm also worried about the recruitment leaders who have heads in hands saying "make it stop". I get that, but now is the time to get suited-up and get cracking with the data, the analytics, the performance.Watch My Analytics Vodcasts with Andy...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.Can't wait for the webinar?BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
Vodcast: How Can Recruiters Use Data to Drive Performance?
Recruiters - Your data is one of your most important assets. Data coupled with your time, your process, and your wit, can make for a super slick and profitable recruitment process. But if you don’t know your numbers, and you don’t work your data, you are simply a recruitment administrator, being busy, but not being very effective. In my vodcast with Tracey O’Neill from The Data Consultant we chatted about how you can: Work your data. Control your process. Be a profitable Recruitment Consultant and Leader.Whether you’re a recruitment leader wanting a sustainable recruitment business with high-performing recruiters, or a recruiter that wants to run a successful recruitment desk, this vodcast is a great listen (or watch).Sexy / Clients / RoEI chatted with Tracey about how to use data to be a more effective recruiter:Data: A sexy asset which can drive your recruitment candidate and sales pipeline.Clients: Own their data, work it, and drive your relationships!RoE: What is it and what's it got to do with data and recruitment?What key takeaways does Tracey have for recruiters and recruitment leaders regarding how they can use data to run their desks and businesses?Recruitment leaders and recruiters – buckle up and get at least one takeaway to help you improve performance.Watch My 3 Recruitment Data Vodcasts with Tracey O'NeillBullhorn 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.Can't wait for the webinar?BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
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