But what does moving forward together look like in practice? From embarking on a digital transformation project, or exploring a new offering or workflow, there are countless ways to find new opportunities and avenues for growth.

To highlight real-world strategies that staffing firms are putting into practice, we sat down with Brian Salkowski, Chief Experience Officer at Impellam Group, Leticia McAlexander, Vice President, Global Enterprise Applications & Enterprise Data at Allegis Group, Kathryn Krueger, Chief Operating Officer at DeWinter Group, and Brandon Simmons, EVP – Technology & Operations, DeWinter Group during Engage Boston 2024.

Check out what they had to say about finding new ways forward, working across organizations, and building a competitive edge – or take a look at key takeaways from their sessions in our Engage Content Hub.

Following the numbers

When choosing where to focus your digital transformation efforts and grow your business, our panelists advocated following a data-driven approach. When Salkowski and his organization consider building out a new service line or expanding an offering, they evaluate market intelligence to see where there may be opportunities for their business. “If I look at the recruitment marketplace and where it was 20 years ago, relative to today or even 10 years ago, the amount of advancement and progress is night and day,” he said. “If we’re not proactively assessing the marketplace and our business, we very much risk being left behind.”

Looking internally can also help guide your path. For McAlexander and her team, following the data led to a realization about a crucial gap they needed to address: “What we began to see as we looked at the data was that we were missing a focus on talent experience,” she said. “We were missing the voice of the talent, and we were leaving a lot of money on the table as a result.”

When experimenting with a new offering, model, or workflow, evaluate your success with performance indicators. “We have conditions of satisfaction,” Salkowski said. “Do we see cycle time improving? Are we seeing improvement in our level of effort? Are we earning a return, and does that return meet our conversion expectations? That’s the starting point.”

“It really has been a journey about data,” McAlexander added.

Learning from your network

The best ideas might come from the most unexpected places. Our panelists work to foster relationships with stakeholders throughout the recruitment process to better understand where they need to grow. “I’m a big believer in voice of customer, voice of employees, voice of suppliers,” Salkowski said. “This is where we really learn. Is there a gap in the marketplace? By staying close to our customers and actively leaning in and listening, that’s typically where we get our best ideas.”

“We realized these old initiatives were leaving out the user experience, whether it was an internal user or an external user,” McAlexander said. “So we started to do this outside-in thinking, bringing to the table the personas that were never represented in conversations up until now, which was our talent and the client.”

When working with stakeholders, learning should be a two-way street. Krueger and Simmons felt like they were able to call Bullhorn and Marketplace partners with concerns, questions, and commendations at any time, and worked collaboratively across organizations to develop a roadmap that was realistic and helped them achieve their goals. “We utilized partners and relationships to help them understand what we were looking for as a business, and to get the visibility to data that we needed,” said Simmons.

Adopting new tech requires constant internal communication as well. DeWinter Group had an internal technology specialist to advocate for the needed changes to their tech stack, as well as leaders to guide their decision-making from a business perspective, allowing for all perspectives to be considered. “Throughout the process, we really learned a lot about how to bring teams along, how to communicate, and how to make people feel like they’re part of the decision,” Krueger said.

“Our best ideas don’t come from the corporate office,” Salkowski said. “They come from the field because those individuals are close to the customer. Those individuals are living the process and working with the technology on a day-to-day basis.”

Finding your differentiator

Though a tough macroeconomic climate presents its obvious challenges, it also comes with opportunities. Finding a competitive difference is one. “If you have the right product, the right team, and the right service, it provides an opportunity to lean in and capture market share, Salkowski said. “So expand clients and service lines when others are in retreat mode.”

McAlexander put it plainly: “What has served you in the past, and what has gotten you here, is not going to get you to growth in the next ten years.” For Allegis Group, that meant doubling down on creating an incredible talent experience with the help of the Bullhorn Talent Platform.

“Technology is going to be the differentiator for a lot of staffing firms,” said Krueger. After their transition to Bullhorn One and the integration of their front and back office, Krueger noticed an increase in efficiency, greater visibility, and a more sophisticated ability to report on various aspects of the business.

Regardless of your chosen solution, now is the time to look beyond what you’ve done in the past and find new ways forward. As Krueger said, “We all need to ask, ‘How are we going to use technology to differentiate and help our clients have a better experience, our candidates have a better experience, and our internal employees have a better experience?’”

Learn more about how your firm can partner with Bullhorn by moving Forward together.

Bullhorn is a Salesforce Summit Partner and the #1 ISV for recruitment

Since entering the Salesforce ecosystem in 2017, Bullhorn has invested significantly in building our Salesforce portfolio, including ATS, Onboarding, Shift Scheduling, Automation, Candidate Engagement, and Middle Office solutions. Over the past six years, we’ve grown from having a small group of customers on the Salesforce platform to becoming the #1 Salesforce ISV for recruitment, five times larger than our next nearest competitor on the AppExchange, supporting over 85,000 users globally every day. As a Summit Partner, the highest status available in the AppExchange program, we are fully committed to the Salesforce ecosystem. Textkernel has been mission-critical to our explosive growth on the Salesforce platform, helping our customers parse, source, and match the best candidates for roles they are trying to fill. The acquisition of Textkernel deepens our commitment to the Salesforce platform and accelerates our AI strategy.

Textkernel’s best-in-class parsing and matching technologies accelerate Bullhorn’s AI strategy for Salesforce customers

Sourcing AI has been a huge focus for Bullhorn. In today’s competitive landscape, finding suitable candidates, whether from within a recruitment agency database or externally, presents a significant challenge. Talent acquisition remains a top three priority in our annual GRID industry survey. Textkernel’s parsing technology is unparalleled, and its matching technology is used by many of the largest recruitment agencies in the world. The combination of Textkernel and Bullhorn will substantially help our Salesforce customers solve their talent-sourcing challenges.

Textkernel unlocks the next chapter of solutions we can offer Salesforce customers. By aligning our collective roadmaps and working closely with our customers, we are opening a new chapter of possibilities on the Salesforce platform for our customers. We are excited to have Textkernel join us on this journey and to welcome members of the Textkernel team into our Bullhorn family. Congratulations Gerard, Guus, and the Textkernel leadership team!

Forward together!

Jeff Neumann, SVP Product Marketing

Accelerating Bullhorn’s AI strategy with Textkernel’s industry-leading parsing and matching technologies

In today’s competitive landscape, organizations grapple with talent and job shortages and the pressing need to swiftly fill new positions with top-tier talent. Furthermore, as Art Papas shared in his keynote at Engage Boston 2024, customers need a S.E.A. (Specific, Enormous, Actionable) of data to realize the full potential of AI. This is where the addition of Textkernel plays a pivotal role in our strategy. Textkernel’s parsing technology is second to none and will be critical to our AI strategy. Their matching technology is used by some of the largest enterprises in the world, both inside staffing and talent acquisition. Textkernel’s Labor Market Insights solution boosts agency business development and growth strategies, a critical lever in the current job short market. The combination of Textkernel and Bullhorn will substantially help organizations solve their talent-sourcing challenges and win new business. The acquisition of Textkernel significantly accelerates our AI strategy and unlocks the next chapter of solutions we can offer customers.  

Sourcing AI is a strategic focus for Bullhorn

The staffing industry has grown to over $600 billion in revenue globally. With growth expected to pick up in 2024, this acquisition offers a significant step forward for us to harness AI’s full potential to benefit our customers and the industry. As we shared with customers in Vision for Innovation at Engage Boston 2024, Sourcing AI is a huge investment area for Bullhorn, and we are truly excited to embark on this journey with Textkernel. We congratulate CEO Gerard Mulder, COO Guus Meijer, and the entire leadership team at Textkernel and welcome the Textkernel team to the Bullhorn family. This acquisition is a significant step forward for us, and we are committed to maximizing its potential to benefit our customers. As we set our sights on the future, I’m optimistic about the impactful solutions that will stem from merging our teams and our shared dedication to advancing AI in the talent-sourcing landscape.

Please stay tuned for an upcoming webinar where Gerard and I will share more insights about how our two companies are developing industry-leading Sourcing AI solutions.

And if you’d like to learn more about what this acquisition means for our customers on the Salesforce platform, take a look at this blog from Jeff Neumann, SVP Product Marketing at Bullhorn.

In order to compete with larger rivals, small staffing agencies must embrace automation in order to streamline candidate sourcing, cultivate enduring relationships with both talent and clients, and stand out from the competition.

The benefits of automation

By automating mundane tasks in the hiring process, recruiters save precious time to better focus on the human-centric aspects of recruitment. With recruiters under pressure to deliver quick results, automation can unlock greater efficiencies and pave the way for recruiters to excel in their roles, ensuring a seamless experience for candidates and delivering high-quality results for clients.

What are the key processes that typically need automating, and which ones can make the greatest difference for small recruitment agencies?

Candidate communication

The capability to sift through and match CVs quickly and schedule interviews lifts the administrative burden on recruitment teams. Setting auto reminders when candidates have interviews and scheduling follow-up phone calls with clients means that recruiters can keep on top of every important detail and the status of every candidate application. They can then relay any feedback received to candidates quickly to keep everything moving seamlessly so that applicants don’t drop out of the process.  

Additionally, communicating with candidates who have not made it through the selection process is also important, given that they may be a fit for future roles. Candidate relationship management for all candidates—not just the ones who get placed—is absolutely critical, as your company’s brand reputation is on the line. Keeping those candidates informed at all stages and sending them new potential job alerts will create an excellent impression. In today’s ultra-competitive hiring landscape, no stone can remain unturned in the name of quality. 

Where many recruiters fall short is a lack of communication. In some cases, there simply isn’t an opportunity for candidates, which leads to them inadvertently being “ghosted” – they apply for a job and don’t hear back presumably, because they can’t be placed. Automation can be used to ensure that this doesn’t happen and, if handled with due care and sensitivity, can ensure that even candidates who haven’t been placed can leave the process feeling valued thanks to a positive experience.   

Efficiency and productivity gains

As part of the screening process, and as a means of better helping recruiters to qualify and identify the right candidates for their roles, video interviewing can be a game-changer. A simple link with some questions can be sent to a candidate to complete in their own time, from anywhere in the world. This technology can really help to provide a more complete picture of the individual and their interpersonal skills. Perhaps more importantly, it reduces the time constraints that recruiters can face when trying to schedule video calls with candidates, which will often fall outside of traditional working hours. 

Using recruitment software to automate job postings also enables recruiters to quickly distribute and integrate their roles across global job boards, social media, and search engines. The software can ‘multi-post’ jobs to these different outlets, saving recruiters time with individual uploads. With this approach, recruiters can also track and measure performance, enabling them to not only rank candidates but also see which channel is performing best. This, in turn, provides critical insights to help with budget spend and where to allocate money for optimal returns. 

When choosing the right recruitment technology, small recruitment agencies must do their homework to find the right, affordable solution for their needs and budgets. This could mean automating one or two key parts of the recruitment process to begin with. Once you can prove a return on investment, more budget can be directed into other areas of the business. 

Time savings

Automation has multiple benefits for smaller recruitment firms, but the greatest is the time-saving potential. One hour saved a day adds up to more than 250 hours each year or around a month’s work for each recruiter.

In the vast majority of cases, the outlay on tech automation will pay for itself in the long run. Ultimately, if small recruitment agencies don’t take the plunge and automate processes, they will lose out when it comes to connecting with top talent and partnering with key clients. 

Ready to boost productivity, improve data health, and enhance communication? Learn more about Bullhorn Automation.

During the annual Vision for Innovation presentation at Engage Boston 2024, Matt Fischer, President and COO at Bullhorn, and Jason Heilman, SVP Product – Automation and AI at Bullhorn, shared more about the impacts AI can have on staffing firms, Bullhorn’s approach to AI, and what the future of staffing AI might look like.

Check out a recap of their session below, or take a look at the video for the full session:

The benefits of staffing AI

Matt kicked things off by setting the stage for how Bullhorn is approaching AI: “Even in an AI-first world, the recruiter’s job is still the same. They’re trying to achieve the same outcome, which is to go get a job from a client, find the right candidate, screen the candidate, interview the candidate, and place the candidate. All of that is still required and still true, and still what the recruiter will do. They’ll just do it differently and it’ll be more effective and more efficient with AI.”

The journey to leveraging staffing AI requires firms to first digitize their systems and maintain that digitization as they add more components to their tech stacks. Then, staffing firms should leverage automation to remove manual tasks from recruiters’ to-do lists and enable them to focus on higher-priority work, like building relationships.

What type of outcomes can staffing firms expect when they start using AI? Matt and Jason highlighted three main benefits:

Decrease time to fill by dramatically reducing the time required to complete key tasks

• Quickly find the best candidates to reach out to; searches are built with the click of a button
• Reduce time writing emails and formatting resumes
• Keep your recruiters focused on the highest-value tasks

Improve quality and consistency by finding the right candidates faster and interacting with your candidates and clients at a more human level

• Ensure every search is finely tuned to the job requirements
• Create highly personalized content without knowing the details of the domain
• Make sure key points from every conversation are tracked and actionable 

Achieve greater scale by unlocking the power of AI through automation

• Focus everyone on the highest-value tasks
• Have confidence that your data is reliable
• Complete even more tasks with automation

The power of the platform and the importance of having a S.E.A. of data

In his keynote at Engage Boston 2024, Art Papas, CEO and Founder of Bullhorn, introduced the concept of having a S.E.A. of staffing-specific data – Specific, Enormous, and Actionable – to fuel staffing firms’ AI efforts. As Matt explained, “There’s only one way to create that S.E.A. of data, and that’s to have everything on a singular platform and all of your workflow digitized on that platform.” With everything on one platform and the S.E.A. of data as the foundation, staffing firms can effectively apply AI, leverage automation to enable AI to scale, and get the full benefits of reporting and analytics to point their users in the right direction. 

“We [have] 22.6 billion records in the Bullhorn platform today. That’s 22.6 billion records that we can use to train AI. 20 billion of those are just related to communication, emails, call logs, and notes. There’s this treasure trove of information that is currently locked in all of this unstructured data,” explained Matt.

Bullhorn’s goal is to ensure staffing firms can get insights from that unstructured data and use those insights to run their businesses. Matt explained that the successful placement count is among the most here “because we know what success looks like, and we know what it looks like at scale.”

Another source of data is Bullhorn One, which helps firms run every aspect of their recruiting business, from intake to payroll. Bullhorn One customers have paid 225,000 payees weekly, and 768 million hours have been worked in the last 12 months. Customers have also sent invoices totaling $13 billion through the platform. Bullhorn reached these exciting milestones by enabling digitization and automation of the entire pay and bill workflow, helping staffing firms improve client relationships and add to the S.E.A. of data. 

Data Hub expands the S.E.A of data

Another way to expand the S.E.A. of data is by bringing it all together in a tool like Data Hub. First introduced at Engage Boston 2023, Data Hub combines data in Bullhorn with data outside the platform, like metrics from Marketplace partners, financial software, and payroll providers.

Once the systems are connected and the data is brought into one place, firms can analyze the entire workflow to uncover deeper insights like lead conversion, customer or client satisfaction, and margins. From there, firms can apply AI to turn all of that data and analysis into action.

Customers today achieve a 36% productivity improvement with AI sourcing

As our GRID 2024 Industry Trends Report confirmed, staffing firms are focused on winning new business and improving existing client relationships this year. But, as Art shared in his Engage keynote, old playbooks for business development aren’t working anymore, and firms need to leverage the S.E.A. of data and new technology – like AI – to get ahead. 

That’s where AI staffing tools like SourceBreaker by Bullhorn come into play. SourceBreaker searches through job boards to bring every job into a singular database, enabling firms to get more value from open jobs and find more opportunities with potential clients. As Matt illustrated, “There are 380 million jobs that sit inside of this data lake today. 17 million of them are live right now. That means there are 4.6 million customers looking to fill 17 million jobs just today. So talking about how the old sales playbooks didn’t work and how we have to think about that differently going forward, this is an awesome starting point for that.”

It’s not enough to have a repository of data. Firms need to be able to search and interact with their database to get the most value from their data, see the biggest returns, and win more clients. Here, Jason shared how Bullhorn users can sort and filter opportunities in SourceBreaker to uncover clients that have open roles their firm is skilled at or that they have candidates for. From there, recruiters or salespeople can engage with that client and, ideally, add them into Bullhorn to nurture the relationship, improve the conversion rate, and add to the S.E.A. of data.

And firms utilizing this strategy are already seeing huge results. Customers using automation and SourceBreaker achieve a 24% increase in speed to submittal, a 53% increase in redeployment, and 36% more placements per recruiter.

The future of staffing AI

So, how does this entire vision come to life? From the power of the platform and the S.E.A. of data to turning unstructured data into structured data, Bullhorn Copilot, our suite of staffing AI capabilities, will span the entire recruitment process, impacting everything from the front-office ATS to the back-office operations. 

Matt and Jason introduced 13 ways that Copilot’s staffing AI features can add value to the staffing workflow, covering everything from business development to searching external job boards.

Please note: some of the functionality below is still in the concept phase. Please contact your Bullhorn Account Manager for more information about current availability. 

1. Business development: Firms can identify opportunities with clients that match their service offerings and add data about those opportunities directly to Bullhorn. 
2. Actionable dashboards: By pulling in information from the entire platform, Copilot can suggest jobs that need attention, candidates to reach out to, key metrics, and more.
3. AI prompts throughout Bullhorn: Using pre-built prompts right in Bullhorn, users can summarize a candidate profile, create screening questions, or pitch a candidate for a specific role.
4. Suggested prompts: The goal of suggested prompts is to direct users to what activity they should do next. After a candidate is submitted to a job, Copilot can suggest the recruiter create screening questions, for example. 
5. Updates records from notes: Using the call log, which is added as a note on a candidate record via a VOIP provider, Copilot can add relevant information from the call to the candidate record.
6. Tagging notes: Based on notes added after candidate calls, Copilot can tag each note with the relevant topic to make searching and filtering even easier.
7. Chat with your notes: Before an account manager contacts a client, they can use Copilot to ask specific questions, such as the current state of the consultants already working there. Copilot can also suggest places where the Account Manager can find more information.
8. Submit with Copilot: When submitting a candidate for a job, recruiters can utilize Copilot to review all the notes, craft the pitch letter, format the resume, determine which attachments are needed, and package it up to review and submit in just a few clicks.
9. Slack and Teams integration: Instead of waiting in Bullhorn for a particular action to complete, like finalizing a call log and adding it to a candidate record, Copilot can send an alert to Slack or Microsoft Teams to alert the user that the action has been completed.
10. Core search upgrades: From saved searches to new suggested “intents” at the top of the Bullhorn Search field, Copilot’s impact will extend into our core search functionality. This also includes an updated UI and new smart filters.
11. Text to search: Instead of navigating complex Boolean searches, users can simply type in exactly what they’re looking for, such as “Project Managers in Boston.” The AI-powered search will suggest and refine a query as the user adds more information. 
12. Recommended candidates and auto build searches: Wherever a recruiter might need candidates for a given role, Copilot can suggest candidates who might be a fit. Or, when a new job is added, Copilot can automatically build a search to find recommended candidates using relevant keywords. 
13. External job board searching: Instead of only running a search within Bullhorn, Copilot can search across job boards without the user needing to craft the same complex search multiple times.

These 13 concepts make up Bullhorn’s long-term vision for the future of staffing AI, and we want to ensure it has the most impact on our customers. Jason put it simply: “What can we really do that’s going to build lasting value to your business and allow you to scale more effectively and achieve all these outcomes?”

Learn how to transform your business development efforts with SourceBreaker and embed the power of AI right into recruiter workflows with Copilot. 

And check out more Engage highlights and resources on our Engage Boston Content Hub.

At Engage Boston 2024, few topics were discussed as much as AI, and the enthusiasm for this transformative technology could be felt across the 1,000 staffing industry attendees who joined the event in Boston. 

To kick off the event, Art Papas delivered an opening keynote where he looked back at how far the industry has come, how staffing firms are navigating a challenging market by leveraging AI, and the improvements early adopters are already seeing using AI-powered staffing tools. 

Read on for a recap of his keynote, or check out the video to see his full address:

A look back at 25 years of Bullhorn 

Engage Boston 2024 was not only an opportunity for our staffing community to connect in person but also a celebration of 25 years of Bullhorn.

Art Papas, CEO and Founder of Bullhorn, kicked off his opening keynote by shining a spotlight on the customers who have been with us since the beginning. 

Over the past 25 years, Bullhorn has empowered staffing firms to put the world to work, including working with 164 million candidates annually to fill 23.1 million job orders across 55.3 million submissions.

Throughout the past 25 years, we’ve relentlessly pursued new ways to leverage data from across the recruitment process to help drive your business forward, regardless of market conditions. And as firms are navigating one of the most challenging markets since the Great Recession, harnessing data to identify actionable insights has never been more important.

The power of AI in staffing

Our GRID 2024 Industry Trends Report revealed that winning new clients is the top priority for staffing firms this year: 59% of firms reported that they’re focused on client relationships, either winning new clients or strengthening existing relationships. 

But old playbooks for finding and winning new clients won’t cut it in today’s market. It’s been 15 years since cold calling was the go-to method of securing job orders. Today’s newer staffing professionals haven’t developed the same sales skillset as their veteran colleagues, and the old playbooks don’t work anymore… So what’s the answer? AI holds a lot of promise. 

While AI might seem like a new player in the staffing technology space, high performers are already incorporating it into their tech stack. “It’s still early, and we’re still figuring out what AI can do…But what we’re finding is that half of the folks we surveyed are actually experimenting with AI, and a third of them are expecting to see real results from it,” Art shared.

The lifeblood of any strong AI-powered staffing strategy is data. As Art put it, “You need specific data. You need a lot of it. It needs to be an enormous data set, and it needs to be actionable data.” Art introduced what Bullhorn calls the S.E.A. of data – Specific, Enormous, and Actionable – which will fuel staffing firms’ AI efforts. 

But what does this actually look like? 

• Specific: For AI to have an impact on the staffing industry, the data involved needs to be as specific to staffing as possible.  Bullhorn can provide staffing-specific data to ensure our AI solutions are tailor-made for the industry.
• Enormous: No single staffing firm has enough data to fully train an AI model, but with Bullhorn’s large, industry-specific data set, we can bridge the gap left by traditional AI models to better serve the staffing industry.
• Actionable: Similar to tools like Waze, which provides driving directions and traffic alerts, the most effective AI-powered staffing tools provide actionable insights and outputs to help users dial in on the most important actions and information. Rather than providing outputs or suggested actions based on non-staffing outcomes, our AI model will base its outputs on successful outcomes—placements—to help every recruiter perform like the most successful recruiters.

With the S.E.A. of data aggregated and used to train the AI model, staffing firms are able to reap the benefits of having everything in one platform, from front-office records to pay and bill data, and can glean insights to help run their business.

Staffing firms are already putting AI and the power of the platform into practice and seeing incredible gains. Those leveraging AI are seeing a 24% increase in speed to submittal, a 53% increase in redeployment, and 36% more placements per recruiter than those not using AI. In an industry where speed is everything and getting more value from existing candidates and employees is key, those improvements can make all the difference.

Art concluded his keynote address with his outlook on the future of AI-powered staffing technology, noting that this “S.E.A. of data” will make machine learning and AI truly useful and powerful for everyone working in the staffing industry. 

Check out more Engage highlights and resources on our Engage Boston Content Hub.

Read on for highlights and best practices shared at Engage Boston that you can put into practice today.

Winning new business and strengthening relationships

As our GRID 2024 Industry Trends Report confirmed, it’s all about winning new business this year. But how can staffing firms turn challenges into opportunities and differentiate themselves from the competition? 

At this year’s Engage Boston, leaders from staffing firms of all sizes and Bullhorn product experts shared tangible ways to pair technology with strategy to find and nurture client relationships.

Zelda Savage, Enterprise CSM for Bullhorn Analytics at Bullhorn, explained why you should focus less on ROI of client accounts and more on ROE: 

“Focusing on return on effort (ROE) can lead to a return on investment and enables you to move the needle without extra effort.”

Chris Choe, Vice President of Transformation at ZRG Partners, discussed why they made the transition to Bullhorn for Salesforce as a way to better serve their clients:

“We needed solutions to help accommodate our growth. What was holding us back was our tech strategy, so we went on a journey looking at different vendors to figure out the right approach. We landed on Bullhorn for Salesforce so we could leverage the Salesforce backbone and their marketplace. The embedded knowledge of Bullhorn made it an easy answer.”

Brian Salkowski, Chief Experience Officer at Impellam Group, explained why keeping up with the latest in technology advancements enables his firm to explore new business offerings and get ahead of the competition:

“As a business, we always need to iterate. Looking at the recruitment marketplace in the last 10 years, the amount of advancement in service offerings is night and day. If we’re not proactively assessing the marketplace and our business, we risk getting left behind.”

Providing an incredible talent experience

From tight talent pools and changing candidate expectations to fewer job orders and slowing demand, staffing firms are dealing with one of the most challenging markets in recent memory.

Speakers at Engage Boston shared best practices for delighting talent in innovative ways and making the most of candidate databases. These included using automation to help recruiters focus on relationships and streamlining the talent lifecycle.

Catherine Pearson, EVP and General Manager for Fastaff and Springboard, shared how a compliance strategy rooted in technology improves the candidate experience:

“It’s the work behind the work. Compliance isn’t a one-time event. It’s ongoing during the lifecycle of the candidate at each placement. Once you set that up and leverage automations and the Bullhorn talent platform, your candidates will get the right documents with the right information, and recruiters will have confidence in the process.” 

Patty Comer, Co-founder and Principal Partner of AccruePartners, explained why commitment and curiosity are key when working with automation and analytics:

“You have to be committed to wanting to advance how you work when you decide to engage automation and analytics. Be curious. Explore the technology options available and leverage experts at your vendors.” 

Leticia McAlexander, Vice President, Global Enterprise Applications & Enterprise Data at Allegis Group, emphasized the importance of meeting candidates where they are during the hiring process:

“We were able to show that we were leaving money on the table when candidates were dropping out of the process because they were not able to use their mobile phone, or there was no single sign-on, or there was a bad experience.”

Making the most of your tech stack to increase efficiency

A successful staffing firm is built on a foundation of internal alignment and a solid tech strategy. At Engage Boston 2024, we explored how firms are empowering their teams with technology, doubling down on data, and finding ways to move forward together.

Darrell Hunt, VP – North American Analytics at Manpower Group, shared why trust in your firm’s data is the key to unlocking its value:

“To give folks trust in the content you have, it’s all about creating value from insights. Insights turn value into action. You need to put the information in front of your stakeholders at the right time, and the more they use it, the more they start to trust that.”

Genine Wilson, President, Travel Nurse and Allied at Ingenovis, discussed key things to keep in mind as you build your data strategy:

“Don’t design your data strategy for the C-Suite first and the actual users last. Ask ‘What do you need,’ not ‘What do we think you need.’ If you don’t have transparency from the beginning, you will constantly be selling it to your teams.”

Kathryn Krueger, Chief Operating Officer at DeWinter Group, shared the benefits of being an early adopter of new technology:

“If you are an early adopter, you have the growing pains, but you also get a direct line to provide feedback. We built strong relationships and have great partners within Bullhorn and many of the Marketplace partners we work with. The biggest impact has been the end-to-end visibility. Front office to back office in one interface is huge!”

Will Hayes, COO at IDR, illustrated why partnering with your technology vendors is key to success with AI:

“There is risk with AI, but the reward far outweighs it. Work with your vendors who are using AI. They are using and understanding AI at a level we often aren’t. They won’t make AI decisions for you, but they will educate you and inform you. There is a learning curve, just like any tool, but this is a technology that isn’t going anywhere. The faster you start educating yourselves and your team, the more competitive you’re going to be.”

Thank you to all of the attendees, speakers, and sponsors who made Engage Boston an incredible and unforgettable experience. We can’t wait to see you next year at Engage 2025!

Did you miss us at Engage Boston 2024? Learn more about Engage and catch us in London, Sydney, or Boston!

Sound counterintuitive? In today’s hyper-competitive talent landscape, it’s tempting to try to squeeze every ounce of effort out of your recruiting team. But what if the real key to unlocking higher productivity and landing top talent lies not in working harder but in working smarter?

This isn’t a productivity hack. It’s a radical shift in mindset that encourages you to embrace technology as a strategic partner, not just a glorified filing cabinet. It’s about leveraging cutting-edge tools like generative AI and conversational AI chatbots to tackle the repetitive tasks that slow your recruiters and sales reps down. And it’s about freeing your team up for what they do best: building relationships and making meaningful connections with candidates and clients.

Imagine a world where AI handles the heavy lifting: automating lead distribution to double your conversion rate, eliminating the chokepoint of manual candidate outreach, and tapping into the power of generative AI to identify, pre-screen, and even engage with potential hires. 

This is the future of recruiting, and it’s happening now. 

Ready to revolutionize how you think about productivity in 2024? Here’s how.

Focus on getting your recruiting team to do less, not more

Let’s face it: staffing is full of repetitive tasks – they are, in many ways, the foundation of your business. It’s impossible to grow your staffing firm without tackling monotonous to-dos, like constant candidate outreach, tireless sourcing, qualifying, vetting, and reliable lead distribution.

But you wouldn’t build a house that’s just a foundation. You’ve hired skilled relationship architects to be your recruiters, and they thrive on the vital work of making connections, building the pillars of long-term client relationships, and opening the doors of opportunity for candidates. So you don’t want them to spend all their time in the basement pouring concrete. 

How do you free up your recruiters’ time to do what they do best—build the relationships your business thrives on—while ensuring the necessary but repetitive tasks still get done? The answer lies in AI. 

With generative AI integrated directly into your ATS/CRM, you’ll have this time-saving power directly at your team’s fingertips. This will help them seamlessly offload their most repetitive tasks.  

• Keep business moving with AI-powered tools built into your ATS. With integrations between generative AI, ChatGPT, and your ATS, your team can delegate monotonous work to AI, generate submittals automatically, summarize profiles with a click of a button, and create job orders in an instant, all without ever leaving your ATS.
• AI can craft candidate outreach like a pro. With generative AI, staffing and recruiting teams finally have a tool to help with the sheer volume of candidate outreach required to keep candidates engaged and happy. Your team can tap AI to craft time-consuming email sequences to passive candidates, rewrite job descriptions, and much more.
• Get help keeping clients happy without draining team resources. AI can also help with candidate-facing communications, from pitch decks to quarterly reports to regular check-ins. 

For more in-depth tips on how to use generative AI to save your teams’ time, check out the Ultimate AI Prompt Library for Staffing and Recruiting.

Tap into AI for your next hire

Most staffing executives associate growth with new hires. If you want to get more done and your current team is at capacity, you need to increase headcount, right? Not necessarily.

With Intelligent Digital Workers (IDWs), you can harness the power of machine learning, natural language processing, and AI to tackle your team’s busy work. IDWs can act like digital assistants, supporting your team and helping them make the most of their time – taking on the work that requires a human touch.

One example of an IDW is a smart chatbot. These aren’t the first-gen chatbots that trap your contacts in repetitive loops or get stuck in the helpless shrug of “I didn’t get that. Can you repeat your question?” 

Smart AI chatbots tap into advanced technology to learn from your conversations, making them savvy enough and dynamic enough to serve as the front line in your firm’s communication. Since smart chatbots can respond dynamically to unique situations, they’re capable enough to answer prospects’ questions, vet and qualify candidates, route them to the proper recruiter, and get them scheduled for a one-on-one meeting. 

This frees up your recruiters to focus on already qualified candidates. It also means that your IDWs can hold down the fort while your recruiters sleep, meaning your firm can be available 24/7 instead of just 9-5.

Implement AI lead distribution to boost your inbound placement rate

Staffing firms come in all shapes and sizes, with different specialties, skills, and niches. The one thing that every team has in common, no matter how seasoned, no matter how technologically savvy, is challenges with lead distribution.

Manual lead distribution has been the bane of the staffing industry’s existence as long as there have been leads to generate. For many firms, their lead distribution is less a system and more a spin of the roulette wheel. It often involves a series of emails that get routed to different team members. Even in the best of circumstances, in which lead owners are clearly defined within the process, manual lead distribution is riddled with delays. 

Lead notifications get lost in email inboxes between spam messages and meeting alerts, adding hours, maybe even days to your team’s response time. When it comes to staffing, the old adage is true: “Time kills all deals.” A slow lead notification process has a heavy price tag, costing you valuable minutes, candidate experience points, and top talent.

There’s a solution. With AI-powered lead distribution, your team can connect with candidates, convert consistently, and close faster. 

AI listens for all inbound leads, automatically reroutes data, and updates candidate records in ATS. It also intelligently distributes leads to the appropriate team member, following your firm’s rules. 

With real-time notifications sent directly to chat platforms like MS Teams or Slack, your team will never miss out on a lead or fumble that crucial first response with new prospects.

Prioritize redeployment and referrals to make the most of your existing database

Another way to rethink productivity is to maximize the return on the efforts that your team has already made. Your database is chock full of talent that you’ve already spent time on, learning their needs and building valuable relationships with them. 

Skimping on redeployment is like throwing away money – and adding unnecessary labor for your team. To leverage the full value of your team’s sourcing efforts and recover hidden revenue in your ATS, boost your redeployment efforts.  

• Track redeployment rate. Paying close attention to your redeployment rate is the first step towards understanding the efficacy of your re-engagement strategy. Less than six percent of firms track their redeployment rate, meaning there’s ample opportunity to beat out the competition just by understanding where you’re at and how you can improve.
• Maintain regular communication with employees. Keep your team top of mind with candidates at every stage of their journey with you. 
• Automated redeployment campaigns. Constant communication is tricky to achieve manually. Tap the automation to build out redeployment campaigns and rely on generative AI to help you improve and refine messaging.

Another way to maximize the efforts that your team has already put into your existing candidates is to prioritize referrals. Each happy candidate can introduce your recruiters to their talented friends. 

• Adopt or expand your referral program. A robust referral program turns all of your existing candidates into recruiters for you. This can exponentially increase the ROI of your recruiting efforts.
• Incentivize referrals. Offering dual referral bonuses (rewards to both referrers and the friends they bring in) creates a win-win situation for your existing candidates and the friends they bring in.
• Adopt an automated referral management program (ARM). An automated referral management program like Staffing Referrals can not only save you time but can bring more talent into the fold. ARMs can boost candidate referral rates by up to 57%.

Rethink your tech stack 

The staffing industry has gone through many tech revolutions in the past decade. Firms have gone from email-focused outreach to diversifying to text and social media touches to adopting a fully multi-channel approach. Firms have moved from spreadsheet-based data management to robust ATS/CRM systems. However, while most firms have drastically changed the tech they use, many haven’t changed the way they think about technology.

“Due to advancements in AI, clients and candidates are feeling the impact of a more personalized experience in all aspects of their lives,” said Whitney Gerrity, VP of Technology & Digital Innovation, LHH Recruitment Solutions. “This undoubtedly will lead them to expect the same elevated and personal experience when dealing with a staffing firm. Organizations can differentiate themselves by being early adopters of AI to provide clients and candidates with a more efficient, effective, and engaging process of finding the best match for their talent needs.”

Recruiting and sales teams tend to think of their tech as passive tools that they need to shoehorn into their existing workflows. This means that, while the tech may change, the way recruiters work and the way they implement technology often remains static. 

However, today’s leading-edge tech has become more collaborative. With tools like generative AI, your technology can be a creative partner in solving efficiency problems and remaining agile in an ever-changing market – but only if you and your teams think outside the box in terms of what you envision your tech can do. 

To truly change your relationship with tech, you have to change the way you think about what your technology can do for you. Explore these questions with your team:

• Where do you observe change resistance in your team regarding adapting to new technologies or changing their workflows?
• Explore the root of this resistance. What underlying beliefs or fears are tied to adopting new technology? How can leadership address the real employee needs that drive change avoidance?
• Identify passive tools in your tech stack. Like a passive employee, a passive tool waits to be told what to do. Explore how more active solutions, such as automation, artificial intelligence, or machine learning might improve your workflow. 
• What solutions have been in your tech stack for a few years? Are they holding you back or do they continue to evolve as you do? Examine critically how well they are working for you and if they are adapting to technological changes.
• Identify any gaps between your current tech strategy and your ideal. Are there any models in your peers’ tech stacks that you’d like to emulate? What is flowing? What could use an update?

After you explore these questions with your team, develop a concrete action plan for sparking a shift in your team’s mindset towards technology. See what innovative solutions arise.

Want more on how to accelerate your recruiting productivity? Check out our blog post on getting more done with Staffing Engine and Bullhorn.

In staffing and recruitment, your CRM is crucial for managing candidate and client interactions. However, outdated data can lead to inefficiencies and delays. A messy CRM makes tracking vacancies difficult, finding top talent challenging, and increases sorting time and back-office errors.

A well-maintained CRM ensures smooth recruitment and improved business development. Top-performing agencies digitize their data, as highlighted in the 2024 Bullhorn GRID report.

Check out the data hygiene guide
 

To achieve your goals and set your consultants up for success, it’s essential to clean your CRM. While it may seem daunting, I’ve broken down the process step by step for you so you can have a clean database in just 4 weeks:

Week 1: assessment and planning

Audit Current CRM Data: Commence by rigorously evaluating your current CRM setup. Sift through the existing database to pinpoint duplicate entries, outdated contacts who have left company records partial information and candidates who haven’t had a note in over 3 years.

*Holly’s Top Tip* Run each search and save the criteria as a favourite search. Any records that also fit this criteria will join the list, and you can refer back to this search at any point. When it’s time to clean the data, you will know where to begin!

5 searches you should run are:

1. Vacancies open longer than 90 days
2. Leads open longer than 30 days
3. Candidates with no note added in the past 3 years
4. Candidate with no email address and no phone number
5. Contact has no email address and no phone number

Define Data Standards and Protocols: Establish best practices for data entry, ensuring consistency and reliability across all records. Check your field mappings to see if any fields need to be made mandatory to ensure the correct data is added to the system; this really helps drive a data-first approach. You should also already have a data retention policy to govern the lifecycle of information within your CRM. Double-check that this is still up to date with legislation and relevant to your workflows.

Set a goal: Set clear, actionable objectives for the clean-up effort, considering the size and complexity of your database. If you are using automation, the time taken for the clean-up should be significantly reduced as the system can do large amounts of it for you. Allocate time to involve your team to help them understand why you are carrying out this process and how this will improve their experience using the CRM when doing business development and finding top talent. Most importantly, you need to define what will happen to each record that needs cleaning.

*Holly’s Top Tip* Make a list of the different records that need cleaning, e.g., Open leads older than 2 years, and then detail the recommended action, e.g., closing the lead. When you speak to other team members about what you will be doing and why, you will already be two steps ahead of how this process will work.

Approval process: I often encounter people who are scared to archive large amounts of data from the system. My advice is to help them understand that your business will have better results once the out-of-date records have been removed. You can always add a temporary status, e.g., ‘to be removed’, which may bridge the gap while you confirm system archiving from those not 100% sure.

Week 2: data cleansing and de-duplication

Remove Duplicate Records: Bullhorn Automation automatically provides you with an exportable of your duplicate records. If you don’t have access to Bullhorn Automation make sure your team are trained on how to report a duplicate record so it can be merged accordingly.

Remove outdated information: engage with candidates to refresh their profiles, ensuring all records reflect their current details. Archive data outside its retention period or remove it if it lacks relevance to present and future recruitment activities.

Action those saved lists: Now it’s time to start cleaning up those favourite searches.

Depending on the record type will determine what action you need to take, you may need to close old jobs, approve current placements or archive out-of-date clients and candidates.

*Holly’s Top Tip* If you have a large number of lists to clean, do them gradually so it isn’t too overwhelming!

Week 3: Process Optimisation and Automation

Review and optimise workflows: Analyse and refine your current recruitment workflows and get feedback from the sales team on how the system is delivering for them. Redefine these workflows emphasising speed and simplicity to further capitalise on getting results from your CRM and supporting your recruitment consultants.

Implement automation: Identify routine tasks that can be automated, such as sending pre-screen forms to collect information, adding relevant skills based on job title and automatically closing jobs or leads after certain time periods. Not forgetting, you can also create automated notifications and tasks to keep track of important dates, ensuring your recruitment process and compliance stay on course.

Test and refine new processes: after implementation of any new process or automation, methodically test the new automation and workflow improvements. Request feedback from your team and tweak the CRM or process where necessary to get the desired results.

Week 4: maintenance and future-proofing

Develop a continuous data maintenance plan: Establish a regular cycle for data quality audits so that CRM maintenance becomes an ingrained, ongoing practice rather than an annual chore.

Train the team on best practices: Ensure your team is well-versed in the new standards and processes. Encourage an environment where data quality is everyone’s responsibility, fostering a shared commitment to maintaining a pristine CRM.

Evaluate the cleanup and plan ahead: Review the progress made against your initial goals and address any outstanding concerns. Discuss strategies to keep your CRM at the core of recruitment technology and processes.

By following these steps, you will not only clean your CRM but also pave the way for a more streamlined and profitable recruitment process. But remember, the journey doesn’t end here, continue to foster the culture of proactive CRM maintenance so your team can see ongoing benefits.

Want to learn more about making the most of recruitment technology? Connect with Holly here.
 

Check out the data hygiene guide
 

Spring is here again, and it’s time for that annual tradition: spring cleaning. While you’re tackling your home, why not extend the same care to your Bullhorn database? Just like that overstuffed drawer or cluttered cupboard, your CRM can accumulate a lot of mess over time.

Here’s how you can effortlessly tidy up your Bullhorn data.
 

Check out the data hygiene guide
 

Why is cleaning my Bullhorn database important?

Understanding the importance of cleaning your Bullhorn CRM is crucial before diving in. Here are some reasons why it matters:

1. Tap into revenue opportunities

Inaccurate data leads to wasted time and missed revenue opportunities. When your data is clean and reliable, your team can work more efficiently when searching for suitable candidates. Your clients and candidates will enjoy a better experience and you’ll see improved redeployment and utilisation rates, and increased revenue.

2. Enable informed decision-making

Accurate reporting relies on trustworthy data. Cleaning up your database ensures that the insights you get from your reports are based on solid foundations, enabling better decision-making for your company.

3. Maximise the value of your Bullhorn and optimize your integrations:

The effectiveness of your Bullhorn integrations (for example, AI, VMS, or Bullhorn Automation) hinges on the quality of the underlying data. By cleaning up your database, you set the stage for successful integrations that actually boost your ROI.

What data should I clean up?

The specific data cleanup needs will vary for each company. However, here are some common areas you can focus on regardless of your size, industry or market:

1. Duplicate records

Duplicate records clutter your database and lead to inefficiencies. Identifying and merging duplicates streamlines your operations, improves reporting accuracy, and enhances automation outcomes.

2. Incomplete candidate records

Ensure that your candidate records contain essential contact information and CVs/resumes. Identifying records with missing data or outdated information improves the quality of your searches and enhances candidate engagement efforts.

3. Standardization of data

Consistent data formatting is essential: standardize data fields that are used for things like reporting, generative AI, emailing or Bullhorn Automation.

How can I clean up Bullhorn?

You have several options for cleaning up your Bullhorn database:

1. Manual updates

Time-consuming, manual updates can be effective if you have the resources available. But this is a really expensive way of doing it! Assigning consultants to clean up the database can also put you at risk of manual error and takes time and effort away from engaging with clients and candidates.

2. Custom projects

Consider outsourcing a custom data cleanup project to a third party. While this option may involve a higher cost, it can offer quicker results, particularly for one-time cleanup tasks or complex data issues.

3. Data management tools

The ultimate solution: invest in a data management tool that integrates seamlessly with Bullhorn. Products like Kyloe DataTools provide cost-effective solutions for ongoing data maintenance, including deduplication, gap identification, and mass data updates to 25+ Bullhorn entities.

The importance of a strong data foundation

A strong data foundation is paramount for success: from streamlining workflows and maximizing candidate redeployment and utilization rates, to improving decision-making, clean and reliable data forms the backbone of any effective recruitment strategy. Don’t overlook the importance of it when it comes to getting the most out of your Bullhorn investment.

Don’t neglect your Bullhorn database anymore. By understanding the importance of data cleanliness, identifying areas for improvement, and leveraging the right tools and strategies, you can ensure that your CRM is a valuable asset for your recruitment and staffing efforts in 2024 and beyond.

Remember, the worst thing you can do is nothing—so take action today to unlock the full potential of your Bullhorn database!

The best way to get started is to understand the current state of your database. Get a free deep dive into the quality of your Bullhorn data with Kyloe DataTools Lite and learn if your data is helping or holding you back.
 

Check out the data hygiene guide