LONDON — 14 March 2024 — Bullhorn, the global leader in software for the staffing and recruitment industry, today announced the launch of its new AI solution, Bullhorn Copilot. Bullhorn Copilot will span the entire Bullhorn platform, beginning with Copilot Starter, a set of generative AI capabilities embedded directly in recruiters’ ATS/CRM. Copilot Starter debuted at the Bullhorn Engage event in Sydney today ahead of an April product release. 

Like many others, the recruitment industry quickly adopted generative AI in 2023, with 58% of recruitment agencies in the UK and Ireland reporting that they have experimented with AI, according to a recent Bullhorn survey of recruitment professionals worldwide. While the adoption of AI is still in its earliest stages, agencies worldwide that experimented with AI in 2023 were already 31% more likely to see revenue gains than agencies that have not begun experimenting with AI. 

Bullhorn’s unparalleled access to data on recruitment outcomes fuels AI investment

Bullhorn Copilot will span the entire Bullhorn platform, with AI-driven capabilities embedded directly into recruiters’ workflows. Bullhorn’s approach will apply AI technology to three categories designed specifically to serve the needs of recruitment agencies: generative AI, source and match AI, and directive AI. 

• Generative AI will help recruiters write content and messages more efficiently and effectively.
• Source and match AI will help recruiters and sales teams find the best candidates and jobs, allowing them not only to identify candidates that match search terms the recruiter enters, as they do today, but also to predict which candidates are most likely to be placed successfully.
• Directive AI will help recruitment professionals identify the most appropriate next step in their work, informed by past successful outcomes.

Copilot allows recruitment professionals to harness the benefits of AI right in the workflows they’re already using every day. At the same time, they are able to benefit from the wealth of centralised data and industry expertise within Bullhorn: using prompts informed by Bullhorn’s understanding of recruiting, leveraging algorithms that learn from the successes of the most productive recruiters, and being able to apply these insights across all aspects of the business. With 4.4 million placements made in the Bullhorn ATS alone in 2023, machine learning capabilities deployed within the Bullhorn platform are trained on an unparalleled volume of real job placement outcomes. 

Generative AI capabilities are the first to launch, with additional source-and-match and directive AI capabilities to follow later in 2024 and 2025. 

Copilot Starter offers generative AI purpose-built for recruiting

Copilot Starter, the first set of these new capabilities, puts generative AI functionality directly into the ATS to allow recruiters to draft candidate communications faster and more thoroughly. Using data they have already entered into the system, recruiters can craft more accurate and relevant communications, instead of building their own AI prompts in a second application. Copilot Starter uses generative AI to help recruiters with the following tasks:

• Creating pre-screening questions
• Drafting rejection messages
• Pitching a candidate for a job
• Updating a candidate’s resume
• Summarising a candidate’s profile
• Creating a client pitch
• Improving a message to a candidate

Copilot supports integrations to multiple AI providers, allowing recruitment agencies to evaluate and choose the LLM provider that best suits their business needs. Bullhorn Copilot will unlock new levels of quality and productivity, allowing junior recruiters to operate at the level of seasoned professionals and enabling experienced recruiters to work faster with greater accuracy. 

Bullhorn has partnered closely with customers on early adoption of this functionality to understand where AI can add the most value for their agencies. IT and healthcare recruitment agency IDR has been using Copilot Starter for four months. “The job duties that I want employees to be focused on are more of a priority now, because they can hand off some administrative tasks to Copilot. With Copilot, they have their own assistant sitting at their desk with them every day,” said Will Hayes, Chief Operating Officer at IDR. “I’m starting to see improvements in ramp up time with staff and in the amount of training in some administrative areas that we don’t have to invest as many resources into.”

“Bullhorn’s approach to incorporating AI into our platform is deeply informed by nearly 25 years of experience serving the recruitment industry. We have the ability to build AI directly into recruiting workflows with the appropriate context to achieve the highest impact for both recruiters and talent,” said Matt Fischer, President and Chief Operating Officer at Bullhorn. “The extensive scope of recruitment data in our platform allows us to train AI to meet the specific needs of recruitment agencies, and we’re keeping compliance and privacy top of mind in the process.”

To learn more about Copilot Starter and Bullhorn’s vision for staffing and recruitment AI, visit the Bullhorn website.

About Bullhorn
For the past 25 years, Bullhorn has dedicated itself to building industry-leading, cloud-based software for the staffing and recruitment industry. Through partnerships with 10,000 customers globally, Bullhorn has built a vast knowledge base of recruitment best practices and deep domain expertise to help firms scale their businesses. Founder-led and headquartered in Boston, Bullhorn employs 1,400 people across 14 countries focused on delivering an incredible customer experience – its core mission. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow Bullhorn on Linkedin or X.

Media contact:
Kara Prone
Director, Global Content and Communications
Bullhorn
media@bullhorn.com

LONDON — 29 February 2024 —  Although 2023 was a challenging economic climate for the recruitment industry, agencies that adopted AI and automation technologies and improved productivity were more likely to see revenue gains, according to Bullhorn’s Global Recruitment Insights and Data (GRID) 2024 Industry Trends Report.

In 2023, the number of recruitment agencies reporting revenue growth declined for the first time in three years. Despite market headwinds, 58% of survey respondents still saw revenue increase. These high-performing recruitment agencies had something in common: they were further in their digital transformation journeys and shared a focus on increasing productivity and efficiency. 

High performers are experimenting with AI

Across the UK and Ireland, 58% of agencies began experimenting with AI in 2023. Agencies that saw revenue growth had higher adoption rates of AI tools. They were more than eight times as likely to be using AI to gather client requirements and more than three times as likely to be using it for shift scheduling and time tracking. Agencies that saw revenue growth were also more likely to be experimenting with AI to prepare candidates for assignments and keep in touch with them after they are placed. 

High performers used more advanced automations

Agencies that used automation for key activities were at least twice as likely to have seen revenue growth in 2023. These high-performing agencies used automation for tasks such as next job matching and tailored recruiter engagement, creating a smoother experience for all. Respondents who reported “excellent” success at winning new business were six times as likely to heavily leverage automation and were over 75% more likely to have automated tools for nurturing client relationships.

High performers drove more top-of-funnel activity

Agencies that saw the highest revenue gains used technology to move candidates through the recruitment process faster and ultimately make more placements. They did so in part by enhancing talent engagement and job classification to more quickly match candidates with the right roles. The highest-performing agencies placed candidates in less than 20 days and were also nearly three times more likely to improve their conversion rates.  

Getting ahead of the competition remains a priority in 2024

The top challenge for 2024 reported by survey respondents is uncertainty over the economy and future growth (cited by 63% of respondents), although 73% of agencies expect the economy to improve in 2024 and 56% expect their revenue to increase this year. Aligned with this outlook, the top priority of recruitment agencies this year is winning new business (cited by 44% of respondents), followed by improving the candidate experience (42%) and digital transformation (36%). Another challenge that gained increased importance this year was competition from online freelance/gig platforms, with 38% of respondents citing this as a top challenge, compared with just 11% in 2022.

“Last year was a challenging one for many agencies, but as we look ahead to a brighter future, there are some lessons that the entire recruitment industry should pay attention to,” said Gretchen Keefner, SVP, Global Enterprise Business at Bullhorn. “Recruitment agencies that make the most of technologies such as AI and automation are, and will be, in a better position to lower margins, increase productivity, and differentiate their businesses from the competition. Forward-thinking agencies are looking at technology to help candidates find the best-fitting roles, help clients get workers on the job faster, and win more clients.”

Read the full report here.

About the GRID Industry Trends Report

The 14th annual GRID Industry Trends Report is based on a multiple-choice, online survey of more than 1,400 staffing and recruitment professionals working across a variety of industries and around the globe, including North America, the UK and Ireland, Benelux, DACH, and APAC. The survey was conducted in late 2023.

About Bullhorn

For the past 25 years, Bullhorn has dedicated itself to building industry-leading, cloud-based software for the staffing and recruitment industry. Through partnerships with 10,000 customers globally, Bullhorn has built a vast knowledge base of recruitment best practices and deep domain expertise to help firms scale their businesses. Founder-led and headquartered in Boston, Bullhorn employs 1,400 people across 14 countries focused on delivering an incredible customer experience – its core mission. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow Bullhorn on Linkedin or X.

Media contact
Kara Prone
Director, Global Content and Communications
Bullhorn
media@bullhorn.com

BOSTON — 5 January 2024 — Bullhorn®, the global leader in software for the staffing and recruitment industry, today announced its acquisition of Mployee, a provider of Salesforce-based solutions for recruitment agencies, which is headquartered in the Netherlands. Mployee’s technology will accelerate Bullhorn’s vision to deliver a full, end-to-end, enterprise solution for Bullhorn customers using the Salesforce platform.

Mployee expands Bullhorn’s Salesforce-based enterprise offerings

Uncertainty over the economy, pricing pressure, and fewer job orders have all forced the recruitment industry to streamline internal operations as much as possible this year. Centralizing all recruitment activity on a single platform helps agencies gain those efficiencies. As a result, Bullhorn has seen a significant increase in adoption of the Salesforce platform, especially in Europe. It is now the largest independent software vendor (ISV) for Salesforce serving the recruitment industry. Bullhorn revenue on the Salesforce platform has grown at an average annual rate of nearly 30% since 2019. 

Bullhorn products on the Salesforce platform are currently used across 40 countries, including by four of the five largest global recruitment agencies. By combining Mployee’s middle-office capabilities with Bullhorn’s front-office, Bullhorn can offer a true enterprise-grade, end-to-end solution built on the Salesforce platform. This solution will help solve a myriad of front- and middle-office challenges inhibiting agencies’ growth and differentiation.

Together, Bullhorn and Mployee will help global recruitment agencies excel

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in customers using Bullhorn for Salesforce globally in recent years, and this acquisition will help us better support those agencies throughout the world in delivering more efficient middle-office operations,” said Matt Fischer, President and Chief Operating Officer at Bullhorn. “We’re excited at the potential of combining Mployee’s offerings with Bullhorn for Salesforce to deliver a full, end-to-end solution.”

“We’re very excited to join Bullhorn to further our efforts to drive the digital revolution of the staffing industry,” said Mployee CEO Karen Weebers. “Bullhorn has the resources to invest in Mployee’s product roadmap and bring our solutions to even more recruitment agencies.” 

About Bullhorn

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs nearly 1,500 people globally. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow Bullhorn on Linkedin or X.

About Mployee

Mployee is a leading front and mid office solution for the staffing and recruitment sector. The company has established a strong market position and is recognized as a rapidly growing technology company in the Netherlands by Deloitte Fast 50 and Main Software 50. Mployee has proven itself as an innovative player in the industry, with a commitment to optimizing workforce management.

For more information about Mployee and the solutions we offer, visit www.mployee.com.

Media contact

Kara Prone
Director, Global Content and Communications
Bullhorn
media@bullhorn.com

8 Nov. 2023 — LONDON — Contingent workers expect a smooth experience at every stage of the recruitment lifecycle, according to new data from Bullhorn, the global leader in software for the staffing and recruitment industry. Out of more than 1,000 contingent workers surveyed globally, 68% of contingent workers would work with their recruitment agency again, an increase from 57% of contingent workers surveyed in 2022. But there’s still opportunity to improve: meeting talent expectations at each stage of the hiring process stands to increase that loyalty significantly. 

Overall, contingent workers appear more satisfied with their experience working with recruitment agencies. In 2023, 57% of contingent workers are considering leaving temporary work for full-time employment if it is available, down from 64% in 2022. Still, with an increase in employers’ reliance on contingent labour and a persistent talent shortage, it’s more important than ever for recruitment agencies to exceed candidates’ expectations and increase the likelihood that they will want to work with an agency again. The GRID 2023 Talent Trends Report identified key areas in which agencies can do that by delivering a smooth recruitment process from start to finish.

Candidates’ experience throughout recruitment process impacts loyalty

Candidates were clear that at every stage of the recruitment process, a smooth experience would increase their likelihood of working with an agency by about 50%. At each of the stages below, a positive experience showed a corresponding increase in the likelihood that candidates would work with an agency again:

• Job search: 27% increase
• Interview process: 44% increase
• Filling out forms: 57% increase
• Job fit: 48% increase
• Logging and submitting time: 35% increase

Candidates expect frequent communication before and during assignments

Responsiveness is key to retaining talent: candidates are 73% more likely to keep working with a recruitment agency if they found their recruiter to provide prompt communication. Whether during the recruitment process or while on assignment, 60% of candidates expect to hear from their recruiter at least once a week; if recruiters meet this expectation, then 84% of candidates would work with them again. When it comes to candidates’ preferred communication channel, email still reigns supreme, with 44% of all candidates listing it as their top choice — although it’s important to pay attention to local preferences, as approximately one-quarter of candidates preferred WhatsApp or other app notifications in Europe. Meanwhile, 30% of candidates stopped working with a recruitment agency if they didn’t receive enough communication from their recruiter.

Fast and accurate job placement matters

When asked why they chose to work with a recruitment agency, 31% of workers said it was because the agency had access to the jobs they wanted, making this the top reason. Delivering on this perception pays off: there was a 48% increase in a worker’s willingness to work with an agency again if the recruiter found jobs that were a good fit. Speed is also a priority when talent choose to work with a recruitment agency. Nearly three-quarters of candidates (72%) indicated they want to be placed in a job within four weeks of their first contact with an agency – and 22% actually hope to be placed within a week. Most recruitment agencies fall somewhere in between these ranges, taking about two weeks, according to Bullhorn data. It is worth noting that 62% of candidates stopped working with a recruitment agency for reasons related to speed: either the process was taking too long or they found another job before the agency was able to complete the process. 

“As recruitment agencies strive to retain business and improve their margins, it’s more important than ever to cultivate a loyal community of satisfied talent,” said Andre Mileti, Product Evangelist, Talent Experience at Bullhorn. “The agencies that succeed in this climate will be those that can place candidates in the right jobs quickly, while offering a convenient, consumer-grade experience. And the recruiters who will be able to do this best are those who have the right talent-facing technologies accompanying their efforts.” 

Read the complete report here.

About Bullhorn
Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs nearly 1,500 people globally. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow Bullhorn on Linkedin or X.

Media contact:
Kara Prone
Director, Global Content and Communications
Bullhorn
media@bullhorn.com

LONDON, 28 February 2023 – On a global level, while most recruitment agencies saw growth in 2022, certain practices were more likely to separate those who saw the highest gains in revenue from those who suffered revenue losses. Agencies with the highest revenue gains were twice as likely to have digitised their data as those with the greatest revenue losses and nearly twice as likely to use automation heavily.

More than two-thirds (69%) of recruitment agencies in the UK and Ireland have begun implementing a digital transformation strategy, according to Bullhorn’s Global Recruitment Insights and Data (GRID) 2023 Industry Trends Report. This is compared to a global average of 77%.

However, many are still in the early stages. Only 25% said they use self-service technologies such as chatbots to streamline operations and engage candidates, and only 14% heavily leverage automation throughout their business.

Seven in ten (70%) recruitment agencies in the UK and Ireland reported an increase in revenue last year, putting them above the global average, while a slightly larger number (74%) expect to improve performance again in 2023.

Winning new business and acquiring candidates are equal priorities

With continued economic uncertainty and intensifying competition, recruitment agencies in the UK and Ireland are splitting their priorities between winning new clients and acquiring candidates. Both are evenly cited as the top priorities at 39% each, followed by digital transformation at 34%.

Despite feeling optimistic about their business growth prospects, recruitment agencies continue to face client-related challenges. The most pressing is an increase in job requisitions that are too specialised or demanding (according to 19% of respondents), followed by a lack of communication from clients (16%), and a reduction in overall job requisitions (15%).

Engaging existing talent leads to higher revenue gains

For recruiters in the UK and Ireland, candidate acquisition remains a challenge: nearly two-thirds (65%) cite the talent shortage as a top challenge in 2023, compared to the global average of 56%. However, global agencies that followed certain best practices in engaging candidates were 30% or more likely to report revenue gains in 2022. These best practices include engaging with passive candidates in the agency’s database, soliciting referrals from candidates, and using candidates’ preferred methods of communication, among others.

The two practices most correlated with success were redeploying candidates and database utilisation. Globally, the agencies that lined up the highest proportion of workers for new roles before the end of their assignments and those that most frequently filled a position with a candidate already in their database were twice as likely to report revenue gains last year and 50% more likely to expect gains in 2023. However, fewer than 10% of agencies use automation to redeploy candidates.

Leah McKelvey, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development & Enterprise Strategy at Bullhorn, comments: 

“Recruiters in the UK and Ireland bounced back last year after a difficult 2021, and agencies appear optimistic about continuing that growth trajectory throughout 2023 despite the current economic uncertainty. As the labour market dynamics continue to shift and increase competitive pressure, it is critical for agencies to have modern systems in place that deliver a connected candidate and client experience if they want to stand out.”

“As our research shows, recruitment agencies in the UK and Ireland ranked winning new business and acquiring new candidates equally as their top priority. The firms that are delivering on both fronts and outpacing the industry on revenue growth are those that are advancing in their digital transformation journey. By adding more automation and self-service capabilities to the mix, these agencies are ultimately freeing up more time to spend with their candidates and clients.”

Read the full report here.

-ENDS-

About Bullhorn

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the recruitment and staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their recruitment processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,600 people globally.

To learn more, visit bullhorn.com or follow @BullhornUK on Twitter.

In the midst of a persistent talent shortage, success at redeploying talent remains a top priority, as two-thirds (65%) of UK’s temporary and contract workers are currently thinking about moving to a permanent role, according to Bullhorn’s survey of more than 400 temporary and contract workers across UK’s professional, healthcare, and commercial sectors. Close to half of survey respondents would not commit to redeploying using the same agency – even if it can provide the right jobs. Therefore, providing the best possible recruitment experience is key to retaining access to the available talent.

When it comes to choosing a recruitment agency to engage with, there’s an opportunity for agenciesto establish a lasting relationship by meeting talent’s expectations. The top priorities for temporary and contract workers include access to desirable jobs (31%), a good reputation (22%), and positive past experiences (16%). Over half of the respondents (67%) also stated that they want the flexibility to work remotely in any assignment, while 94% expressed interest in participating in any reskilling, upskilling, or certification programs offered by the recruitment agency.

Talent also want recruiters to reach out more frequently and proactively with opportunities. Close to two-thirds (64%) said they want to hear from recruiters at least once a week when looking for new opportunities. Email is the most popular channel for communication (52%), followed by phone (22%), text (10%), LinkedIn (8%), and app notification (8%). Identifying talent’s communication preferences has an impact: when recruiters don’t reach out via the preferred communication channel, respondents were twice as likely to say they wouldn’t work with that agencies again.

Timeliness is also a common concern, with (30%) of temporary and contract workers reporting that they have abandoned a job search because the recruitment process simply took too long. In addition, 16% reported that recruiters do not respond to their questions within a reasonable timeframe. The value of timely communication goes beyond the hiring process: workers who experience responsiveness while on assignment are six times as likely to say they’ll work with the agency again. Furthermore, three in ten (28%) stated that they have experienced a drop-off in responsiveness from the recruitment agency once their assignment began, and a similar number (24%) reported that recruiters didn’t respond proactively when an opportunity fell through.

Andre Mileti, Product Evangelist, Talent Experience, Bullhorn says: “Offering consumer-grade experiences through the entire talent lifecycle is more important now than ever before in securing positive outcomes for recruitment agencies. That could mean ensuring your reputation is stellar on Google and other rating sites, delivering intuitive onboarding and employment services, or providing authentic value in the form of timely communication and relevant job opportunities. These simple tactics, if done correctly, will deliver exponential return. It starts and ends with examining the entire talent journey, defining those moments that matter, and ensuring your efforts result in satisfied employees. You’ll know you’ve succeeded when ratings and reviews improve, time-to-fill decreases, and referral and redeployment rates increase.”

View the full survey results here.

About Bullhorn

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,400 people globally. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com/uk or follow @Bullhorn on Twitter.

Media contact:

Definition Agency

bullhorn@definitionagency.com

The aggregated data on hundreds of recruitment firms across Bullhorn’s global customer base was collected to celebrate the milestone of one billion total tasks automated using Bullhorn’s technology. It also coincides with the release of Bullhorn’s chatbot, a branded digital communication tool that uses automation and AI to provide information to talent at their own convenience, at any time of day, through an integration with recruitment firms’ websites.

According to the data analysed, the average recruitment firm currently automates over 20,000 emails, texts, updates, notes, and tasks each year. Cumulatively, this represented an estimated savings of 2.5 million employee hours in 2021 alone, equal to freeing up three hours every day per recruiter.

The aggregated data also shows contract and temp recruitment firms that use automation redeploy 20% more of their talent when an assignment ends. Similarly, those that use automation for talent communication report 20% higher click rates and 30% higher open rates than the industry averages.

Jason Heilman, SVP, Automation and AI at Bullhorn, says: “One billion automations is a huge milestone for the recruitment industry, Bullhorn, and the companies that leverage automation to drive their business. We are thrilled to have given recruiters so much more time to focus on building relationships and connecting people with opportunities.

“The adoption of automation has accelerated in tandem with some of the most turbulent market conditions in recent memory. During the pandemic, digital transformation presented much-needed opportunities for recruitment businesses as circumstances forced them to cut costs and operate as efficiently as possible.

“Today, automation can take on an incredible range of tasks, and we are constantly working on finding more ways it can further enhance the recruiter and talent experience. It already represents a way of overcoming common pain points, from poor communication to time-consuming scheduling and regulatory compliance, and the data clearly shows that firms that embrace it have a competitive edge.”

According to Bullhorn’s findings, the three most common use cases for recruitment automation are:

1. Talent engagement: The number one reason that candidates become frustrated with recruiters is poor communication. Automation enables recruiters to manage communications more effectively and keep candidates informed at every step of the process. Many firms already automate emails, surveys, and texts to talent.
2. Data health: Recruiters automate several data management and compliance functions, including anonymising records and updating job, company, and contract status for all the records within the applicant tracking system (ATS).
3. Internal operations: Automating simple tasks within the ATS like creating notes and alerts gives recruiters back valuable time to spend on building candidate and client relationships.

These use cases also help to support recruitment firms’ ability to adopt Connected Recruiting, a methodology developed by Bullhorn that empowers staffing firms to engage talent at every stage of the talent lifecycle. By leveraging Connected Recruiting best practices, staffing firms can ensure an incredible experience for their talent, create an ever-growing and consistently engaged talent pool, and lower their cost of talent acquisition. Automation plays a key role supporting activities throughout this cycle.

Learn more about how Bullhorn customers are using automation.

About the dataset

All metrics are based on the aggregated activity of 850+ Bullhorn Automation customers, spanning 60,000 active users, in compliance with all data protection and privacy regulations.

About Bullhorn

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,400 people globally. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow @Bullhorn on Twitter.

Media contact:

Definition Agency

bullhorn@definitionagency.com

BOSTON — July 15, 2022 — Bullhorn®, the cloud computing company that helps staffing and recruiting organisations transform their businesses, today announced that it has acquired SourceBreaker, a successful Bullhorn Marketplace partner and fast-growing provider of market-leading search and match solutions. SourceBreaker’s intuitive solutions increase recruiters’ productivity and help find the best talent across internal and external databases. The acquisition will further enhance Bullhorn’s portfolio of solutions for talent engagement across the entire candidate lifecycle, from sourcing to engagement, onboarding, and redeployment.

Staffing and Recruitment Firms Need Solutions To Meet the Talent Shortage

The talent shortage is the top challenge facing global recruitment industry professionals in 2022, according to half of the 4,000 professionals surveyed in Bullhorn’s “GRID 2022: Recruitment Trends Report.” Consequently, candidate acquisition was named as the top priority by survey respondents, and a quarter of respondents indicated that sourcing candidates is their top recruitment challenge. As the talent shortage persists, recruiters need the ability to find candidates as effectively and efficiently as possible in order to stay competitive.

With Over 600 Customers, SourceBreaker Helps Firms Achieve Better Results

SourceBreaker has helped customers increase revenue and find scarce talent by improving the efficiency and productivity of their recruitment and business development professionals. SourceBreaker enables recruiters to easily create expanded search queries across internal and external databases to identify candidates who match the jobs they’re trying to fill, and customers have seen impressive results: over 100% increase in relevant candidates, one to two hours saved per recruiter per day, and three times as many opportunities for every candidate.

Bullhorn and SourceBreaker customer Harvey Nash increased placements and revenue generated per recruiter by using SourceBreaker to search for candidates across multiple sources at a time and doubling the number of relevant candidates shown.

“Using SourceBreaker allows our recruiters to spend more time building personal relationships with candidates and less time searching online for profiles,” said Andy Heyes, Managing Director at Harvey Nash.

Together, Bullhorn and SourceBreaker Will Continue To Help Firms Grow Faster

“We’re committed to helping solve our customers’ most pressing challenges, and at the top of the list right now is finding talent in today’s tight labor market. We believe the addition of SourceBreaker’s solutions to our portfolio will help staffing firms meet this challenge head-on by increasing recruiters’ productivity and ultimately boosting their fill rates,” said Matt Fischer, President and COO of Bullhorn. “As a successful Marketplace partner, SourceBreaker already serves hundreds of Bullhorn customers, and we look forward to bringing their solutions to even more of our customers.”

“We created SourceBreaker to change the way recruiters search,” said Steve Beckitt, founder and CEO of SourceBreaker. “Now more than ever, our products can help expand the pool of talent and identify better matches between candidates and jobs. We’re incredibly excited to expand our reach by joining forces with Bullhorn, and we’re all looking forward to joining the team.”

The SourceBreaker senior leadership team, including Steve Beckitt and Adam Dale, will remain with the company, and SourceBreaker will continue to serve customers who use CRM and ATS solutions other than Bullhorn.

About SourceBreaker

Founded in London in 2014, SourceBreaker is an award-winning Search & Match technology for recruiters. The business was created to change the way recruiters search and today, their technology helps to grow over 600 businesses around the world. To learn more, visit www.sourcebreaker.com.

About Bullhorn

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,400 people globally. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow @Bullhorn on Twitter.

Media Contact

Kara Prone

Director, Global Content and Communications

Bullhorn

media@bullhorn.com

LONDON, 3rd March 2022 — The last year saw a dramatic rise in the number of staffing and recruitment businesses employing a digital transformation strategy, according to Bullhorn’s 2022 Global Recruitment Insights and Data (GRID), a survey of more than 4,000 recruitment professionals.

Eighty-one percent of recruitment firms in the UK now have a digital transformation strategy in place, compared to 43% a year ago. Digital transformation adoption has more than tripled since 2019 when just 21% of firms reported the presence of a digital transformation strategy.

Matt Fischer, President and COO at Bullhorn, says: “The leading staffing and recruiting firms today are focused on digital transformation to unlock new levels of productivity and truly transform the way they interact with their talent and clients. With the candidate experience at a premium, firms are leveraging automation and self-service to create talent journeys that match modern expectations and put more people to work”.

Other key GRID 2022 findings:

The industry rebounded in a major way in 2021

2020 was a historically challenging year for UK recruitment agencies, with 44% reporting year-over-year revenue losses. For most agencies, 2021 represented a tremendous rebound. Three out of five respondents reported revenue gains in 2021 and just one out of seven reported year-over-year losses.

Firms specialising in hiring for consultancy roles (85%) and IT roles (77%) reported the strongest performance in 2021, with more than three-quarters of respondents in each group reporting a YoY increase in revenue. Government recruitment firms were on the other end of the spectrum with just 27% of respondents reporting YoY revenue gains from 2020.

Candidates dominate the agenda in 2022

The talent shortage is once again the top challenge for firms in 2022, cited by 40% of respondents. Firms cited candidate acquisition as the top priority for the year, with employer branding and winning new clients rounding out the top three.

Covid-19’s impact is still felt

The impact of Covid-19 on the jobs market, which was last year’s top challenge, is still the number-two challenge for UK recruiters in 2022. Firms cited it as a contributing factor to the talent shortage as well as the top obstacle to providing an incredible candidate experience. It does not dampen their revenue outlook  for 2022 however; two-thirds (69%) of UK recruitment firms expect revenue to increase in 2022.

To read more about Bullhorn’s Global Recruitment Insights and Data research, explore the GRID results.

About Bullhorn

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,300 people globally.

Media contact:

Bob McHugh

Senior Manager, Global Content and Research, Bullhorn

bob.mchugh@bullhorn.com

Investment will help global staffing agencies of all sizes accelerate their digital transformation and scale without friction

BOSTON – NOVEMBER 09, 2021 – Bullhorn®, the cloud computing company that helps staffing and recruiting organizations transform their businesses, today announced that it has acquired cube19, a longstanding Bullhorn Marketplace partner and the provider of analytics and reporting solutions for the Bullhorn platform. This acquisition is the latest major investment by Bullhorn in helping staffing agencies around the world to transform their businesses in an era of ubiquitous digitization. The combination of cube19’s analytics suites and Bullhorn deliver real-time, actionable insights to business executives and operational leaders to help them achieve highly scalable growth.

The recruitment industry is undergoing a massive shift towards digitization accelerated by the unprecedented increase in technology reliance necessitated by a distributed and frequently remote workforce, as well as rising expectations from clients and talent alike. C-suite executives at staffing firms are grappling with not only navigating through periods of intense change and uncertainty, but also on maximizing financial ROI and propagating smart operational improvements that are well aligned with an organization’s long-term growth strategy.

cube19’s suite of solutions are uniquely designed to provide dynamic, activity-level metrics to manage at any level of the organization: recruiter, team, office or region. cube19’s highly usable and accessible interface makes powerful reporting easy to generate for non-technical users, which results in better performance on the front lines while also providing macro-level insight that helps leaders make better business decisions. Ultimately, by enabling staffing companies to grow their revenue quickly while growing their costs more slowly, cube19 facilitates highly scalable growth. Additionally, cube19’s offerings are purpose-built for staffing agencies using the Bullhorn platform.

The acquisition of cube19 comes at a pivotal moment in the trajectory of the industry as a whole, and addresses a critical need among senior staffing leadership. Through research conducted by Bullhorn, staffing agency executives unanimously voiced a desire for truly real-time, actionable business intelligence and reporting that could help them connect their financial decisions to operations and delivery optimization and connect functions and business units towards improved service levels and growth. The combination of cube19 and Bullhorn provides exactly that.

“I’m excited to welcome Dan, Joe, Nick, and the cube19 team to the Bullhorn family,” said Matt Fischer, president and COO of Bullhorn. “This joining of our companies feels very right in large part due to the amazing culture that Dan and his team have built, and how well it aligns with Bullhorn’s focus on creating an incredible customer experience. The cube19 team builds analytics products that customers love and pair those with excellent service, and I know they’ll fit in perfectly at Bullhorn. I’m also thrilled to work with Dan as he leads the development of new purpose-built analytics products in the near future, meeting our customers’ needs and wants in the new world of work.”

“When we started cube19,” said Dan McGuire, founder and CEO of cube19, “we set out to transform the way staffing companies operated and I’m incredibly proud of how the cube19 team has turned that vision into reality. Since we became a Bullhorn Marketplace partner in 2013, we’ve had tremendous success helping Bullhorn customers achieve highly scalable growth and we’re all very excited to join the Bullhorn team as we continue that mission together.”

cube19’s executive team, including Dan McGuire, Joe McGuire, and Nick Graves-Morris, will join the Bullhorn leadership team in key positions, leading the company’s growing investment in real-time business intelligence across its global customer base.

Terms of the transaction will not be disclosed.

About cube19

cube19 is the business intelligence platform of choice for the global staffing industry, delivering easy to understand, real-time, actionable insights to every employee from desk level to C-suite. Staffing companies use cube19 to deliver highly scalable growth by optimising their two most important assets – their people and their data.

About Bullhorn

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 10,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,200 people globally. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow @Bullhorn on Twitter.

Media Contact

Laura Hillier
Marketing Director, EMEA
Bullhorn
laura.hillier@bullhorn.com