Global Changemakers

Time to Make a Change

The Planet Group was founded in 2009 during a difficult time for the economy. In order to get the business up and running, Planet chose a lightweight recruitment platform that provided basic functionality at a reasonable cost. However, as the organization grew and added new brands, Ashley and her team realized that their technology was not built to grow along with them.

The Planet Group wanted to leverage tools that could truly help the organization. Many of their team members had previously used Bullhorn and strongly recommended it. Through a detailed vetting process, including referrals and demos, the team decided on Bullhorn as the best solution to streamline their technology and expand their brand.

Roadblocks to Progress

In order to successfully make the transition to Bullhorn, The Planet Group utilized a team of implementers who understood the importance of the change. Planet consistently communicated the improvements in progress to ensure that everyone was kept up-to-date and had input throughout the process.

Leadership expressed concerns about a lull or decrease in business activity during the transition to the new technology. Ashley and her team worked diligently with leadership to eliminate any possible disruptions to business flow and productivity. She made sure that everyone had a seat at the table when making decisions, from Sales and Recruitment to HR and Accounting, across the global regions they served.

Reaping the Benefits

By changing their technology, the Planet Group sought to increase the quality and speed of delivery. They analyzed production differences between their old system and Bullhorn, including streamlined processes and workflows, the volume of jobs and placements added to ensure they made positive impacts. When they started to analyze their success rate after the first 3-6 months, they saw significant improvements across the board.

In the three years since the change, Planet developed their own ongoing educational materials to highlight key differences and to minimize any areas of difficulty. The implementation team still meets regularly to help the organization leverage the Bullhorn suite and Marketplace partners in the most efficient way.

Time to Make a Change

When Justin first joined MATRIX, they were using a few different systems that they tried to fit together, making it difficult for both current employees and new team members to be set up for success. They began looking for a solution that would truly help their employees and provide the data the team needed to plan appropriately and see what was going on within the business.

From candidate ownership to documentation to recruiter expectations, lack of process allowed some employees to be highly successful but didn’t maximize the potential output that an organization has. With 13 different offices, it was crucial to get each office on the same process to create consistency across the organization.

Roadblocks to Progress

The main challenge that MATRIX faced when navigating the change to Bullhorn was adoption across the organization – getting employees to use the technology most effectively, which would lead to better results on the recruiter level and higher performance for the company overall. For example, documenting notes correctly within Bullhorn was crucial so that the team could get a true representation of what was actually happening within the business, but many recruiters weren’t used to documenting all of their information in one system.

Reaping the Benefits

Since making a change towards digital transformation, the MATRIX team has been able to improve placement rates and adopt a more agile approach to their business now that the team is better connected to each other with increased visibility into the entire recruitment process.

But most importantly, the team is better set up for success and is already seeing the results of delivering a top-notch candidate and client experience: MATRIX was awarded the Best of Staffing Diamond Award for Client and Candidate Satisfaction from ClearlyRate

Time to Make a Change

Oliver joined the Trust in SODA team when they were already established Bullhorn users, but he quickly realized that the team was not using Bullhorn to its full capacity. This made it difficult for Oliver and the rest of the team to successfully recruit and place candidates.

Every consultant had their own spreadsheet for their book of business, including tracking clients, open jobs, or qualified candidates. With everyone on a different system, visibility across the team suffered, making it difficult to start meaningful connections with candidates and clients.

Oliver wanted to market correctly to candidates and clients, shying away from spamming communications out in favor of proactive and accurate outreach instead. But, with a lack of quality data in the system, he knew he would have to be proactive to ensure the business—and his career—could grow.

Roadblocks to Progress

After diving into the analytics and metrics to gain insight on how the team used Bullhorn, Oliver met with key stakeholders across the business to get buy-in and provide the vision for how Bullhorn could look if everyone adopted key best practices. There were also duplicate records in the system, so Oliver and the team needed to clean up the data and show the team how to approach adding records in the future.

After leadership was on board with the changes, Oliver had to tackle the next challenge of getting everyone on the same page. Oliver, working out of the Dublin office, traveled to the other offices in London and Manchester to hold training sessions for more than 100 consultants. He created resources to showcase the vision of what their system could look like if they implemented the much-needed changes and adopted a new way of adding and managing data.

Reaping the Benefits

Trust in SODA focuses on measuring the quality of their contacts, clients, and candidates within each geographic area, rather than just the quantity. Previously, contacts were being added into the system but then were never able to be reached because of inaccurate data. Now, the team is able to more closely measure and report on their communications since they are qualified, relevant connections.

As a result of championing this change to better usage and adoption of Bullhorn, Trinnovo Group, Trust in SODA’s parent company, named Oliver their 2019 MVP. The entire organization voted to award Oliver with this title after his dedication to training the team on best practices and ensuring ongoing success with Bullhorn.

Time to Make a Change

The Silver Swan team was in the process of building their own integrated job board when they realized it would not integrate properly with their CRM at the time. Pair this with their existing concerns over reporting capabilities and poor customer service around those reporting concerns, and Philippa’s team knew they had to make a change.

The goal, aside from getting on a system that would work with their new job portal, was to get everyone on a platform that was easy for the consultants to use and that would provide accurate reporting and insights into the business.

Consultants were using different excel spreadsheets alongside the CRM, making it difficult to find the data they needed. Silver Swan works with clients all over the world, with a majority of clients local to London or Dubai, so getting everyone on the same platform with consistent information – that they could report on – was crucial.

Roadblocks to Progress

Philippa’s main roadblock when making the change was getting everyone on board with the timing and reducing any negative effects of downtime. Silver Swan was already developing their jobs integration and couldn’t put the project on hold.

There was also a concern with making sure their valuable data was successfully migrated from their current system to Bullhorn. Since accessing improved reporting was a key driver in making a change in the first place, data accuracy throughout the change process was vital.

Reaping the Benefits

Since making a change, Silver Swan has been able to fully utilize their job portal integration and can accurately report on key business metrics using ATS/CRM data. They are able to contact Support services efficiently, getting a quick resolution to their questions. With the inclusion of Textkernel, they can conduct more targeted candidate searches and ensure they are making the best connections between candidates and clients.

Even better: Silver Swan has been more successful in converting current clients, the team is able to get more done each day, and the consultants have seen an increase in candidate placements.

Time to Make a Change

Jason joined Per Sé Group after Chris O’Neill, CEO and President, recognized the importance in investing in technology in order to remain at the forefront of recruitment technology and innovation. Chris knew that efficiency and productivity for the entire organization would improve if the team adopted better ATS/CRM practices and incorporated more Bullhorn Marketplace partners into their technology stack.

With this commitment to technology, Jason began by focusing on the Per Sé technology inefficiencies and evaluating the business’ core processes. From operations to sales and recruiting to back-office, Jason quickly discovered key areas of the business – such as productivity, user experience, and revenue – that could be further improved using Bullhorn Marketplace partners geared towards those goals.

Roadblocks to Progress

For Jason, there were two key challenges in the way of getting the most out of Bullhorn and the new Marketplace partners: time and adoption.

Since the entire team at Per Sé Group is passionate about technology, their eagerness to adopt many new tools at once often worked against them and they found themselves slowed by the drive to do everything.

Second, Jason knew that getting the team to adopt the new practices and technologies would be key to ongoing success. Having used tools in the past that were not up to par, Jason focused on ensuring the Marketplace partners were the right ones for the team.

Through discussions with key stakeholders, user feedback, and ongoing training classes, Jason’s team has been able to keep the changes moving forward rather than getting stuck or stalling progress.

Reaping the Benefits

Since successfully navigating the change towards better ATS/CRM adoption, plus adding new Bullhorn Marketplace partners to their tech stack, the team has seen numerous improvements across the business, and the Per Sé team already has ideas for what to focus on next.

Not only had the team seen gains in revenue, efficiency, and key recruitment metrics like starts, but Jason has also noticed an improvement in his team’s user experience. Overall, the business has doubled down on its dedication to technology and it’s clearly paying off. With the core platform and tools in place, Per Sé Group can now focus on growing the business and continuing to provide a great experience to their candidates and clients.

Time to Make a Change

As an executive search firm, Ellig Group utilizes its existing network for 50-60% of its candidate outreach, so the company relies heavily on its database for key insights and search results in just a few clicks. However, up until 2018, the team used a legacy system that slowed efficiency to a halt: they had to conduct searches manually, sending to a mailing list was cumbersome, and a lack of new features or innovation meant the search process wouldn’t ever get easier.

Joy Lillis, the Managing Director of Ellig Group, and her team needed to be able to conduct robust searches, communicate effectively to their customers through a centralized portal, and generate reports to better understand areas for improvement— capabilities that their system just didn’t have. Joy used Invenias by Bullhorn at a prior job and knew that it was the solution that fit executive search and their analytical needs the best.

Roadblocks to Progress

The first obstacle Joy encountered during the change process centered around cost, so she focused on showing the CEO the benefits of a new system. To prove the necessity for a change, she conducted a cost ratio analysis and compared the features of their old system to what they’d have access to with Invenias by Bullhorn.

Second, Joy and the rest of the team needed to adopt the new system and be trained to use it. Ellig Group used the power user approach: Joy and one other colleague answered questions and provided hands-on training to encourage adoption.

With a steep learning curve between the old and new systems, it was crucial to get everyone acquainted with the new system to ensure ongoing success. So far, they’ve found that new hires ramp up quickly. They’ve also discovered that everyone has adopted the system well since making the initial transition.

Reaping the Benefits

Ellig Group made the change in order to win more searches and decrease time to close—both of which they’ve been able to achieve. They can now conduct deeper research into why they win searches using Invenias by Bullhorn’s reporting functionality. The customer portal has played a key part in streamlining the search process and providing a better client experience.

Furthermore, Joy’s team has improved their marketing efforts with targeted mailing lists, cut down on time wasted, and they’ve streamlined the entire recruitment process. These improvements help Ellig Group, but more importantly, help their clients provide the best candidates for their open searches.

Time to Make a Change

When Tjeerd joined Intro Personeel, a brand within Florys Group, as a recruiter, he saw that the need for change had existed for years. The organization worked with UBplus, a remuneration package, which also functioned as an ATS/CRM. The company had grown and their solution no longer satisfied their needs.

The team at Intro Personeel lost a lot of time on manual tasks, including preparing CVs and searching for candidates and vacancies. They wanted to make better use of their own database. With seven branches, it was crucial to ensure that candidates and vacancies were shared between the various branches. Coupled with the growing size of Intro Personeel, it was clear that it was time to switch to a more robust recruitment solution.

Roadblocks to Progress

The next step was to get this change on the strategic agenda. After his promotion to Director of Innovation, Marketing, and IT, Tjeerd worked on creating support among key end-users. Luckily, Intro Personeel mainly consists of junior employees who are hungry to improve. In addition, most of Tjeerd’s colleagues realized that there was now an enormously high mental workload. For many recruiters, candidate and client data lived only in their heads, which created a lot of pressure on the rest of the business.

It was also important to include all the different suppliers throughout the change process. To make sure this went well, Florys created a steering committee. The steering committee took care of the implementation of Bullhorn with both internal and external stakeholders. This included an external IT partner that could provide valuable and independent advice. From web developers to the back office team, eight to ten technology partners came together for a kick-off to discuss the progress of the project to ensure a successful implementation. And with success: all partners involved in the original movement towards change are still part of the tech stack at Florys. No one said goodbye; Bullhorn was just an important extra piece of the puzzle.

Reaping the Benefits

Since the change towards digital transformation, Florys can see the positive effects within the entire organization. Recruiters have more time because of the reduction in administrative tasks and turnover is declining. With various integrations through the open API of Bullhorn, they can generate even better management reports.

The organization is currently exploring new pieces of the puzzle: marketing automation and candidate experience tools that can contribute to improving services. The team is working more efficiently and therefore has more time for things like building real relationships with candidates.

Time to Make a Change

Having been in the recruitment industry for 30+ years, Paul has a good understanding of what his firm, The Panel, needs to be successful, including efficient employees and reliable, future-proofed technology. However, their old system didn’t set The Panel up for success. Between subpar customer service and outdated technology, Paul knew they needed to transition towards better technology.

While attending RAE UK, Paul quickly saw that cloud-based technology could ensure his team would achieve their business goals while having the flexibility and freedom to work from anywhere. Their technology at the time utilized remote access technology, which Paul found limiting. In order to continue to grow the business, Paul knew a cloud-based system was the natural next step for his team.

Roadblocks to Progress

Learning and adopting a brand new system presented its own set of challenges for Paul’s team, including determining key differentiators between the old and new platforms to ensure that each user was able to successfully adopt the new way of doing things. This required investing time and resources into training employees on best practices. To keep the momentum going, Paul’s team still holds weekly training sessions to ensure ongoing success with Bullhorn.

Another key roadblock to overcome was the price difference between The Panel’s legacy system and new technology. Bullhorn was more expensive than their previous solution, so a thorough cost analysis was necessary. Knowing that a) the business had to move to the cloud eventually and b) “you get what you pay for” helped make this decision a bit easier for senior management, and once everyone saw the benefits of embracing digital transformation, changing their technology was a no-brainer.

Reaping the Benefits

After making the change to Bullhorn and newer technology, The Panel is able to better run their business using data-rich insights gathered from the ATS/CRM and cube19, something that wasn’t as attainable on their previous system.

Bullhorn users at The Panel are finding success within the system and are noticing gains in productivity and candidate/client experience. The Panel created an internal User Adoption Team made of superusers that run weekly training sessions to help the team adopt the system, increasing buy-in and leading to an overall successful implementation.

Time to Make a Change

When Tribe was first founded, its founders knew they wanted to operate differently from their competitors. They recognized that recruitment has its own unique technology needs and they wanted those game-changing tools at their fingertips. Chelsi and her team sought to evolve Tribe’s capabilities and tools and earn the reputation of technology leaders within the competitive recruitment industry.

Chelsi knew Tribe needed to identify and implement a new ATS/CRM given the growth of the agency in just four short years. Their consultants had outgrown their old ATS/CRM and the organization knew they needed a more sophisticated system as they moved to their next phase.

Roadblocks to Progress

For any small to medium business, there’s never a perfect time to implement change, especially given the nature of the recruitment industry. Finances were also a major considering, as there were significant upfront costs and long-term investments. Chelsi and her team were fortunate to have the business’ full trust and support once they completed the due diligence process and presented the business case to make the change to a new ATS/CRM.

Once the change was put in motion, Chelsi made sure they had a clear project plan and timelines for her team. The entire business remained informed on what to expect via clear and concise communication, ensuring the team embraced the new systems.

Reaping the Benefits

Since making the transition 1 year ago, Chelsi and her team are discovering new features and capabilities every day. She maintains open communication with all members of the team to constantly tweak and refine the system to better reflect Tribe’s evolving business practices.

The leadership team now has clear visibility on where the business stands at all times via access to key reporting metrics. Consultants have more structure and are now able to see their activity goals and personal KPIs, resulting in better adoption and usage of the system. Further, the use of automation has given Tribe great time-saving and efficiency gains across the business.

Time to Make a Change

A few weeks after joining Cpl, James recognized there was a need for change within the IT department in order to improve the overall responsiveness of the team and the effectiveness with which colleagues were using their systems including their recruitment software: Bullhorn Jobscience. To learn more, he went out into the business with his favorite tool—Post-It notes—and asked the entire office to write what worked and what they would change within the IT department.

The good news: everyone thought the IT team was made up of great people. The bad news: there was a lack of transparency into the IT team’s processes. People didn’t know when their requests would be completed and didn’t understand why some work was not prioritized. This led to a lack of adoption of Jobscience, which meant that people had to work harder than they should have to provide a great experience to candidates and clients.

Issues with the system which were raised by the business were dismissed because there wasn’t data to back them up. James had to gather more information on the frequency of the issues and dive into what his team could do about it. Cpl needed a better process to help prioritize IT requests and to ensure the business continued to grow and to maximize the use of Bullhorn Jobscience.

Roadblocks to Progress

Team members at Cpl had been used to requesting stuff from IT without having to explain why it was needed, which led to urgent asks being prioritized over important requests on a daily basis. This became the main roadblock for James: he had to shift the mindset of his colleagues and get them to make the business case for changes they needed, proving the value of the update before IT tackled it.

Originally, recruiters and others at Cpl were reluctant to make the business case because they didn’t know how to and they thought it would take a long time. In the past, they would submit Help Desk tickets and then grow frustrated when the tickets were delayed or dismissed. With an agile approach, changes are more inclusive, engaging, and the organization better values the IT team.

James also held one-on-one meetings with the senior leadership team to understand their frustrations and led brainstorming sessions so that everyone had input and was on board with the changes.

Reaping the Benefits

Now the entire organization is bought-in and on-board with the agile development method, allowing them to use Bullhorn Jobscience much better. Members of the business write very short business cases for changes that they think will truly benefit Cpl and explain how, and why. The team holds regular prioritization meetings to ensure full transparency into the work they’re doing and how it helps the organization.

The number of Help Desk tickets has declined, proving James’s method is working and that IT is successfully communicating their Bullhorn Jobscience updates to the business. Rather than being bombarded with frustrated colleagues, James’s team can focus on making changes that truly benefit the team and will help recruiters be more successful with Bullhorn Jobscience.

Time to Make a Change

Leontine started at Eiffel as Manager Recruitment in April 2019. Before that, she had worked in recruitment for several years within both agencies and international organizations. When Leontine started at Eiffel, the work to improve the team’s current recruitment processes began as well. The organization didn’t use a centralized system and they didn’t have brand awareness within the industry. It was time to take Eiffel to the next level and further grow the company.

For Leontine, it became clear quickly: Eiffel needed an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to improve the candidate experience and get more insight into what was happening with their candidates. With a clear wishlist, Leontine made the choice to partner with Bullhorn in 2019 and take the next step towards digital transformation by better utilizing Eiffel’s ATS/CRM data.

Roadblocks to Progress

In order to grow, Eiffel had to innovate. Leontine noticed that the system they worked with previously didn’t provide insights into the recruitment process; you could only see the most recent status of a candidate and it was never clear from which channel the candidate had come.

Now, Leontine and her team are in the process of rolling out Bullhorn to the organization. Leontine recognizes that getting to know and adopting a completely new software brings some resistance. Recruiters need to learn how to use Bullhorn ATS and figure out the most efficient ways to make the system work for them. Eiffel invested time and resources into training their recruiters to make sure the solution fits the company as well as possible, including creating a complete manual to make the adoption process smooth.

Reaping the Benefits

Even though they have only recently implemented Bullhorn, Eiffel already sees the positive effects within the entire organization. They now have insights into which channels are more successful than others, the integration with Bullhorn Marketplace Partner OnRecruit helps provide a clearer understanding of the candidate journey, and their dashboards are taking shape. With these changes, Eiffel can make better management decisions to grow the business.

Eiffel is already thinking about the next steps to further optimize and digitize their processes. By keeping a close eye on technology trends, they want to make use of innovation to create the most efficient recruitment process possible. The efficiency of the team has already improved, which means recruiters are able to focus even more on what really matters: the candidate experience.

Time to Make a Change

When Kate joined Inside Recruitment in 2018, her role was to ensure that all candidates, clients, and internal staff enjoyed a refreshingly personal experience. Her first goal was to design a ‘Candidate Experience Program’ so that all their people would have a consistent, positive experience both pre- and post-placement.

As Kate went to different parts of the business to understand their processes for reporting and monitoring the candidate and client experience, she found that while they had a high standard for service, the systems weren’t used to their full potential. The team adapted their own offline tools to manage their candidates and clients, resulting in unreliable data in their ATS. To emulate their success in candidate satisfaction across the business as it grew, Kate knew things would need to change.

Roadblocks to Progress

With her previous experience working at a large recruitment agency, Kate saw the importance of capturing all candidate and client data within the ATS. However, each member of the team used their own method of data entry and since the agency wasn’t measuring performance using insights from the ATS, key features of the system were not fully utilized. Also, the system wasn’t completely integrated with their timesheet, payroll, or accounting systems, presenting the team with further challenges.

Despite the initial cost factor, Inside Recruitment called in the services of Kyloe Partners to assist in the reinvention and configuration of their back-end processes. This gave them access to experienced consultants to ensure they were implementing best practices for their business. By working with senior leadership as well as the wider team, Kate was able to identify where they needed to make changes to deliver the true “people experience” to everyone involved with Inside Recruitment.

Reaping the Benefits

Since overhauling their internal processes and improving their usage of Bullhorn, the business has seen major time savings throughout the recruitment process. The team is able to place candidates in half the time and there is no double-entry of information into different systems that aren’t connected, allowing for more accurate weekly reporting in the ATS and more consistent metrics tracking. The finance team is more integrated with the rest of the business via the back end, resulting in a better experience for internal staff.

Looking forward, Kate continues to work towards her broader goal of providing the best experience for all candidates, clients, and internal staff by looking into where automation can further accelerate business processes.