Good Bye Bullhorn

Everyone and their brother thinks they can build the next great recruiting tool. What they all seem to miss is that if you don’t have experience working the recruiting process, you lack the knowledge of what we, as Recruiters, need. Once in a great while, though, I find a tool that just works. Those “ah ha” moments are so magnificent, that I can’t help but share them with everyone. Not only do I share those tools here on my blog, but I will go as far as making it a point to call clients and colleagues to share the information with them.

The first time I used Bullhorn I was hooked! Finally here was an ATS designed by Recruiters for Recruiters. Bullhorn is intuitive to use, and the ability to see how many times my hiring managers had viewed a candidate made me simply salivate with possibilities. During the past four years if someone said ATS, I jumped in and screamed “Bullhorn!”

I would blabber on about the features and benefits. I explained how the reporting could be coupled with a Bullhorn partner to give you detailed reports that would allow you to pinpoint exactly where a recruiter would be having trouble. Clients trusting my judgment would, of course, let me set up that initial call.

Now I understand I am not the biggest name in the Recruiting and Staffing industry, but I have been around. I have referred other people to Bullhorn in the past and I have been an advocate for them. On Thursday last week I think they finally broke my heart for the last time.

Each time I engaged Bullhorn’s sales team on my client’s behalf, I found myself apologizing to my client for their lack of response and coordination. In the past, I have smoothed it out and got the system implemented. When a particular client called last Thursday, I asked when he would be starting with Bullhorn. He informed me he couldn’t sign up until this week because the Bullhorn sales team was at off-site meeting for the second time this month. You can understand my embarrassment and sadness for this great ATS. When my client asked me if Bullhorn was serious about his business, I had no reply, and at that moment, I decided that I would not refer them to any more of my clients or colleagues.

The moral of this blog is if your sales team is not physically and mentally available to do the business, eventually even you biggest advocates will give up on you.

Good-Bye Bullhorn!

Comment by Diane Gordon on February 6, 2013 at 10:13am: Sandra,

This was, truly, a simple mistake on Bullhorn's part. We don't think it's OK and are working hard to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Diane

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 7, 2013 at 2:25am: Diane,
While I appreciate that mistakes happen in the fast paced sales world, the way I read this it was not one simple mistake but a series of repeat behaviors as evidenced by the comment "each time" in Rebecca's comments and the other posts that have surfaced, which makes it a pattern.

I am not trying to denigrate your company in any way just found your response and or the explanation to be one of those, "are you kidding me". You guys didn't start doing this yesterday. A kid running a lemonade stand learns quickly that if you aren't in the stand to sell the lemonade the customer walks away.

Could it be that you have enjoyed enough success with a good product that your sales team has developed a cavalier attitude as to the value of each customer because sales are good. It's the kiss of death. In my part of the world we call it " gettin a little too big fer yer britches".

We've all had lessons in humility. I have certainly had mine and my response was " we screwed up, no excuses, we are embarrassed by our failure to deliver what we promised, I guarantee you this will never happen again."

If this crusty old recruiter may be so bold as to make a suggestion, the loss of a customer is not a simple mistake, rethink scheduling sales training in Jan. when most recruiters are in the mode to buy or upgrade or change something before we dive in for the year, hire some people who do nothing all day but contact customers to be sure they have what they need from the point of first contact until they die or they will get so frustrated they leave and write a blog about it.

Comment by pam claughton on February 7, 2013 at 8:02am: Customer service and exceeding expectations are what great companies do.

Many companies over promise and under-deliver. Much better to do the opposite....had an experience this week that is a great illustration of this. I ordered the newest Lisa Gardner suspense novel and another book from Amazon on Tuesday. I just did regular delivery, and they promised I would have my books by the 8th, this Friday. We're getting a huge storm on Friday so I was hoping they'd make it by then.

I was shocked, thrilled and quite impressed when I got home from work yesterday, and my books were already here! A day after I ordered them, and two days earlier than expected.

Far better to under-promise and over deliver. Bullhorn could learn from Amazon. :)

Comment by Roni Zapin on February 7, 2013 at 9:22am: The two companies they are merging with have wonderful customer service... I switched to Sendouts from Bullhorn and was amazed at the difference!! Thus, very upset when i heard about the merger ... and have talked to others that feel the same. Bullhorn should start from learning from them!!

Comment by Diane Gordon on February 20, 2013 at 11:02am: All,

Diane Gordon, Bullhorn's Chief Customer Officer here again. Just wanted to let everyone know that Rebecca and I connected (after a serious game of phone tag) and I came away with a much clearer understanding of her point and, even better, her suggested fix. I'm not saying that will get her to say "Hello, Bullhorn" but, in my business, every complaint is a gift: an opportunity to really see things from the outside. Thanks to everyone for your candor; Bullhorn is committed to doing better.

Comment by Derdiver on April 2, 2013 at 12:42pm: Seriously, I can not agree more. I have been working with and have done full implementations of ATS systems over the years and the lack of representation for them on the sales side AND customer service is deplorable. We canceled Taleo/Oracle for this very reason. We did try to reach out to Bullhorn and got crickets. It was a shame as well as I wanted something more simple for my company. We don't need to appease non recruiters with reports and metrics to help them sleep at night. We needed an easy system to track and communicate wit our future employees. Bullhorn you missed out on a sale.

Comment by RecruitmentWorx on March 3, 2014 at 1:35pm: A very interesting post especially in terms of the customer experience. I can see that the original entry is quite old now so hopefully the company has addressed some of the issues raised here and resolved them. No company gets it right all the time and although I'm not saying its to be expected, I do think there's a lot to be said for simply being able to pick up the phone and talk with a dedicated account manager - especially at this level.

In any event the number of ATS and recruitment CRM providers is growing all the time so most users who've had a bad experience will simply vote with their feet.

Comment by PAUL FOREL on March 3, 2014 at 3:27pm: Rebecca,

I'm a little late to this party but I experienced the same thing when I called Bullhorn about their latest Survey.

When I was connected to Sales, the interactive told me there was no one available, leave a message, etc.

I was taught something akin to what Sandra, above, described- that you are either by your phone or you take it with you.

A call missed means that person picked the next company to dial.

Sales training should be done either after hours once productive time has come and gone or at the least, have the sales teams/staff take turns in the classroom so there is always sales staff on hand.

Comment by Venkat Kalvara on August 4, 2014 at 8:55pm: When any software company refuses to provide evaluation that is a big red flag. I ignored this flag and signed for one year contract for Bullhorn ATS based on online reviews.

Product is terrible. Our recruiters did not like and there was a strong resistance. Even though I requested to cancel the subscription within 3 days, they refused to cancel it saying that I need to honor the contract. Product is not user friendly and very primitive.

They charged me for user licenses I deactivated for months and refused to provide any credit. Billing department never picked up phone to talk about the billing issues.

Probably you will be better off putting together simple web pages with any software like SharePoint in office 360, than subscribing for Bullhorn ATS. You will save money and do not need to deal with fine print contracts, terrible product and customer service.

If you decide to use Bullhorn read all the fine print of the contracts.