I'm back from Bullhorn Live and it was a great experience. I love the passion that recruiters have. Specifically the ones that want to get better at it. It's the commitment to get on a plane, spend money to learn in difficult times that says a lot about what kind of recruiter you are.

There were over 200 customers of Bullhorn that made the journey in order to invest in their talents and invest in their own relationship with the company that provides the software they use to run their recruiting business everyday.

There are a lot of companies out there who provide software to recruiters but then when that company puts on a big show in Vegas to support their customers, it says a lot about who Bullhorn is. It says more about the company than the software they provide because no one ever uses everything they have access to. Of course, if Bullhorn software wasn’t good and it didn’t help the recruiters using it, there would be no customers and no show in Vegas.

Bullhorn really went all out. Every night there was a party, every minute of the day there were a number of good track sessions one could participate in. I believe all the attendees were Bullhorn customers and they were focused and interested in what was going on. The great thing that I noticed, and I noticed it as well when I attended a pinnacle society conference was that during the breaks, the cell phones came out and I could hear candidate preps going on, I could hear conversations with clients and business was happening.

One of the sessions I sat in on was for customers to give feedback on the Bullhorn product. It was a busy room and there were lots of suggestions. There were two employees from Bullhorn running that session and one was leading the discussion and the other was writing down all of the suggestions on big pieces of paper which I know will be looked at, prioritized and put into development if it makes sense. This is a really good example and a really good way to get feedback. It’s also a great way for the recruiters using Bullhorn to feel they have a partner. That’s what it’s about.

Another good session I sat in on was with Joe Cordo who is their Vice President of Marketing who was talking about how recruiters could improve their recruiting and marketing efforts by using blogs, seo and a few other things. I love those discussions because it’s something I have been preaching forever now, and I have had some very good results in the past. Because search engines love blogs, it becomes a very powerful way to bring awareness to you searches and to your clients who are not yet your clients. It’s a process, it takes time and dedication and it works. It's great to see people who are starting to see the benefits of this.

Another interesting discussion I sat in on was the value of making sure you know what ratios you and your firm operate at. What I mean by this is that how many phone calls versus resumes versus sendouts versus interviews versus offers versus acceptances etc. The obvious is obvious because you can compare against others and see if you are in the sweet spot or completely out of the sweet spot.

One of the things not discussed at that session on metrics, and I went up after to give my feedback, was that one of the main reasons to keep track is because it’s really the only way to know how much money you as a recruiter are making during the day. Every time you make a call, you made some money, every time you send out a candidate you made some money, every time you write a job order you made some money even if you never fill it. It’s important because unlike most jobs where you have projects or files to complete, recruiting is just an ongoing activity day in and day out and sometimes, it’s hard to drive home knowing you have not made a deal in awhile. If you reverse engineer the last 5 or 10 placements you have made and understand what went into it, you know how much money each part of that ongoing activity is worth to you. Next time your boss says, can I talk to you for a minute? You know how much money that minute cost you. Next time "you" the boss want all your recruiters in for a meeting about nothing really important, you will know how much money that meeting cost you. Metrics are important and I suggest you track your activity. You can’t build a house without blueprints. It’s the same thing.


In a year or in 10 years, if someone wants me to tell them about Bullhorn live and the things I remember, I would probably say:

There was a strong dedication equally flowing between customer and company.

Bullhorn really wants their customers to be happy and successful and it is easy to say it but to invest in a conference like this shows they really mean it.

Bullhorn wants to build, get bigger and better and make a real contribution to the industry. I am sure in the next 12 months, there will be some interesting things coming from them.

Their CEO was out there mixing it up, having fun and legitimately interested in what was going on. He’s not the greatest of blackjack players but loved every minute of it.

Most people said they loved the customer service at Bullhorn the best because as we all know nothing works exactly as perfectly as it was built to do. The test is when it goes wrong, how does it get fixed. I heard this a lot from the attendees. The people there liked Bullhorn as their supplier of recruiting software.

Last but not least, they brought me out there along with John Sumser and Bill Vick in order to get some outside coverage. I don’t think it was the easiest of decisions for them to make but it was the right one and the true benefit of that is that people will get to see other perspectives.

It was a great week filled with interesting conversations and next week, I hope to have some videos put up here. I tried my best to keep them fun and interesting.

Next week, I'll be sending you something from Bullhorn I hope you will find of value regardless if you choose to consider Bullhorn as a possible recipient of your day to day interaction.

Thanks Bullhorn and thanks Joe for making it happen. I'll remember it for a long time.