We all know that the top public staffing firms have seen revenue drop 30% year over year. And, private staffers aren’t having a much better go of things. Then, Barry brought us all down last week with the announcement that his London Cabbie Index is at an all time low. So, enough bad news.

Here’s the good news: we’re starting to see a bottom. The engineers in the Bullhorn Nerdery have been building something called the Bullhorn Index. It’s our way of measuring the health of the staffing industry. We base it upon the data we gather in our systems: new job orders, interview activity, placements, contract starts, etc. Of course, our clients opt-in to participate in this project.

The engineers tell us that while the last 6 months have been in precipitous decline (thanks for the insight, guys), there is a bottom starting to form. March and April have not been any worse than previous months. In April, the Bullhorn client base generated 43,000 new job orders. So, you can’t say that no one is hiring. Employers are hiring. You just have to hear “no” a lot more before you get to “yes” right now.
 
I can hear the rebuttals forming: “Bullhorn’s client base has a ton of big staffing firms,” or, “Bullhorn’s client base has a ton of smaller firms.” Both are correct, we have a ton of small, medium and large firms. The data tells the same story across all sizes of firm and discipline.
 
So, if you’ve felt down in the dumps the last 6 months, it’s time to dust yourself off, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you have enough gas in the tank to make it another 6-12 months in this environment. If you do, take heart - at least it’s not getting any worse… for now…

http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html

I just got back from a short vacation. My wife and I went to Puerto Rico for 4 nights - without the kids. It was awesome. And, now I have a bad case of the post vacation blues.

While sitting poolside, I read the book, Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. I liked it just as much as I liked reading The Tipping Point, his first book. One thing that really stood out to me in this book was the notion that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Musicians, Computer Programmers, Professional Thieves, all require 10,000 hours of practice to reach mastery in their trade. This made me think about things that I have spent 10,000 hours doing. A few things came to mind. I’m definitely an expert at watching TV and reading email. By this definition, then I’m also an expert at writing software, although I haven’t done it in almost a year and I’m getting rusty. And, by this definition, after spending 60 hours a week for 10 years, I’ve become an expert in the ins and outs of the staffing and recruiting industry.

Since I’ve never actually been a recruiter, I’m not an expert at the job of recruiting and staffing itself - which is kind of odd. So, I’m an expert at creating software that helps recruiters, sales people and managers run their desks. So, I was wondering, does the 10,000 hour rule hold to the job of placing people? Does it take 5 years, logging hours from 9 to 5 every day, to become an expert recruiter or sales person? At 50 calls per day, this amounts to about 50,000 cold calls. And, if you were to move from one discipline to another (say IT recruiting to Office Clerical), does it require 10,000 hours again? Or, is it far less, e.g., 1000 hours to move from one discipline to another?

We’re on day 2 of the conference and the buzz here is unbelievable. Bullhorn Live 2009 has been even better than I imagined it would be. Clients are really excited about the new initiatives we unveiled yesterday - our plans for telephony integration, SMS, updating calendaring and VMS integrations have been big, big hits. And, people have been really impressed with the advances in Bullhorn 360 and Integrated Resume Search.

Despite what’s going on out there in the macro economy, the people here are finding pockets of growth and spending. Most people tell me that while they’re business took a hit in Q4 and January, they feel that they’re well positioned to take share and grow again in the 2nd half of 2009.

It’s always so gratifying to hear first hand how Bullhorn has played a part in people’s businesses and their lives. This has been a phenomenal experience for every one at Bullhorn.

Thank you all!

I arrived in Las Vegas yesterday for our user conference, Bullhorn Live 2009. There’s a real buzz here as folks are starting to roll in from around the country and across the globe. We had a great turn out at our pre-conference superbowl party last night. And, tomorrow morning we kick off with our opening session. If you can’t be with us this week, we’ll bring you news and updates via the Bullhorn Blogger and through RecruitingBlogs.com, XtremeRecruiting.TV, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Our theme this year is “Live in Bullhorn,” which has taken on new meaning in this turbulent economy. As we prepared for the conference, we realized how much we’ve invested in our partnership with our clients since the last Bullhorn Live. That investment ranges from dramatic improvements in product innovation and service delivery to client services. I’m not here to give us a pat on the back. We’re never fully satisfied with what we can do for our clients. And, in our closing session, we’ll be discussing a recent evaluation of our client satisfaction.

In tomorrow’s opening session, I’ll highlight some of our plans for 2009 and 2010. We are making some major investments in the next few years, which will enable our clients to maximize their success on the Bullhorn platform. We believe that 2009 and 2010 offer an unparalleled opportunity for those who invest while their competitors are retreating. And, I know that those of you with us here in Vegas this year would agree.

On behalf of the entire Bullhorn team, thank you!

About 18 months ago, I wrote a long post about mobile phones. It was probably one of the most popular posts to this blog. I had spent the entire summer of 2007 trying 5 different smartphones and 3 different wireless carriers. And, at the end of the post I promised to make a long term commitment to the Motorola Q9. I felt that it was by far the best smartphone I could find at the time. Those of you, who know me well, know that I’m just not destined to be with one phone forever. So, last summer, I started getting antsy to try something else. I started “looking around,” just to see what was out there.

I had sworn off AT&T because their service in New England is horrible, but since Verizon offers new phones every ice age and the iPhone 3G had just come out, I couldn’t wait any longer. So, this time, I got my wife involved. She got an iPhone 3G. I didn’t take the plunge, because Bullhorn can’t sync with the iPhone in real-time yet. Instead, I bought an unlocked Treo Pro. AT&T let’s you use any device that takes a SIM card, so even though they don’t carry the phone, I was able to use it. Note to Verizon: this is a major competitive advantage for AT&T.

I’ll start with the Palm Treo Pro, because it’s currently the best option for Bullhorn users. It’s ironic that Palm, the company that invented the concept of the smartphone with the Treo 600, has fallen so far behind technologically. While the Treo Pro is not a category defining device, it is a very competently executed smartphone and has all the current features one should expect from a modern smartphone: 3G, WIFI, touch-screen, physical QWERTY, and the decent Windows Mobile 6.1. It’s a very attractive phone with a solid, quality feel. The form factor is dramatically smaller than previous Treo’s. It sounds good and the battery life is much better that the Treo 680 (you can go a full day with heavy usage). If you’re using the Motorola Q9, this is a massive step up. After having used this phone exclusively for 2 months, I won’t go back. Sorry, Motorola, I know I said that I was back for good. What can I say? 

At the moment the Treo Pro is offered unlocked only. This means the cell providers aren’t yet subsidizing the purchase price with a 1 or 2 year contract. So, the phone is not cheap. Amazon has it listed for $495. The rumors are that Verizon will be picking up the Treo Pro soon. If you absolutely can’t deal with spending $500 for a phone, even though it’s unlocked, and can’t wait, Sprint carries the nearly identical Treo 800w for $249.

The next phone I tried is the Blackberry Storm. This is RIM and Verizon’s answer to the Apple and AT&T’s iPhone. This phone has had tremendous hype. And, since Bullhorn is in the process of upgrading its Blackberry support, I had to try it.

Unfortunately, the Storm doesn’t live up to the hype. The moment you pick it up, it becomes crystal clear that it’s an iPhone wannabe - a knockoff. The best analogy I can come up with is that if the iPhone was a great rock band, the Storm would be a cover band.

The biggest problem with the Storm is that the touch screen is clumsy. And, the whole screen is one big button that’s somewhat hard to press. Where the iPhone requires only slight touches to get things done, the Storm demands a deliberate push. Imagine the Staples “Easy Button.” Now, use it to type an email. It sort of seems gimmicky or maybe just different to be different. The Storm’s screen is very clear and bright - perhaps its best feature. The browser is only OK. It’s better than any thing RIM has done in the past, but the inaccuracy of the touch-screen makes navigation difficult at times. Lastly, this phone is slow and frequently unresponsive, which combines with the difficulty around typing to insure insanity if you need to write more than a sentence in an email response.

The interesting thing about the Storm is that it puts RIM in the position of chasing Apple. Just a few months ago, it was the other way around. And, now, RIM is behind. I wouldn’t count them out of the touch-screen smartphone game. For all its faults, the Storm shows a lot of promise. It’s not easy for a big company with a huge install base to go in a new direction. If they stick to it and fix the issues in version two, this device could become a big player in the market as well.

For all those die-hard Blackberry fans, I’d recommend the Blackberry Bold. The Bold is a solid device. It’s screen is very sharp and it has all the typical features that people love about Blackberry’s. The keyboard is very easy to use, the wheel is decent for navigation and the email functionality is great. The browser is weak compared to others on the market, but it’s functional. The downside of the Bold is that the screen is not very large and it lacks touch-screen functionality. After using the large screens of the Treo Pro and iPhone, the Bold’s screen feels very small. And, I found myself frustrated that it didn’t have a touch-screen. This is an issue for RIM. The market demands smartphones with big screens that you can touch. They need to find a way to bridge the gap between the Bold and the Storm. 

Now that I’ve compared every thing else to the Apple iPhone 3G, it’s probably clear to every one that I’ve become a fan. The iPhone is a very powerful device. The design is incredibly well thought out and the user interface is very intuitive. The core functions: email, browser, calendar, contacts, phone and photo work near-flawlessly and there’s a cool new application in the App Store every day or so. Apple has set a pretty high bar.

The downside about the iPhone is that Apple, like RIM, wants to own the entire platform, the network, the phone, the OS and the applications on the phone. The fact that Apple has an approval process for applications is less about ensuring quality than it is a barrier to entry for other businesses that might develop on their platform. Remember that the iPhone did not support Microsoft Exchange until the second rev of the phone was released. I can’t see the wisdom in releasing a smartphone without support for Exchange. Worse, the iPhone doesn’t support SYNCML, the standard XML protocol for syncing calendar and contact data between devices. Developers have written applications for the iPhone to support SYNCML but for some unknown reason they don’t pass Apple’s approval process. I’m a big fan of the phone. But, Apple is not an open company, supporting open standards, and in the end no matter how good the technology is, closed systems are bad for business. This doesn’t mean Bullhorn isn’t building applications for the iPhone - we are and you’ll see them in 2009. With some help from Apple, you would’ve seen them in 2008.

Lastly, I have been watching the Google Android experiment from the sidelines. I poked around on a G1, offered by T-Mobile. I don’t think the phone is ready for the business user yet. But, technologically it’s a very capable OS and because it’s an open source platform, I expect many handset manufacturers to pick it up. And, if it starts to gain traction, it will attract developers in droves. I suspect it will be a year or more before we see what Android can really do. For the time being, Windows Mobile devices are the best choice for Bullhorn customers. The good news is that there are some excellent Windows Mobile phones available. Stay tuned.

The market has shifted. Whether it’s a recession or not, no one can debate that there is a lot of fear out in the marketplace and its impacting Staffing and Recruiting. I was bullish earlier in the year, before things really unraveled on Wall St. Don’t get me wrong - our business is still growing at the same clip and I’m still quite sure that the market sentiment is gloomier than it needs to be. The reality is now that the negative sentiment has grown so strong that it will no doubt affect the market in the short term. It’s budgeting season and executives and managers around the world are nervous about the economic outlook. This will alter hiring plans in 2009. And, candidates are affected as well. Those who would have jumped jobs in September are staying put in October and November. The coming quarters will bring a different market than we’ve experienced in the last 4 years.

Staffing and Recruiting professionals face two choices: stick to business as usual, or build a plan to win in a new environment. I see three big opportunities to get ahead of the competition, who will probably have their heads in the sand:

Client Development: When things are slow, every one has time to reach out and take clients to lunch. Now’s the time to work on client development. If you haven’t checked in with your top accounts to get their business outlook, this is a great opportunity.

Networking: If you’re not using LinkedIn to build relationships with new and existing clients, you’re at a competitive disadvantage. If you and your team haven’t yet taken the time to learn how to work this tool into your routine because you’ve been too busy, you should make time. Simply put, LinkedIn helps you leverage every shred of value in your business network. If you aren’t using it, you’re leaving deals on the table.

Note Bullhorn’s recent enhancements to our linkedIn integration: http://www.bullhorn.com/blog/?p=725

Team Morale: If orders start to slow down and candidates aren’t jumping ship, how will you keep up the morale of your team? New orders and placements go a long way to keep people motivated. But, if your recruiters and sales people start hearing “no” on the phone a lot more, they’re going to get discouraged. And, if you don’t keep them focused, your competition could lure them away with promises of greener pastures. While many of us weathered 2001-2003, we’ve all hired people since then who have no clue what slower times can be like. They’re going to need help understanding what’s required of them to stay ahead of the pack and win.

One of the biggest differences between good companies and great companies is the to ability handle adversity. It’s human nature to ignore the warning signs of trouble and stick to business as usual. The companies that rally their troops and forge their game plan will come out on top.