Hi,

We just announced our Winter 2012 release, featuring all new Candidate Search, updates to Web Responses, a new product feedback system and more.

Check out the December 2011 product update to get all the details, and join us for a webinar to learn more.

You can also check out the following resources:

• Press release announcing Candidate Search and Winter 2012 release
• Blog post by Bullhorn CTO, Geoff Greene about Candidate Search
• Watch a demo of candidate Search below

Every firm in every type of industry can always be more efficient.  And firms in the staffing and recruiting industry are no different.     In this time of economic uncertainty and in an age when the speed of business gets faster each and every day, firms absolutely have to be on the lookout for ways to wring cost and time out of their processes while still delivering great client service.  Automating the placement to payment process offers a great area of opportunity for many firms.

Placement to payment is broken
The placement to payment process runs from placement to time and expense tracking and approval, through to the time you get paid and the time you pay (ie: accounting and payroll.)  Few firms today have completely automated this.  Several big gaps exist.

1. It’s not the 1970’s anymore
Believe it or not, most staffing firms still have paper timecards and expense reports, and I think everyone would agree that’s a very antiquated approach and something that just doesn’t make sense anymore in today’s online, 24 x7 world.  Paper timecards and expense reports create a slow, manual, costly, error prone process.  One issue or mistake in the collection, reconciliation and data entry into your accounting and payroll systems can significantly derail or stop invoicing or payroll.

2. The dots aren’t connected
Most staffing firms aren’t making a complete connection between their ATS and these systems.  Data has to be manually entered and reentered and that again is slow, costly and error prone. And even if you are on what are supposed to be integrated front to back systems, there can frequently be functions that aren’t 100% automated.

3. Staff can’t answer questions
Without an automated placement to payment process front-line sales and recruiting staff can’t easily answer the following questions:
- What’s the status of my timecard?
- Where’s my check?
- When should we expect that invoice?
So they have to loop someone in from the finance time to search for answers, sometimes by digging through stacks of paper records.  Not only is this inefficient, but it damages relationships with candidates and clients.

4. Front to back shouldn’t hold you back
If you are on a front to back system today, you may not be using the best tools for the job.  Your ATS won’t be the easiest to use, or the most effective as helping you place great candidates, nor will you be using industry leading solutions for payroll and accounting from companies like Intuit, Microsoft, ADP or Paychex.
If you aren’t using the best stuff out there, particularly for sales and recruiting, then you are potentially not getting or filling as many jobs orders as possible.  And you are locked into a solution that doesn’t give you flexibility to change accounting or payroll, nor can it grow as your firm does.   There really is no need to sacrifice though.

Enter Bullhorn Time and Expense
Bullhorn developed a new module to close these placement to payment process gaps so that recruitment firms can reduce costs, move faster and improve customer service.   Bullhorn Time and Expense extends our recruiting software platform,  automates online time tracking, expense reports, and approvals, while integrating with the best accounting and payroll systems available.

Bullhorn Time and Expense can help you by:
1. Saving up to 75% of your processing costs of timecards and expense reports -  For example, Bullhorn Time and Expense user DeWinter Consulting  saved more than half of the annual cost of a full time head to administer timecards, expense reports, invoicing and payroll.
2. Automating time and expense tracking – With online tracking and approvals you can automate this process, and ensure it’s completed easily and in a timely fashion.
3. Providing pinpoint accuracy in billing and payroll –  By having online time and expense data automatically connected with payroll and accounting systems like QuickBooks, Dynamics Great Plains, ADP and Paychex you can eliminate mistakes that can occur with duplicate data entry.  That means you can bill and pay on time, with 100% accuracy every time.
4. Improving client service – Sales and recruiting have access to online reports to easily answer questions about timecards, expense reports, invoices and payroll.  And this means your team can deliver great candidate and client service that not only will help you keep the customers you have and but will make it easier to win new business as well.

To learn more about how Bullhorn Time and Expense works check out the press release, see a demo on bullhorn.com, or drop me a note in the comments at the bottom of the post.

LinkedIn just announced their new “Apply with LinkedIn” capability that lets job seekers use their LinkedIn profile to start the job application process, instead of starting with a traditional resume.  And we’ve partnered closely with the LinkedIn team to ensure deep integration with Bullhorn right from the start.

So what does this mean for recruiters using Bullhorn?
It means that candidates can choose to Apply with LinkedIn, and send you their LinkedIn profile to start their application, in lieu of a traditional resume.   Now candidates may like this because they feel their combination of work history can now be presented with their recommendations, and that this may be a better way to start the application process.   Plus if a candidate chooses this approach, they also instantly receive guidance on how they are connected via LinkedIn to people that work at your firm.

What’s great about this too is that if you are a Bullhorn ATS/CRM or Bullhorn Reach user, you can take advantage of this today.  Here’s how it works.

1. You publish your jobs to job boards and social networks via Bullhorn Reach.  If you are using the Bullhorn ATS/CRM, you can import them to Bullhorn Reach with just a single click.
2. A job seeker finds a job on say, Simply Hired, and when they click through that link, they are taken to your specific job listing on Bullhorn Reach.
3. On that page they can choose to contact you via Bullhorn Reach by hitting the “Let’s Talk” button. At that point, they can either manually complete a form and upload a resume or choose  “Apply with LinkedIn.”
4. If they choose the “Apply with LinkedIn” button, a version of their LinkedIn profile is sent to your account and you will get an email with a link to it.
5. And, if you are using the Bullhorn ATS/CRM, when a candidate uses the “Apply with LinkedIn” button, that action also gets captured as a web response against the job, and the candidate profile in the ATS gets created automatically using the data that the candidate provided via “Apply with LinkedIn.”

Pretty cool, right?  We’re very excited to be partnering with LinkedIn on this from the start, and looking forward to seeing how recruiters are going to take advantage of this new capability going forward.

You can read more at the Bullhorn Reach blog:

What do you think about “Apply with LinkedIn?”  Let us know in the comments.

We are about to kickoff a new program to deliver free training webinars on a regular basis for Bullhorn users. We’ll offer classes designed for recruiters and salespeople, as well as Bullhorn admins.   And we have a number of good topics planned, but we want to hear from you.  Tell us what you want to know about.  What do you want to learn from Bullhorn Experts?  Whether its how to manage lists, make the most of the submission to hire process, or tweak system settings, we’d love to know what you would like to know about.

So please take our very brief survey and let us know what you think. It should take you two minutes tops.
And when these training webinars are ready in the next few weeks, they’ll be posted  on the Bullhorn Resource Center Thanks in advanced for giving us your input, and we look forward to seeing you online at one of our upcoming sessions.

- Jonathan
Bullhorn product marketing

Thanks to everyone who joined me on our Bullhorn update webinar on April 28, 2011. If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording on the Bullhorn Youtube channel.

We covered a lot of information in the webinar, so here’s a summary of what we addressed and how to take the next step.

Trends

- Our 2011 Trends report, with information on plans for growth, hiring, and more is available here.

Mobile

- The new Bullhorn Mobile is coming. Sign up for the new Bullhorn Mobile between now and end of June and save 33%. Contact your account manager for additional information.

- If you want to apply to join the beta, you can do so by visiting the Bullhorn Resource Center, searching for “mobile beta” and then completing the application form. And please note note that beta participation is limited.

Onboarding

- If you are are bringing new recruiters or salespeople on to your team, make sure that you let them know about the Bullhorn Resource Center, as their first stop in learning how to use Bullhorn. To get to the Resource Center from within Bullhorn, click on the Support menu and then choose Resource Center.

- Training and Consulting: I covered a number of training options and a new series of consulting offerings that can help your existing team boost their Bullhorn skills as well as help you refine and optimize your overall processes. I also highlighted the Fundamentals and Advanced Training class as well as the Creating High Impact Employees consulting engagement. If you are interested in any of these options, please touch base with your account manager, or contact our professional services team directly at professionalservices@bullhorn.com.

Process Automation

I covered some of the more recent additions of prebuilt on demand integrations from our partners in the Bullhorn Marketplace and did a demo of a forthcoming integration with Vertical Response that makes it easy to execute an email marketing campaign to a Bullhorn distribution list. If you are interested in beta testing the Vertical Response integration with Bullhorn, please let us know here.

Social Media and Search

- Bullhorn Reach: Reach helps you easily manage your social networks, post jobs, and find new business.Sign up for a free beta account.

- Universal Search: if you are interested in adding Universal Search to your Bullhorn ATS and CRM contact your account manager.

-Contact Accelerator: Quickly capture candidates and contacts found on social networks and add them to Bullhorn. Download for free.

If you were able to attend, thanks again for joining us. If you missed it, I hope to see you online next time.

Jonathan Wall

Director, Product Marketing

How many times do you log in to multiple job boards per day? Do you get frustrated that each source has different search technology, screens and navigation? How much time could you save if you didn’t have to review results from every different source you use?

Let’s face it – finding the best talent for your clients is no simple task. That’s why Bullhorn has been continually working to streamline the candidate searching process.

Today, I’m very excited to deliver a major enhancement that will help you place your candidates faster than ever before…Introducing Bullhorn Universal Search

Bullhorn Universal Search simplifies the sourcing process, allowing you to simultaneously search more than 70 million resumes on over 10,000 free and paid job boards and social networks, including major social media sites, Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder, Dice, Craigslist and the open Web.

The Secret Sauce: Advanced Matching – Saving You Weeks of Time a Year!

While the shear depth of sources in Universal Search helps make finding great candidates easier, advanced matching helps recruiters be more productive by dramatically reducing the number of results needed to review by intelligently predicting which candidates are the best fit for the job.

For example, I recently ran a search for a java developer in the Boston area across multiple paid and free sources. I got 123 results, and of those, I felt 30 matched my keywords well enough to warrant a detailed review. Do I have time to review 30 potential candidates? No, but previously I had to find the time. Wouldn’t it be much better if I only needed to review say, 10, instead of 30? Absolutely!

After using Universal Search’s advanced matching capability, I’m left with the nine best candidate resumes at the top of my list – now that’s more like it. In this example, I saved more than one hour by only having to review nine results instead of 30. Think about how that adds up. If I run one search every day and get similar results, that’s about six hours a week, three days a month, and 37 days a year of time that I would have spent searching through resumes. How much additional revenue could you produce with 37 more days added to your recruiting calendar?

So how does advanced matching work?

1. Universal Search looks across the sources you selected and brings back results that match your keywords.

2. It looks through a database of more than one million historical job placements to find job descriptions just like yours, and then extracts the important attributes shared by the candidates who successfully filled them.

3. Universal Search filters your search results using these success attributes so the ones that are most likely to lead to placement are at the top of your list, effectively filtering out candidates that aren’t a good fit.

Bullhorn Universal Search is available today. To learn more, read the FAQ, or contact your Bullhorn account representative.

As one of the newest members of the Bullhorn team, I’m excited to introduce myself to the Bullhorn customer community. I recently relocated from California to take on the role of Director of Product Marketing here where I’m responsible for developing and implementing go-to product market strategies and programs.  One of the things I’m focused on in my initial days is developing an understanding of the Bullhorn user community.  In a recent post, I blogged about what I call the Bullhorn Effect, or the impact of Bullhorn’s capabilities.

Today, I’m looking to hear from active Bullhorn users on which Bullhorn features produce the highest level of impact in your job.    And if you are willing to provide input on the following over the next two weeks, I’ll send one of you a $25 Starbucks gift card.

- What feature or features help you to make an impact, by increasing fill ratios, sourcing better candidates, etc.?
- What features can’t you imagine living without, and which save you tons of time each day?
- What is the impact of those features and how have they enabled you to become a higher impact recruiter and/or add business value for your clients/candidates?

Please use the comments space below to respond to these three bullets or if you prefer, feel free to drop me a note by email at jwall at bullhorn dot com.

As I mentioned, I’m going to send a $25 Starbucks gift card to one of the people who comments on the blog. The winner will be selected at random.

Update to post on March 4,2010

Wow, I’ve heard from a lot of you, but only by email.  So thanks for that, and feel free to keep it coming if you are just reading this post for the first time.   I wanted to call one thing out, as I’ve gotten a lot input, but also a ton of feature requests.  Bullhorn has a great community oriented web application for feature requests called Bullhorn Brainstorm.  You can access it by clicking on “Bullhorn Brainstorm” from the Support menu inside of Bullhorn.  Its a way for all the Bullhorn users out there to provide input and vote on the feature they want to see.  So if you have a feature you are looking for, please feel free to let me know, but I will ask you to search for it in Brainstorm, and if its there, vote for it, if its not there, then please enter it.    Brainstorm helps everyone because it provides a way for us to track and organize all our feature requests, it also makes it easy for us to prioritize based on customer input, as well as let people see the status of their specific request.

Thanks for reading.  I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Jonathan Wall
Director of Product Marketing

The Bullhorn Effect