TI: What is your view of the talent solutions/RPO market in terms of trends, opportunitiesand challenges?

NE: Bullhorn just released its latest GRID Industry Trends Report [www.bullhorn.com/ grid/industry-trends], an annual survey of recruitment professionals, and learned that winning new clients is their top priority this year – above finding talent, which was the number one priority last year. We are still seeing continued talent shortages, as well, even with all the noise of tech layoffs and potential slowdowns in the economy. Job seekers are expecting better experiences and they have lower tolerance for mistakes; so our customers (third-party staffing and recruiting firms) are investing in technology and automation to facilitate a better experience. This is a people industry, but the technology is critical to enable the people to deliver.

TI: What is Bullhorn’s strategy in the context of the above? How do you differentiate yourselves from your competitors?

NE: We continue to invest, both internally and through M&A, to bring the most innovative and most comprehensive solutions to the market. Our solutions are scalable to work for everyone from staffing start-ups to the world’s largest global organizations and all the complexity that comes with that. Specifically, we’ve been investing in middle office – time capture, time interpretation, rate card, credential management, invoicing, etc. – to be able to link the front office recruiting functions to what happens after placement. There is much nuance in the way assignments are managed and we believe that our 20 years of experience as a true cloud solution provider in this space is a differentiator.

TI: How does the SourceBreaker and other recent acquisitions support this strategy?

NE: We have made a total of 14 acquisitions over the years and we are one of the few organizations that can say that every one of our acquisitions has been a success – both because we have leveraged the technology we acquired to create better products for our customers and because we now have some amazing leaders in our organization that came over from the acquired companies. In the last couple of years, we acquired cube19 for analytics, Sirenum for workforce management, and of course Sourcebreaker for search and match. These are particularly satisfying for me as the head of our Alliances team, since each of these players were part of our partnership community before we acquired them.

TI: Why was the SourceBreaker deal so attractive and what has been the immediate impact for your clients?

NE: Sourcebreaker is an incredible tool for recruiter productivity. It enables recruiters to store and reuse the most effective searches for the jobs they most commonly recruit for. Even more importantly, it helps accelerate junior recruiters to be as productive as the senior recruiters at any recruitment firm. We knew how good Sourcebreaker was, because they were one of our fastest growing marketplace partners and we had worked with them for years. So it was a seamless transition to have them become part of the Bullhorn family.

TI: How do you think the global recession will affect the sector?

NE: What global recession? I’m only half joking. While there are some signs of slow down and we are seeing tons of news stories about uncertainty, inflation, reductions in consumer spending – we are also seeing record low unemployment and lots of job openings.

We are seeing an increased focus on client relationships… but no reduction in the importance of candidate-centric approaches. I think there will continue to be a lot of investment in this sector, and the industry seems to agree: two-thirds of the recruitment professionals we surveyed in our GRID Industry Trends Report predict their businesses will continue to grow this year.

TI: You were a judge at last year’s TIARA Talent Tech Stars that  was held during our first Talent and TIARAs. What stood out for you as a judge during the judging process?

NE: I am continually impressed by the companies in this space and how they leverage the latest technology to meet the needs of both candidates and hiring managers. The number of companies we saw who were addressing issues with DE&I and with bias gave me hope that we are moving towards a world where we can do what we all wanted to do when we joined this sector – find people jobs where they can bring all of their skills and talents andwhere they can learn grow and develop. I was inspired to read all the entries and I hope that the companies found the feedback helpful.

TI: Any predictions for 2023?

NE: The pace of change is only going to continue to accelerate. We have been hearing about how technology and digital marketplaces were going to take the place of people in recruitment for the entire time I’ve been in the industry (since 2001!) – but it’s only now that we are really seeing growth in some of these online staffing companies. Yet, candidates still want the human touch. We need to bring them the best of both.