Bullhorn Reach Out For #TruSanFran

When I first heard about Bullhorn Reach, I questioned just how social it would be. It looked like little more than a job poster in the social channels. I watched Art Pappas, the founder of Bullhorn, explaining how the social profiles (with added SEO), and content sharing would help make recruiters social.
I didn’t really quite see how this would really work, and wrote a blog post about my views.I was surprised to see that the first person to retweet the post, and invite me to connect on LinkedIn was Art Pappas. This is perhaps the biggest indicator of how Bullhorn view social.
Since then, I’ve watched the product develop in Beta, and seen the users increase rapidly. Hearing the right noises coming from users, I introduced Reach to a few of my corporate recruiter clients, most notably Oracle. I’m impressed with the results.
Whilst in Beta, Bullhorn developed the product further, with tweaks following feedback from users. The traditional client base for the traditional Bullhorn product had been the third-party agency market, it’s what it was built for. Reach moved the business in to the rapidly growing direct sourcing space.
The initial attraction for many is that the main product is free, and despite the launch of an enterprise version, will remain so. The enterprise product is white label, allowing for company branding, as well as a very effective social referral feature that enables searching of social connections, matching and tracking employee recommendations. I see the reach referral option standing out in this space because employees open up their social connections when they sign up for Reach,so there is no need for additional sign ups or permissions.
You can post jobs direct to a Facebook fanpage, using an app that plugs right in, and enables jobseekers to apply or ask for more information directly.I have blogged previously about the “Talk to us” tab, which replaced the “Apply” tab. This simple change encourage engagement and makes a significant difference to response levels.
All jobs are shared in a recruiters personal network. The recruiter has control over frequency, and whether to post to all connections, or to tailor shares to specific individuals. Job seekers clicking on the link are taken back to the recruiters individual profile. Not only do they go to the job description, the profile includes a picture, bio, website links and links to other live jobs. Jobseekers can also elect to follow the recruiter to get updates on other opportunities as they come up.
As Bullhorn Reach has grown in users and popularity, they have added job seeker features like a search for recruiters by sector and location, (having a Bullhorn reach account gets you an inclusion in this search.) Over 500,000 jobseekers have signed up to Reach and submitted resumes, showing a popularity with potential candidates, an added source for recruiters.They can also sign up for alerts from recruiters adding jobs to their profiles.
The radar feature for recruiters is another useful feature. This enables users to identify who might be moving in to jobseekeer mode, based on changes to their LinkedIn profile, and other internet behaviours. I have found these predictions to be very accurate. Recruiters also get notifications of who has changed job title or got promoted in their network, with the option to send a note of congratulations.
To help recruiters promote their profile, there’s a content sharing feature. Reach recommends other posts for sharing according to relevent topics. The share options also show the stats for other shares and opens, indicating the most appealing posts, and recruiters can add their own content, simply by adding the URL. When anyone clicks the shared link, it takes them back to the profile to read the content. A great way to promote to a target audience by social content and sharing.
The big differentiator for me though, is that Bullhorn Reach promotes individual recruiters, rather than response coming back on mass. This also applies to referrals and other communications. It opens the links between job seeker and recruiter, while promoting the individual recruiters brand and presence.The reach dashboard also gives Recruiters access to the analytics, so they can see just what is working. The recruiters I work with rank it as their top tool, and wouldn’t be without it. Sign up for the freemium version also only takes 5 minutes! I see Reach as the number 1, recruiter friendly social-recruiting tool.
It has been great seeing this product evolve and completely change my view. Bullhorn hosted #TruBoston at their HQ, and are the main sponsors for #truSanFran. They have chosen to get involved and support us by and support #tru because they want to be involved in real conversations with recruiters who understand, and use social, in order to continue refining their product. It has come a long way, I’m sure there is more to come!