Under the Microscope: Bullhorn Gobbles Up Competition Again

Bullhorn, a cloud-computing company that helps staffing and recruiting organizations transform their businesses, announced yesterday it has acquired Erecruit, a top applicant tracking system, and pay and bill solutions. The acquisition provides Bullhorn with access to intellectual property, internal talent, and a roster of long-standing relationships with leading staffing firms. It also means access to $40 million in annual R&D and technical operations expenditure. 

How will this affect players in the staffing industry? Our Director of Research, David Francis, shares his thoughts.

“This is certainly one of the most notable acquisitions in modern staffing history and the boldest of its “eat-up-any-Bullhorn-alternatives” strategy–acquiring its next-largest competitor, Erecruit. It’s the the staffing equivalent of Microsoft and Apple joining forces. 

With the acquisition, Bullhorn has firmly cemented itself as the largest and most influential player in the space (it was already the largest, by our estimates). It remains to be seen how Erecruit customers will react; that said, Bullhorn has extensive experience integrating former competitors (e.g. Talent Rover and Jobscience) into its portfolio via acquisition, and to the extent previous experience predicts future performance, this deal will likely be a home run for the combined company.

Although a bit more consolidated, the staffing technologies marketplace is still highly fragmented and competitive. The larger players that remain (Tempworks, Avionte, JobDiva, etc.) will likely try to capture some market share and staffing firms may find that their software selection process has been slightly simplified.“

What do you think? Email your thoughts to hello@talenttechlabs.com. Want to learn more about applicant tracking systems? Click here to download “Components of a Successful ATS.”

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