Bullhorn isn't different from every other company in this era of PE extracting as much and delivering as little as they can with every company that embraces this model. This is what they do and realistically they don't have to change a thing. It's all business. My issue is that at least other companies pay you more and make you work a lot less to deal with it.
Bullhorn used to have a fun and vibrant culture, great benefits, and of course that incredible customer experience fly wheel that's showed all the time, even when remote and globally dispersed. It made the pay trade off worth it because you felt respected, valued and like you made an impact for customers and for your colleagues. There was a true career pipeline and you got to see a lot of people move up and blossom during their time there. I happily referred several high impact people in my time there!
In the last few years, that took a turn. In my experience, they want to hire non US based contractors, try to use gen Al and agents, and run incredibly lean as much as possible. My team was asked to give up industry standard tools and project management software licenses and use inferior tools or spreadsheets to cut costs. Lots of $ and employee time for endless re-implementations and organizational changes wasted at the whims of whatever new leaders were coming in and wanting to shake things up to buy time. There were rarely well-communicated strategic directives to align to because it seemingly changed all the time and weren't aligned across all parts of the business.
As a manager it was demeaning to be asked to try to communicate and support that dysfunction to smart ICs. Not to mention stagnant wages no matter your performance.
The incredible customer and employee experiences are not the focus anymore; they're annoying hurdles to more money to feed the Private Equity beast. I had been through that cycle several times before in my career at BH but this last one felt particularly bleak and I became disillusioned with the company I once said I'd happily retire from someday if I got to keep my job that long.
Maybe with the pace and opportunity now that they've had multiple large restructurings/layoffs and voluntary exits, it's a good chance for someone early in their career who buys into the 2010s Lean In ethos to move up quickly, though I don't think that sort of career pipeline is supported anymore.
Otherwise if you are talented and experienced I don't see why you'd want to join in for so much uncertainty and so little in return. It's not as flexible as older reviews make it out to be because now you will have the work of 3 people and a constant sense of urgency pushing down on you from every direction.
Any attempt to set professional boundaries or point to an established process will be undermined by your leadership or the Core Values will be weaponized against you. I get there's nuance for certain exceptions, but not everything can be an exception and still go at the same quality and speed and attitude, and it's a poor way to run an organization.
So, good luck! If you don't care about any of that and don't value work-life balance, you'll probably love it, and good for you!
