How Joynes & Hunt used automation & AI to drive more revenue

Steve started Joynes & Hunt in 2018 with the philosophy of “keeping it less transactional and more relationship-driven.” To do so, he wanted a tech stack that could back him. Where “admin is taken care of by AI” and tech enables the team to work.

Initially, he started with a few spreadsheets before moving to Bullhorn as the first CRM. But the shortcomings of Bullhorn showed up early, fuelling his search for an AI-native software.

"Our first CRM was Bullhorn. It was very basic and we needed something that could do more. That’s when we moved to Recruiterflow in 2019."
Stephen Joynes | Managing Director, Joynes & Hunt

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ABOUT JOYNES & HUNT
Joynes & Hunt is a UK-based technical recruitment agency founded in 2018 by Steve Long. The firm places across technical and engineering disciplines.

AI that enables recruiters to do more work

Steve uses AIRA agents on Recruiterflow to focus on the conversation, not admin. AIRA notetaker records the calls, converts them to structured notes, and works with update field agent to fill in candidate and client profiles.

During sales calls, AIRA surfaces company information, funding data, and business context in a single click. The time saved goes straight back into what Steve calls the job actually is: getting on the phone, building relationships, and filling roles.

A software that helps you make money

Today, Joynes & Hunt runs over 200 automations inside Recruiterflow. Moving a candidate through a Kanban board triggers tasks, sends reminders to the team & emails to clients, in a single click.

The sales pipeline works the same way. Stages drive actions in the background while consultants focus on the work in front of them. Thanks to the easy UI and useful features, the team adapted quickly creating a new unified way of work.

"Even if you're a relative novice to recruitment software, you can pick Recruiterflow up very easily. It almost invites you to use it."
Stephen Joynes | Managing Director, Joynes & Hunt

A partnership built on trust

Be it a client or the recruitment software, the underlying philosophy for Steve is the same: relationships over transactions. That’s what made Steve choose Recruiterflow, twice.

"One of the things we lacked with our previous CRM was face to face support time. I have a call with you guys every two weeks, minimum and more."
Stephen Joynes | Managing Director, Joynes & Hunt

The team has biweekly support calls, a responsive chat team, and visibility into the product roadmap. It feels like the kind of partnership he built his agency around, as Steve puts it.

*“I'm getting that idea of new product updates and what's coming up. These things are important to me."
*Stephen Joynes | Managing Director, Joynes & Hunt

The false promise of AI

Steve moved away from Recruiterflow for a brief time because he was “sold the dream for a very, very, very AI-heavy CRM.” But it turned out to be a system that only worked well in the demo and was disappointing in reality.

"We were sold the dream for a very, very, very heavy AI CRM. It was a bit complicated and it was probably more messing about than it was actually getting work done."
Stephen Joynes | Managing Director, Joynes & Hunt

Moving back to Recruiterflow was not only an obvious choice, but also the right one, thanks to the abundance of useful AIRA agents that got things done, without adding complexity.

“We find use for a lot of the AIRA agents. It's been really good it's not AI for the sake of AI, it's AI to enable you to work.”
Stephen Joynes | Managing Director, Joynes & Hunt

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