DHI Group - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 delivered a clean beat on both revenue and non-GAAP EPS versus Wall Street consensus; revenue was $32.1M and non-GAAP EPS $0.09, aided by cost savings and a strong Dice margin uplift, while GAAP EPS was impacted by a $9.6M intangible impairment. Estimates context: revenue consensus $31.18M and EPS $0.04; actuals beat both by ~3% and ~$0.05 respectively.*
• Management reiterated FY revenue guidance of $126–$128M and raised FY adjusted EBITDA margin guidance to 27%; Q4 revenue guided to $29.5–$31.5M, framing near-term expectations and strengthening profitability narrative.
• ClearanceJobs remained resilient (revenue +1% YoY; 43% adj. EBITDA margin) despite bookings softness from federal budget uncertainty, while Dice profitability sharply improved (adj. EBITDA +56% YoY; margin 34%), with management cautioning some non-recurring benefits and capitalized development mix that should normalize next quarter.
• Capital allocation supports the story: $5M buyback completed and a new $5M program authorized; combined with margin guidance raise and CJ’s defensible position against a record defense budget, these are likely stock reaction catalysts.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Dice margin expansion: adj. EBITDA rose to $6.2M with a 34% margin (from $4.0M, 19% YoY), driven by expense true-ups and higher capitalization of development tied to the DX platform release; management sees margins normalizing to mid-20s next quarter.
• ClearanceJobs resilience: CJ revenue grew 1% YoY to $13.9M and maintained strong profitability (43% adj. EBITDA margin), underscoring pricing/ARPU strength and retention, even with government-related volatility.
• Estimate beat and higher profitability guidance: Q3 revenue and non-GAAP EPS beat consensus; FY adjusted EBITDA margin raised to 27%, signaling durable operating efficiency despite top-line headwinds.

What Went Wrong

• GAAP results pressured by non-cash impairment: a $9.6M intangible impairment drove GAAP diluted loss per share to $(0.10), versus $(0.00) in Q3 2024.
• Bookings and backlog softness: total bookings fell 12% YoY to $25.4M; backlog declined 10% vs 12/31 and 9% YoY, reflecting slower new demand and renewal pressure, particularly at Dice and smaller CJ accounts.
• Dice demand remains below normal: Dice revenue down 15% YoY and bookings down 17% YoY; management cited tariffs, higher rates, and budget uncertainty affecting smaller customers’ renewal and new commitments.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the DHI Group Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touchstone telephones. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Todd Kehrli with Pondel & Wilkinson. Please go ahead.

Todd Kehrli (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon and welcome to DHI Group's Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call for 2025. Joining me today are DHI's CEO, Art Zeile, and CFO, Greg Schippers. Before I hand the call over to Art, I'd like to address a few quick items. This afternoon, DHI issued a press release announcing its financial results for the third quarter of 2025. The release is available on the company's website at dhigroupinc.com. This call is being broadcast live over the internet for all interested parties, and the webcast will be archived on the investor relations page of the company's website. I want to remind everyone that during today's call, management will make forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Please note that except for the historical information, statements on today's call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.

These forward-looking statements reflect DHI management's current views concerning future events and financial performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from the outcomes contained in any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these forward-looking statements to differ from actual results include the risks and uncertainties discussed in the company's periodic reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. DHI undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Lastly, on today's call, management will reference specific financial measures including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, free cash flow, and non-GAAP earnings per share, which are not prepared in accordance with US GAAP. Information regarding these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release, which can be found on our website at dhigroupinc.com in the investor relations section.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Art Zeile, CEO of DHI Group.

Art Zeile (CEO)

Thank you, Todd. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Art Zeile, CEO of DHI Group, and with me is Greg Schippers, our CFO. If you're new to the story, welcome. At DHI, our mission is simple. We help employers find and connect with the technology professionals who drive innovation across the U.S. economy. We do this through two brands, ClearanceJobs and Dice, both with strong positions in attractive markets. Our model is straightforward. More than 90% of our revenue comes from annual or multi-year subscriptions. Customers who are employers or recruiters use our platforms to search, engage, and recruit tech talent. Our exclusive focus on tech occupations, brand longevity, scale of our communities, data insights, and continued product innovation give us a durable competitive advantage.

ClearanceJobs is the leading marketplace for professionals with active U.S. security clearances, serving over 1,800 customers, including Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, Raytheon Technologies, and many others. With 1.9 million candidates on our platform, we have the largest number of profiles of U.S. cleared professionals, giving CJ a significant competitive advantage as a platform for hiring cleared talent. Dice is essentially LinkedIn for tech hiring. Built over 35 years with 7.6 million profiles in our database, representing the vast majority of technology professionals in the U.S. While LinkedIn emphasizes a person's title, we focus on tech skills. Tech professionals on Dice actively update their profiles with new tech skills, making it the most relevant platform for recruiters who need to source tech talent. Both businesses generate strong recurring revenue and robust EBITDA margins, particularly at ClearanceJobs, where margins run above 40%.

Investors often mistake us for a staffing and recruiting firm, but we are an essential software tool used by employers and recruiters to find top tech talent for their open positions. Over 6,000 employers and staffing companies subscribe to our two SaaS platforms. Despite a mixed macro backdrop and recent headlines, tech hiring has stabilized this year, although remaining under historical levels. While we do not have updated U.S. BLS tech job posting figures due to the government shutdown, we know from our alternative source, Lightcast, that new tech job postings were roughly the same as second quarter. Dice is an essential platform for staffing firms. According to the Staffing Industry Analysts Pulse Reports, the median tech staffing firm in their membership is now growing revenue in low single digits compared to 2024. The most notable trend driving current and future tech worker demand is AI.

At the beginning of 2024, approximately 10% of job postings on Dice required at least one AI skill. As of last month, that number has risen above 50%. As companies expand their use of AI, the need for skilled technologists that implement these projects will only increase. Platforms like ClearanceJobs and Dice, with their combined databases of over 9 million tech professionals, are an essential tool for employers seeking to find, attract, and hire the tech talent they need to fill these projects. Now, I would like to provide an overview of our brand performance this quarter and outline the steps we've taken to improve our position moving forward. ClearanceJobs continues to generate strong margins and retain its leadership position despite a bookings decline of $0.8 million or 7% due to the government hiring freeze and eventual shutdown. The long-term outlook is very favorable.

The proposed $1.1 trillion U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2026 marks the largest single-year increase in peacetime history, representing a 13% increase over the previous year's budget. Historically, the defense budget has grown roughly in line with GDP growth rates of around 3%. This is a significant year-over-year increase. Also, NATO countries are boosting defense spending with a target of 5% of their GDPs, which would represent a spending increase of more than $500 billion, with U.S. contractors likely to secure a significant portion of this incremental spend. Traditionally, over 60% of EU defense procurement spending goes to U.S. military contractors. These dynamics are promising for ClearanceJobs. With over 10,000 employers of cleared tech professionals and more than 100 government agencies also in need of cleared tech professionals, CJ has a significant growth opportunity as government contractors look to staff new projects.

On the product side, we've integrated Agile ATS with our ClearanceJobs offering and are beta testing our premium candidate subscription ahead of its general release in Q1 of 2026, our first candidate monetization opportunity. As we announced last quarter, Agile ATS is the only applicant tracking system in the market designed specifically for the cleared recruiting environment. It's the only ATS on the market developed from the ground up to meet the unique regulatory and compliance requirements of government contractors. With Agile ATS now integrated with ClearanceJobs, we have begun offering a bundled solution to customers who want a seamless end-to-end cleared hiring workflow. Based on our analysis, we believe approximately half of our CJ customers today meet the target profile for this solution.

With a historical average contract value of around $7,000 annually, we see strong incremental recurring revenue potential for Agile ATS, both from our existing CJ customer base and from new customers in the broader GovTech market. Additionally, we are excited about the opportunity for CJ to create a new recurring revenue stream from our new premium candidate subscription. We will be looking to roll out a similar offering on Dice in the future. With our Dice brand, in the third quarter, we continue to face macro headwinds from tariffs, budget uncertainty, and higher interest rates. As a result, the number of new tech job postings remains around 70% of normal, resulting in Dice bookings being down 17% year-over-year. Having said that, as I mentioned earlier, we are seeing significant interest in AI-related job postings, which we believe will drive future tech hiring demand.

During the quarter, we made meaningful progress with our Dice platform from a product perspective. More than half of our 4,200 customers, primarily smaller accounts, have now migrated to the new platform, with all customers expected to be migrated by the end of Q1 2026. This new platform allows existing customers to add new products to their existing subscription online. It also allows new customers to sign up for a subscription with a swipe of a credit card. The price point is $650 a month for the lowest tier subscription package, which is easier for smaller customers to manage than an annual upfront charge. This move to a more self-service model allowed us to reduce Dice operating expenses significantly moving forward. Looking ahead, even though the past few years have been difficult, we have successfully laid the foundation for future growth.

Dice is increasingly becoming the go-to destination for AI talent, and ClearanceJobs operates in a specialized high-barrier market at the intersection of defense, security, and technology, with significant upside from defense budget growth and NATO spending. Our subscription model and margin structure give us resilience. We continue to believe the market does not fully reflect the value of each distinct brand today, which is why our board authorized a new $5 million buyback program starting this month. Over time, as we execute, modernize our platforms, and grow our customer base, we see a clear path to meaningful continued shareholder value creation. We remain committed to delivering solid profits and robust free cash flow for our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call over to Greg to walk you through the financial results and our guidance in more detail. Greg?

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Thank you, Art, and good afternoon, everyone. Jumping right in, we reported total revenue of $32.1 million, which was down 9% on a year-over-year basis and roughly flat compared to the second quarter. Total bookings for the quarter were $25.4 million, down 12% year-over-year. Our total recurring revenue was down 11% compared to the prior year, and the bookings that drive our recurring revenue were down 13% for the quarter. ClearanceJobs revenue was $13.9 million, up 1% year-over-year and up 2% sequentially. Bookings for CJ were $12 million, down 7% year-over-year. We entered the third quarter with 1,822 CJ recruitment package customers, which was down 8% on a year-over-year basis and down 2% on a sequential basis. This reduction is attributable to churn with smaller customers, whereas the number of CJ accounts spending greater than $15,000 in annual recurring revenue increased versus prior year.

Also, as Art mentioned, CJ's new business teams were impacted by uncertainty surrounding the federal budget freeze and eventual shutdown. Our average annual revenue per CJ recruitment package customer was up 7% year-over-year and up 2% sequentially to $26,600. Approximately 90% of CJ revenue is recurring and comes from annual or multi-year contracts. For the quarter, CJ's revenue renewal rate was 85%, and CJ's retention rate was 106%. This solid retention rate demonstrates the continued value CJ delivers in the recruitment of cleared professionals. Dice revenue was $18.2 million, which was down 15% year-over-year and down 1% sequentially. Dice bookings were $13.4 million, down 17% year-over-year. We ended the quarter with 4,239 Dice recruitment package customers, which is down 3% from last quarter and down 13% year-over-year. Dice revenue renewal rate was 69% for the quarter, and its retention rate was 92%.

The reduction in customer count and Dice's renewal rate from the prior year quarter is mainly attributable to churn with smaller customers spending less than $15,000 per year, representing over 75% of the total churn on count, and who are more likely to be impacted by the difficult macro environment and uncertainty. We believe the introduction of our new Dice platform, which offers customers the flexibility of monthly subscriptions, will help reduce future churn among smaller accounts by lowering upfront commitment and improving affordability. Our average annual revenue per Dice recruitment package customer was $15,727, down 4% year-over-year and up 2% sequentially. As with CJ, approximately 90% of Dice revenue is recurring and comes from annual or multi-year contracts. Despite this churn, both brands onboarded notable clients in the third quarter.

For CJ, this includes Blue Origin, Boston Fusion, and CDW, while Dice landed High IQ Robotics, Cloud AI Technologies, and Mango Analytics as customers in Q3. Now, let's move to operating expenses. For the third quarter, our operating expenses increased $1.9 million to $36.6 million when compared to $34.7 million in the year-ago quarter and includes a $9.6 million impairment of the intangible assets. Excluding the impairment, our third quarter operating expenses declined $7.6 million, or 22%. Because of the difficult market conditions over the past two and a half years, we have reduced costs through restructurings in the second quarter of 2023, in the third quarter of 2024, in January of this year, and most recently in June. Together, these restructurings have reduced our annual operating expenses and capitalized development costs by approximately $35 million.

For the quarter, we had an income tax benefit of $800,000 on a loss before taxes of $5 million. Our tax rate for the quarter differed from our approximate statutory rate of 25% due to deduction limitations on executive compensation. The new tax law signed in early July allows for the immediate deduction of R&D costs, which will reduce our income tax payments in 2025 by over $2 million, while also providing an incentive for technology spending in the broader U.S. market, thereby increasing tech hiring. Moving on to the bottom line, we recorded a net loss of $4.3 million, or $0.10 per diluted share in the third quarter. For the prior year quarter, we reported a net loss of $200,000, or $0.00 per diluted share. Net loss for the quarter was impacted by the previously mentioned $9.6 million impairment.

Non-GAAP earnings per share for the quarter was $0.09 per share compared to $0.05 per share for the prior year quarter. Diluted shares outstanding for the quarter were 44.8 million shares, down slightly from the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $10.3 million, a margin of 32% compared to $8.6 million, or a margin of 24% in the third quarter a year ago. Margin for the quarter benefited from certain expense savings that are not expected to recur. On a segmented basis, CJ adjusted EBITDA remained strong at $5.9 million in the third quarter, representing a 43% adjusted EBITDA margin as compared to adjusted EBITDA of $6.3 million, or a margin of 46% in the prior year period.

DICE's adjusted EBITDA increased $2.2 million, or 56%, to $6.2 million, representing a 34% adjusted EBITDA margin, which compares to $4.0 million and a 19% margin last year. Operating cash flow for the third quarter was $4.8 million compared to $5.5 million in the prior year period. Free cash flow, which is operating cash flows less capital expenditures, was $3.2 million for the third quarter compared to $2.3 million in the third quarter of last year. Our capital expenditures, which consist primarily of capitalized development costs, were $1.6 million in the third quarter compared to $3.2 million in the third quarter last year, a savings of $1.6 million, or 51%. Capitalized development costs in the third quarter of 2025 were $400,000 for CJ and $1.1 million for DICE, as compared to $600,000 for CJ and $2.5 million for DICE in the 2024 period.

We are targeting total capital expenditures in 2025 to range between $7 million and $8 million as compared to $13.9 million last year. From a liquidity perspective, at the end of the quarter, we had $2.3 million in cash, and our total debt was $30 million under our $100 million revolver, resulting in leverage at 0.86 times our adjusted EBITDA. We continue to target one-time leverage for the business. Deferred revenue at the end of the quarter was $41 million, down 13% from the third quarter and of last year. Our total committed contract backlog at the end of the quarter was $94.3 million, which was down 9% from the end of the third quarter last year. Short-term backlog was $72 million at the end of the third quarter, a decrease of $2.2 million, or 3% year-over-year.

Long-term backlog, that is revenue to be recognized in 13 or more months, was $22.3 million at the end of the quarter, a decrease of $500,000, or 2% from the prior year quarter. During the quarter, we repurchased 741,000 shares for $2.1 million under our stock repurchase program. For the year, we've repurchased a total of 2.6 million shares for $6.2 million under our stock repurchase program and from the vesting of share-based awards. Following the close of the third quarter, we completed the $5 million plan authorized in January, and last week, our board approved a new $5 million stock repurchase program, which will begin this month and will run through November of 2026. Moving to guidance, we are reiterating our annual revenue guidance of $126-$128 million. For the fourth quarter, we expect revenue to be in the range of $29.5-$31.5 million.

We are raising our full-year adjusted EBITDA margin guidance to 27%, reflecting our cost management and operational efficiency. To wrap up, although the hiring environment over the past two-plus years has impacted our revenue growth, we remain optimistic about the road ahead. We anticipate the record-breaking defense budget will be a growth driver for CJ and that companies across all industries will steadily increase their investments in technology initiatives, creating a strong growth opportunity for both ClearanceJobs and Dice. We remain focused on strengthening our industry-leading solutions, optimizing our go-to-market strategy, and executing it with efficiency, ensuring we are well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunities that lie ahead. Let me turn the call back to Art.

Art Zeile (CEO)

Thank you, Greg. I want to thank all of our employees once again for their outstanding work this quarter. It has been a pleasure to be part of such a great team. That said, we are happy to answer your questions.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star and then One using a touch-tone telephone. To withdraw your questions, you may press Star and Two. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up the handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. Again, that is Star and then One to join the question queue. We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from Gary Prestipino from Barrington Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

Hey, Art, Greg, how are you?

Art Zeile (CEO)

Good. Good. Thanks. Appreciate it.

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Good. How are you?

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

Good. Just fine, thanks. Several questions, but I won't ask them all at one time. Somebody else can get in the queue. The Dice margin expansion is just fantastic. I guess there's no one-timers or anything in there, right? That is just pure adjusted EBITDA numbers quarter to quarter.

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Yeah, Gary, I'll take that. There are a few, I would call, true-ups in there. Really what's driving that is we had some headcount vacancies during the third quarter that have now largely been backfilled. We also had a few kind of what I would call year-to-date expense true-ups that were the result of some of our margin changes throughout the year and forecast on the revenue side. Also, as it relates to Dice, the tech team had a very efficient quarter. Therefore, there was more cost allocated to the capitalized development costs in the quarter as opposed to operating expenses. That was a result of the delivery of the DX platform that we've been talking about that was delivered in September and another release in October. That team really zeroed in.

As a result, there was a classification from OpEx down to capitalized development. From a dollar perspective, there was no change to free cash flow on that. I would expect that we're going to return to a little bit more of a normalized margin on Dice next quarter.

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

What would that be?

Greg Schippers (CFO)

On Dice, we had been running in the mid-20s, so I would say we're going to stay in that range.

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And then what was the write-off for $9 million? Was that in Dice, ClearanceJobs, or?

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Yep. It was the Dice trade name, which is directly related to Dice revenue. Trade name valuation uses a technique called a relief of royalty rate. You apply a third-party royalty rate to a revenue stream and discount that back. That is the nature of that test that has to be done every year. It resulted in impairment in this case, given the revenue declines that Dice has experienced.

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

Okay. And then lastly, I'll let somebody—yeah. Okay. And I'll let somebody jump in. Capitalized development, you're looking at $78 million for this year. Given what's going on in the market, particularly with Dice, do you see that that changes in any way to the upside next year?

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Our spending on cap dev will get better next year, as in decrease.

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

Okay.

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Is that your question?

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

You're talking about it, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to get an idea. If you're in kind of a steady state with all that's going on in the market and then all you've done.

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Yep. Yep. I don't anticipate we're going to have a significant decrease next year because our teams are pretty well, I think, put together now. I think we have the right staffing levels. And so we'll continue largely at a level similar to what you would see this year, maybe slightly less, given that the first part of the year we had more employees before the restructure that happened in June.

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Zach Cummins from B. Riley. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi. This is Ethan Widel calling in for Zach Cummins. Thanks for taking my question. I guess to start with, I think you said 70% of bookings declined from government volatility. Maybe can you speak to how much of that impact you're seeing from government shutdown versus maybe government efficiency initiatives, just broader volatility? How do you view that dynamic being offset going forward in light of the robust defense budget?

Art Zeile (CEO)

Ultimately, I think that we have seen a lot of the smaller and mid-sized defense contractors become more conservative over the last, let's say, three to six months. We're entering a period of time right now, specifically in December and January, where we have a seasonal high amount of our larger enterprise bookings take place. These are with firms like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies and Booz Allen Hamilton. They are actually feeling much more bullish because they can obviously withstand the government shutdown. They could withstand kind of the turbulence of the market in general. They have larger balance sheets. I personally think that we're getting now to the point where people acknowledge that the $1.1 trillion budget is going to be a big benefit to the defense establishment in the U.S. in total. We mentioned also the impact of NATO spending is positive for the U.S.

military establishment. I would say that we have to get to the actual bills being passed and signed into law by President Trump. There is still a process of reconciliation between the House bill, the Senate bill, and they have to be debating this. They have to essentially make sure that the reconciliation process happens. This year, it took until February/March for the reconciliation to take place. We do not really have an estimate as to when this is going to happen for fiscal year 2026. There seems to be more urgency, I have to say, also with the administration. The articles you read just about every day indicate that Secretary Hegseth wants speed to be part of the equation for getting more military gear and weaponry and preparedness into the hands of our warfighters.

Got it. That's some helpful color there. Thank you. In terms of the new platform migration, it's nice to see that you're seeing traction there. I guess, are there any particular actions that need to be taken to onboard the remaining customers that you have by first quarter? Do you expect any uptick in churn with your final customers on the legacy platform?

I would say that much like any major technology implementation and any feature that's delivered on either one of the platforms, we always make the migration to our smaller customers first because it's just a risk-off kind of way of moving through waves of customer migrations. We've had a very good experience with those customers moving over. We've moved over half of them. I personally do not perceive that there is churn risk with the remainder of the customers that we move. Now they become the mid and large-sized customers, so the stakes are higher. I think that we've also honed the process by virtue of these small customer migrations.

Thank you. That's all really helpful. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Evan.

Gary Prestopino (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Max Michalis from Lake Street. Please go ahead with your question.

Max Michaelis (Equity Research Associate)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Few from me. First, kind of want to start with just the macro in general. I know you said Dice seems to be stabilizing. Play devil's advocate just a little bit here. The bookings decline seem to increase from last quarter, so down 17%, first down 16%. Can you kind of characterize the stabilization you are seeing in the market just to kind of give me a better sense?

Art Zeile (CEO)

That's a good point to say that it ticked up by one percentage point versus the last quarter. I would say the two things that are giving me confidence personally, and then I'll turn it over to Greg, are that we are seeing this slow and steady increase in the number of new tech job postings, and they are very much AI-related. I believe that that is indicative that the United States economy is moving towards one that is going to accept AI at ever larger scale. I'd say the third quarter is traditionally our smallest renewal book for the business, and it consists of our smaller customers. I don't think that it's necessarily a matter of the percentage point decrease that really should be focused on. Greg, do you have additional thoughts?

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Yeah. The one other thing I'd mention is the amount of inbound opportunities has started to pick up a bit. That doesn't necessarily translate quite yet to bookings, but there is a little more activity in that area too. There has been for a while.

Max Michaelis (Equity Research Associate)

Makes sense. You brought up AI. What percentage of your job postings on your platform? Maybe I know a lot of postings probably mention AI, but how many are actually related to an AI-related job, I guess? I do not know how to characterize that, but I will let you take it.

Art Zeile (CEO)

Over 50% as of October are related to an AI project. The person is being hired specifically to tackle an AI project for the firm that's hiring them. That's grown from 25% at the beginning of the year and 10% at the beginning of 2024. It is a very significant trend from our perspective.

Max Michaelis (Equity Research Associate)

Wow, that's a lot. The last one for me, it's a little if we look out kind of into the future, I know you guys acquired Agile ATS a few months ago, but I mean, is there any other opportunities out in the gov tech space that you guys can go after? That's it for me.

Art Zeile (CEO)

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say that we are evaluating a number of them. We think that CJ is a great platform. It has a great reputation with its customer community, has high credibility, has always been the platform of choice for anybody that is hiring cleared technology professionals. I do think that there are adjacencies. In fact, we always show a diagram to our board that says that talent sourcing is just one part of the whole end-to-end process for hiring an individual, onboarding them, and then managing them in the cleared context or any context. I think that there will be more opportunities for us in the future. Yes.

Max Michaelis (Equity Research Associate)

All right. Thanks, guys.

Art Zeile (CEO)

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Our next question comes from Kevin Lu from Kevin Lu and Company. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Maybe just starting with CJ, and I apologize if you had just been here prepared to mark. I joined a little bit late. Can you put a finer point in terms of how kind of renewal activity versus new business activity has kind of trended since the shutdown? Your sense is to any sort of pent-up demand that could come through, assuming the shutdown ends shortly?

Art Zeile (CEO)

I think those are the exact right questions to ask. I would say we have seen a solidification of renewal rates in third quarter and even moving into fourth quarter. Our bigger customers definitely feel bullish about the future. As I kind of indicated in one of the answers, they have the balance sheets to withstand whatever kind of a government shutdown we actually endure. It's been the smaller and medium-sized customers that have been more challenged even with new business activity. I'd say new business activity has picked up, and we have seen bigger pipeline than we have in a long time.

Speaking to the second part of your question, which is, I think that if once we get back to the business of running the government, I do think we have to have a defense bill passed, or actually it is a multitude of different bills that constitute the defense budget, then there will be more activity, more projects that will allow these smaller defense contractors to feel really good about where they stand with regard to their future success and therefore their willingness to purchase a platform like ClearanceJobs.

Got it. Maybe switching gears to the new Dice platform, can you talk—I know it's still early days—but maybe talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of new customer signings and in particular how that kind of impacts your cost per acquired customer? Anything notable in terms of customers that have migrated over and kind of their renewal rates or upsell potential?

Yeah. I think that obviously this is pretty new for us. I have to say that with regard to the idea of swiping a credit card, what we found is that the customers are less willing to do that for an annual subscription, even the lowest tier of package, because it involves roughly about $6,000-$7,000. That is a large charge at one point in time. Once we rolled out the monthly option, which I mean, as you're well aware, is part of a lot of different B2B and B2C experiences, that's when we saw the number of people signing up start to escalate. $650 for a month worth of Dice seems like it's a lot more tolerable, a lot more kind of like from a psychology perspective, more acceptable. That's what we've seen so far.

I know that Greg is working on how to essentially report that for the future because most of our reporting metrics in the past have been associated with subscription activity. We do have what we call transactional or non-subscription activity. I think that's going to be a part of how we essentially report progress in the future is a lot of people will be taking, especially new customers, this monthly option. Greg, do you have any additional thoughts?

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Yeah. I would just point out that at this stage, we haven't advertised anything new around the platform, and that is going to get kicked off this week. We are very interested to see how that takes off with an advertising campaign that's coming up. We are getting new customer relationships on there literally every day with no advertising, kind of no focus on it yet. It has only been out there a few weeks, and I think early results are pretty good in that respect.

Yeah. Interesting. Just so I can clarify, it sounds like your current reporting metrics around customer recruitment packages, since that's on an annual basis, you're not including any of these customers.

Yeah. We're working out still the kind of fine-tuning the best way to report that information. If you think about a self-service versus a managed customer relationship, for instance, it's going to change a little bit on how we think about the business and how we report it through our calls and through investors and analysts. We'll be forthcoming with that probably in our Q1 call, the call in February.

Art Zeile (CEO)

All right. And just lastly for me, it was good to see the buyback authorization the other day. Can you talk a little bit about kind of your appetite for being aggressive on that, given where the stock price is currently, and trying to balance that with some of the ongoing uncertainty, both with the shutdown as well as the macro conditions?

Greg Schippers (CFO)

Yeah. There's always a balance with capital allocation, of course. Our board is comfortable with this one-time leverage. We're going to continue to target in that neighborhood. We're a bit under it right now. We were a bit over it last quarter, I think. We're comfortable with this $5 million plan. It definitely will continue to evaluate as we move through the next couple of quarters and as we evaluate our 2026 plan and kind of see where it takes us. Right now, I think we're pretty comfortable with that mix.

All right. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice job on the EBITDA performance this quarter.

Thank you.

Art Zeile (CEO)

Thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

With that, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be concluding today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Art Zeile for any closing remarks.

Art Zeile (CEO)

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us today. As always, if you have any questions about our company or would like to speak with management, please reach out to Todd Kehrli, and he will assist in arranging a meeting. Thank you, everyone, for your interest in DHI Group. Hope you have a great day and week to come.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. We do thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.