DHI Group reports Q3 revenue decline of 9% but raises adjusted EBITDA margin guidance, driven by strong AI job postings and defense budget optimism.

OPERATOR - (00:00:00)

To queue 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 Curley with DHI Group. Please go ahead.

Todd Curley - Moderator - (00:00:14)

Thank you Operator Good afternoon and welcome to the DHI Group's third quarter earnings conference call for 2025. Joining me today are DHI's CEO Art Zaley and CFO Greg Skippers. 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 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 10K and 10Q 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 @dhigroupinc.com in the investor Relations section. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Art Zaley, CEO of DHI Group.

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:02:23)

Thank you Todd Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'm Art Zaley, CEO of DHI Group and with me is Greg Skippers, our cfo. If you're new to the story, welcome to DHI, our mission is simple. We help employers find and connect with the technology professionals who drive innovation across the US 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 US security clearances, serving over 1,800 customers including Lockheed, Booz, Allen, Hamilton, Leidos, Raytheon and many others. With 1.9 million candidates on our platform, we have the largest number of profiles of US 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 range representing the vast majority of technology professionals in the US 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 clearance jobs 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 don't have updated 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 and 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. 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, an eventual shutdown, but the long term outlook is very favorable. The proposed 1.1 trillion US 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%, so 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 US military contractors. These dynamics are promising for clearance jobs. 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 clearance jobs offering and are beta testing our premium candidate subscription and 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 clearance jobs, 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 with 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 remain 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 clearance jobs. 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 doesn't 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. And as always, we remain committed to delivering solid profits and robust free cash. Flow for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Greg to walk you through the financial results and our guidance in more detail.

Greg Skippers - Chief Financial Officer - (00:12:00)

Greg 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. 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 DOL. 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 and 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. US 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 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 remains 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 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 1 times 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, i.e., 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 or $6.2 million under our stock repurchase program and from the vessing 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 to $128 million. For the fourth quarter we expect revenue to be in the range of $29.5 million to $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 clearance jobs and dice. We remain focused on strengthening our industry. Leading solutions, optimizing our go to market. Strategy and executing with efficiency ensuring we are well positioned to capitalize on the opportunities that lie ahead. And with that, let me turn the call back to Art. Thank you, Greg.

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:22:35)

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 - (00:22:49)

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. And our first question today comes from Gary Prestipino from Barrington Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Gary Prestipino - Analyst - (00:23:30)

Hey Art, Greg, how are you?

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:23:34)

Good, good, thank you. Appreciate it. How are you?

Gary Prestipino - Analyst - (00:23:37)

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

Greg Skippers - Chief Financial Officer - (00:24:02)

So yeah, Gary, I'll take that. There are a few I would call. True ups in there. And so really what's driving that is we had some headcount vacancies during the third quarter that have, you know, now largely been backfilled. And then we also had a few what I'd call year to date expense true ups that you know, were the result of some of our margin changes throughout the year and forecast on the revenue side. And then also as it relates to Dice, the tech team had a very efficient quarter. Therefore there was more. More cost allocated to the capitalized development costs in the. Quarter as opposed to operating expenses. And really that was a result of. The delivery of the DX platform that. We'Ve been talking about. That was delivered in September and you know, another release in October. And so that team really zeroed in. And as a result there was a classification, you know, from OPEX down to capitalized development. But from a dollar perspective there was. No change to free cash flow on that. So I would expect that, you know, we're going to return to a little bit more of a normalized margin on DICE next Quarter.

Gary Prestipino - Analyst - (00:25:25)

And what would that be?

Greg Skippers - Chief Financial Officer - (00:25:29)

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

Gary Prestipino - Analyst - (00:25:38)

Okay, yeah. Okay, thank you, that's helpful. And then. What was the write off for 9 million? Was that in DICE clearance shop?

Greg Skippers - Chief Financial Officer - (00:25:53)

It wasn't. Or. Yep, it was the DICE trade name. So. Which is directly related to DICE revenue. Trade name valuation uses a technique called A relief of royalty rate. And so you apply a third party. Royalty rate to a revenue stream and discount that back. And so that's the nature of that. Test that has to be done every year. And you know, it resulted in impairment in this case, given the revenue declines. That DICE has experienced.

Gary Prestipino - Analyst - (00:26:26)

Okay. And then. Yeah, okay. And I'll let somebody jump in capitalized development, you're looking at 7,8 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 in next year? Our spending on capdev, will it get. Better next year as in decrease? Okay. Is that your question about it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're kind of a steady state with all that's going on market and. Then all you've done.

Greg Skippers - Chief Financial Officer - (00:27:05)

Yep. Yes. 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.

Gary Prestipino - Analyst - (00:27:30)

That happened in June. Okay, thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:27:35)

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

Ethan Waddell - (00:27:42)

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

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:28:10)

So 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 seasonal high amount of our larger enterprise bookings take place. And these are with firms like Lockheed and Raytheon 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. So I personally think that we're getting. Now to the point where, where people acknowledge that the $1.1 trillion budget is going to be a big benefit to the defense establishment in the United States in total. We mentioned also the impact of NATO spending is positive for the US Military establishment. I would say that we have to get to the actual bills being passed and signed into law by President Trump. So there's still a process of reconciliation between the House bill, the Senate bill, and they've got to be in, you know, they've got 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. So we don't really have an estimate. As to when this is going to happen for fiscal year 2026. But 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.

Ethan Waddell - (00:30:12)

That's some helpful color there. Thank you. And then 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? And do you expect any uptick in churn with your final customers on the legacy platform?

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:30:32)

So I would say that much like. Any major technology implementation, 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 kind of moving through waves of customer migrations. And so 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 size customers. So the stakes are higher. But I think that we've also honed the process by virtue of these small customer migrations.

Ethan Waddell - (00:31:23)

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

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:31:28)

Evan. Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:31:31)

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

Max Michaelis - Analyst - (00:31:39)

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 seem to bookings decline seem to increase from last quarter, so down 17% versus down 16%. Can you kind of characterize the stabilization you are seeing in the market? Just to kind of give me a better sense. That's a good point to say that. It ticked up by 1 percentage point versus the last quarter.

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:32:15)

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. So 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. And then I'd say the third quarter. Is traditionally our smallest renewal book for the business and it consists of our smaller customers. So I don't think that it's necessarily a matter of the percentage point decrease that really should be focused on. But Greg, do you have additional thoughts? 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.

Max Michaelis - Analyst - (00:33:19)

Okay. Than there has been for a while. Makes sense. And. You brought up AI. What percentage of your job postings on your platform? And maybe I know a lot of postings probably mention AI, but how many are actually related to an AI related job? I guess I don't know how to characterize that, but I'll let you take it.

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:33:42)

So over 50% as of October are related to an AI project. So the person is being hired specifically to tackle an AI project for the firm that's hiring them and that's grown from 25% at the beginning of the year and 10% at the beginning of 2024. So it is a very significant trend from our perspective. Wow, that's a lot. And then 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 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. 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. So I do think that there are adjacencies. In fact, we always show a diagram to our board that says that, you know, 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. So I think that there will be. More opportunities for us in the future. Yes.

Max Michaelis - Analyst - (00:35:12)

All right, thanks guys. Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:35:18)

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 Liu from Kevin Liu and Company. Please go ahead with your question.

Kevin Liu - Analyst - (00:35:32)

Hi, good afternoon guys. Maybe just starting with CJ And I apologize if you in your prepared remarks, I joined a little bit late, but 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 and then your sense as to any sort of pent up demand that could come through assuming the shutdown ends shortly?

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:35:55)

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. And 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. But 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 and we have to have a defense bill passed or actually it's 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.

Kevin Liu - Analyst - (00:37:18)

Got it.

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:37:19)

And 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 settings and in particular how that kind of impacts your cost per acquired customer. And then 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. And 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 package because it involves roughly about 6 to $7,000. And so that's 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. So you know, $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. So 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. But 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. But Greg, do you have any additional thoughts? 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. So we're very interested to see how that takes off with an advertising campaign that's coming up. But, but we're getting new customer relationships. On there literally every day with no advertising, kind of no focus on it yet. So it's only been out there a few weeks and I think early results. Are pretty good that respect.

Kevin Liu - Analyst - (00:39:31)

Yeah, interesting. And 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 websites 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, it's going to change. A little bit on how, how we think about the business and you know, how we report it through, you know, our calls and through investors and analysts. So we'll, we'll be forthcoming with that. Probably you know, in our Q1 call off the call in February. And just lastly for me it's 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 Skippers - Chief Financial Officer - (00:40:27)

Yeah, there's always a balance with capital. Allocation, of course, and our board is. Comfortable with this one times leverage. And so 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. And so, you know, we're comfortable with. This $5 million plan and, you know, it definitely will keep continue to evaluate it as we move through the next couple of quarters and as we evaluate our 2026 plan and kind of see. Where it takes us. But right now I think we're pretty. Comfortable with that mix. All right.

Kevin Liu - Analyst - (00:41:11)

Thanks for taking the questions. Nice job on the EBITDA performance this quarter. Thank you. Thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it.

OPERATOR - (00:41:19)

And 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 Zelly for any closing remarks.

Art Zaley - Chief Executive Officer - (00:41:30)

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

OPERATOR - (00:41:50)

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