Things I wish somebody had told me before I started my Recruitment Agency

This is a great article, with some top tips from Erika Clifford, Managing Director of Just Recruit.

I learnt some incredible lessons setting up and growing a multi-award winning recruitment agency to a headcount of thirty. Many of these lessons were learnt the hard way which can often be the best way, so I wouldn’t change it but there are some things I really wish I had known in the beginning…

If you don’t ask, you don’t get

It’s such a cliché but I guess clichés are clichés for a reason.

Ask for discounts, ask for information, ask for mentorship. Ask for better terms – make cheeky requests (with a smile on your face), ask the experts, ask for HELP. Ask for somebody’s thoughts on that crazy idea you are not sure should leave your head. Ask for somebody’s time, ask for opinions, ask for confirmation, ask when you have no idea. Ask somebody that’s got more experience, ask somebody with a different skillset, ask somebody that you know has a different opinion to you. When you think you might look silly for asking – ask anyway.

Now is not the time to be shy.

Don’t spend an absolute fortune on your website

You need an online presence and your website needs to look professional but you do NOT need to obsess over the content and the aesthetics wasting valuable time and importantly money – you do NOT need to spend thousands upfront at a time when funds are tight.

Remember these things:

1. Clients will BARELY visit your site so keep content for them to an absolute minimum. They certainly won’t be dropping vacancies into your lap via your website so don’t waste your time with functionality that caters for this.
2. Candidates will spend the majority of their time on your site looking at your jobs – they’re not going to read lengthy paragraphs of text about why you’re different to all other recruiters…
3. If you have ambitious hiring plans and do a lot of internal recruitment, potential employees WILL look at your site so make sure there’s something for them but it doesn’t need to be lengthy.
4. Unless you have an exceptional SEO rating (highly unlikely as a small recruitment business), nobody is stumbling upon your website and so the majority of your visitors will most likely be there because they’re already aware of you

The point is, your website isn’t going to be a deciding factor for winning business or candidates and will play a minimal role in your internal recruitment strategy. It needs to look professional, be functional and if relevant to your business, needs to show your jobs and allow people to apply and register. Don’t let something that is likely to have a small impact in the grand scheme of things, eat up all your time, money, brain power and energy.

State that you invoice on written acceptance in your terms of business

This is simple but effective.

It’s standard with contingent recruitment to invoice on start date. It would be amazing and your cashflow would be helped greatly if you could invoice on written acceptance – i.e. when a candidate signs the contract, rather than on the day they start. The great news is – you can! State in your terms that you invoice on written acceptance and you’ll be surprised at how few of your customers question it.

Of course some will push back and if they do, it’s an opportunity to negotiate. You’re willing to invoice on start date but it is outside of your standard terms so you want a higher fee, the next role exclusively, a two week headstart, an introduction to their Manchester office… Some clients won’t budge but it’s worth a try – you’ve absolutely nothing to lose and potentially plenty to gain – especially in those early days when cash is so very crucial.

Have a CRM from the beginning

When you’re looking after the pennies because you have no idea when the pounds will start rolling into your rather empty bank account, a database is one of the things that quickly gets put in the ‘later’ bucket. There are a few issues with this:

1. By the time ‘later’ arrives, you’ll be knee deep in jobs, internal recruitment and sorting your accounts – among other things. You will never have more time for getting a CRM embedded properly into your business, than in the very beginning. I guarantee that if you do it down the line when it’s impossible for it to be a priority, you won’t do as good of a job at a) selecting the right system and b) getting the most value from it.
2. With every single day that passes, the task of data migration gets bigger, messier, more time-consuming and therefore, more expensive
3. Hiring – it’s tricky to grow a business and hire staff when so much important information is in your head or on messy spreadsheets with shorthand you can’t even make sense of yourself.

A CRM is a business critical piece of time-saving, streamlining and efficiency increasing tech – don’t put it off.

Enjoy the journey because you may never reach your destination

In those early days, you dream of being out of the uncertain start-up phase and onto the steady state of growth or maintenance mode (or what I like to call ‘chill and bill’). If you’re going for a lifestyle business this is certainly easier to get close to than if you’ve got huge growth plans however either way, this utopian state is pretty elusive. As any home-owner will know, there is always something and it’s a similar affair for businesses.

There are some really cool checkpoints (first time the phone rings and it’s not your mum, first job, first placement, first job on that came to you, first hire, X amount in the bank…) and you need to make sure you really celebrate every single win. Be sure to regularly look back at what you’ve achieved, as well as looking forward (sorry, another cliché but again, very relevant).

If you wait to get to a certain point before you really relax into things and start truly enjoying the experience, it could be a long time. So, strap yourself in, put the peddle to the floor and try to enjoy the bumpy bits of the ride because there will be many!

Written by Erika Clifford, Managing Director of Just Recruit

Just Recruit provides CRM / ATS functionality on a modern system, with the option of a fully integrated website – an affordable package perfect for start-ups. Baffled by extortionate fees for over-complicated and over-priced systems, Just Recruit was created for recruiters that want a slick, intuitive, easy-to-use, affordable CRM. Save time, don’t spend it.

Chat to our team today on 0203 475 1789 or email us on hello@justrecruit.co – we can’t wait to help you on your journey.  www.justrecruit.co