Recruitment agency

[Over]

Hi all,

1) How would you market a recruitment/work agency to make it known and slightly different from other companies?
2) Additionally would you rather start to get clients from your local area or would you try to go globally?
3) Do you have any other ideas for getting clients than cold colling, e-mails and linkedin?

 

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[Wiezel]

Blueprints won't be given on this forum.

 

[Over]

Blueprints won't be given on this forum.

I am not asking for blueprints, I just would like to consider some other options then these which I know right now. Maybe there is something that I missed or have no idea exists and could be useful. Many golden nuggets where provided on this forum, many useful information and adivce. I think this is a idea of this forum, to talk about ideas, options and value.

 

[Matt Hunt]

Half the job postings in my field are from recruiters. I suspect a lot of them aren't even real jobs, the recruiters are just trying to make contacts. But it'd be better if you had an actual job to post. Aside from that, it seems like cold emailing is what all recruiters do.

 

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[reedracer]

I am not asking for blueprints, I just would like to consider some other options then these which I know right now. Maybe there is something that I missed or have no idea exists and could be useful. Many golden nuggets where provided on this forum, many useful information and adivce. I think this is a idea of this forum, to talk about ideas, options and value.

Sketch out what your recruitment company would be and let's bounce around ideas for improvement. There's a plethora of models from Labor Ready to elite Exec search firms. Some pay a bounty for hires, some pay up front, some charge the employee to find a job.

 

[Olimac21]

Hi all,

1) How would you market a recruitment/work agency to make it known and slightly different from other companies?
2) Additionally would you rather start to get clients from your local area or would you try to go globally?
3) Do you have any other ideas for getting clients than cold colling, e-mails and linkedin?

1. Find main weaknesses of competitors in your area and bet on doing those things better. The how will not come easy but you can ask friends in companies to name you the big problems they have had with recruitment agencies in the past. A common weakness in my opinion is not aligning the business needs with the candidate talents in the best way possible, there is always a gap and that is the risk you get when you outsource recrutiment.

2. Local area, start small to test your idea/business and then scale from there.

3. Go to networking events and ask them about how they are doing with their business, eventually asking them about recruitment (there are some articles about how you go from general questions to more specific ones).

 

[Andy Black]

@Contrarian?

 

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[PinPointing]

I wouldn't make it location dependent. I'd start off by being pretty specific in what types of jobs you'll recruit for. This would be harder to do if you're only working with companies around you. You could send a few hand written cards with a clever/cheap gift to HR Managers before you start calling them. This will make it more of a warm call.

HR Managers are constantly being hammered by recruiting firms and don't want to talk to another. If you email/call them to set an appointment, tell them you'll share a few strategies your clients are using to overcome "x-annoying problem". This way they'll get value either way.

 

[SWB]

I’ve been in the recruitment industry for over 25 yrs and I now teach people how to recruit and how to start and build their own recruitment company at www.recruitmentschool.com.au. My suggestion is simple, if you cannot significantly differentiate yourself whilst still staying true to the model that people (candidates and clients) understand (I say this because if you don’t stay true to the model, then you need a lot of cash to re educate the market) then don’t both starting.

The market place is littered and with people who punch really hard so if you are going to jump into that ring, make sure you can keep up with them.

 

[Contrarian]

@Over :

Have you worked in recruiting before? If not, do you have a background in B2B sales?

Marketing and differentiation is extremely important, but if it's not backed up by actually being a great recruiter, it's not going to get you very far.

It can be an extremely lucrative business, but without the right guidance and mentoring, you'll find it very difficult to make a living at.

So maybe you need to start one step further back. What's your background?

 

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[Over]

@Over :

Have you worked in recruiting before? If not, do you have a background in B2B sales?

Marketing and differentiation is extremely important, but if it's not backed up by actually being a great recruiter, it's not going to get you very far.

It can be an extremely lucrative business, but without the right guidance and mentoring, you'll find it very difficult to make a living at.

So maybe you need to start one step further back. What's your background?

Thanks for replaying, I am currently reading your gold thread about recruitment agency and it's incredibly useful for me right now.
I have couple of years of experience working in a different corporations in departments related to law, finance, accounting and administration. I have never worked in HR or as a recruiter, but I have good knowledge about mentioned above subjects + I am quite good in communication and soft skills. Regarding sales and marketing this is a part in which I also don't have much experience beyond some small side hustle when I was younger. I am constantly trying to get better at it but reading books and videos is just a theory. I was thinking about starting a recruitment agency as my local (Polish) market is not so well developed in that area and Poland is right now a hot place in middle Europe for global and well known companies. I wouldn't create it by my own. I would cooperate with my colleagues who has similar background.
I was thinking about hiring as soon as possible a recruiter with big experience to focus more on growing a company and generally a business aspects, and recruitment part left to him.
I am not entrepreneur yet, I have never created a business from scratch, but everyone needs to start somewhere and I am currently in a great life situation to do it.

 

[Contrarian]

Thanks for replaying, I am currently reading your gold thread about recruitment agency and it's incredibly useful for me right now.
I have couple of years of experience working in a different corporations in departments related to law, finance, accounting and administration. I have never worked in HR or as a recruiter, but I have good knowledge about mentioned above subjects + I am quite good in communication and soft skills. Regarding sales and marketing this is a part in which I also don't have much experience beyond some small side hustle when I was younger. I am constantly trying to get better at it but reading books and videos is just a theory. I was thinking about starting a recruitment agency as my local (Polish) market is not so well developed in that area and Poland is right now a hot place in middle Europe for global and well known companies. I wouldn't create it by my own. I would cooperate with my colleagues who has similar background.
I was thinking about hiring as soon as possible a recruiter with big experience to focus more on growing a company and generally a business aspects, and recruitment part left to him.
I am not entrepreneur yet, I have never created a business from scratch, but everyone needs to start somewhere and I am currently in a great life situation to do it.

Polish market could be a very interesting place to be for sure. I would still specialise much further than that - the smaller the niche, the easier it will be to win clients and the more "reusable" your candidates will be against different jobs. But the niche still has to be large enough to support your business.

You can specialise by job function, by geography, by industry, and by seniority (or a combination of all four). As a good rule of thumb, you can have a very successful business as a one man operation with a target market of 500 hiring companies that each hire 5 people in your specialty per year. So, it doesn't need to be a huge space at all.

If it's feasible, I'd strongly recommend at least going to work for a recruitment company for a year before you set up your own thing (the higher end and more niched the firm, the better). It will make your life so much easier. There's literally dozens of different parts to the job you need to be good at to succeed, and if you suck at just one of them, it can easily derail your entire business. If you have no experience or training, you probably won't even realize there are parts of the process you aren't incorporating.

And it's an endlessly frustrating business at the best of times.

These books are IMO mandatory reading:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003BQOBYG/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G6Q2H2/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0966969324/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Be aware these are all from the "old school" of recruiting, before digital marketing became a thing. That's fine. When you're new, that's where you should start. As you'll see from my thread, I made the epic mistake of obsessing over digital marketing at the expense of sales, actually doing recruiting, and even choosing a profitable niche. And that's as an experienced recruiter.

This online training platform is also reputable: Online Recruitment Training Courses | Recruitment Juice

So my suggested startup plan is:

- Get some training (if that includes working for a firm for a while, even better)
- Choose your niche
- Get a basic (but professional) website up, get your Linkedin profile on point, and sort out all the legal stuff (contracts, fee agreements, etc.)
- You can get a basic free recruitment CRM from various vendors, or just start off with spreadsheets to begin with
- Sketch out your sales and recruiting plans and activity metrics (those books/training will teach you how to do that)
- Pick up that phone and dial, dial, dial. Make as many calls as possible. Every time a call goes wrong, take a note of why and where - that's where to focus on for the most urgent improvement. You'll see the same objections/blocks/stonewalls come up over and over again and you'l learn how to handle them. 6-12 months in, you'll start feeling like you actually kinda know what you're doing.

When you already have a degree of success and your one-man business model is working well, then you can think about digital marketing, hiring, and things like that.

Don't even bother trying to hire a recruiter so you can focus on the "business aspects". Recruiting IS the business. In the early stages, there should be little else to manage, and if you're not offering anything unique to that recruiter beyond a salary, why would they work for you? Why would they stay?

If you can make it as a one-man operation (or a team of you doing the full cycle recruiting together), then you can think about scaling. Until that time, forget it.

 

[Over]

Polish market could be a very interesting place to be for sure. I would still specialise much further than that - the smaller the niche, the easier it will be to win clients and the more "reusable" your candidates will be against different jobs. But the niche still has to be large enough to support your business.

You can specialise by job function, by geography, by industry, and by seniority (or a combination of all four). As a good rule of thumb, you can have a very successful business as a one man operation with a target market of 500 hiring companies that each hire 5 people in your specialty per year. So, it doesn't need to be a huge space at all.

If it's feasible, I'd strongly recommend at least going to work for a recruitment company for a year before you set up your own thing (the higher end and more niched the firm, the better). It will make your life so much easier. There's literally dozens of different parts to the job you need to be good at to succeed, and if you suck at just one of them, it can easily derail your entire business. If you have no experience or training, you probably won't even realize there are parts of the process you aren't incorporating.

And it's an endlessly frustrating business at the best of times.

These books are IMO mandatory reading:

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Real Recruiting! Winning Search Strategies: 9780966969320: Amazon.com: Books

Real Recruiting! Winning Search Strategies on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Real Recruiting! Winning Search Strategies

www.amazon.com

Be aware these are all from the "old school" of recruiting, before digital marketing became a thing. That's fine. When you're new, that's where you should start. As you'll see from my thread, I made the epic mistake of obsessing over digital marketing at the expense of sales, actually doing recruiting, and even choosing a profitable niche. And that's as an experienced recruiter.

This online training platform is also reputable: Online Recruitment Training Courses | Recruitment Juice

So my suggested startup plan is:

- Get some training (if that includes working for a firm for a while, even better)
- Choose your niche
- Get a basic (but professional) website up, get your Linkedin profile on point, and sort out all the legal stuff (contracts, fee agreements, etc.)
- You can get a basic free recruitment CRM from various vendors, or just start off with spreadsheets to begin with
- Sketch out your sales and recruiting plans and activity metrics (those books/training will teach you how to do that)
- Pick up that phone and dial, dial, dial. Make as many calls as possible. Every time a call goes wrong, take a note of why and where - that's where to focus on for the most urgent improvement. You'll see the same objections/blocks/stonewalls come up over and over again and you'l learn how to handle them. 6-12 months in, you'll start feeling like you actually kinda know what you're doing.

When you already have a degree of success and your one-man business model is working well, then you can think about digital marketing, hiring, and things like that.

Don't even bother trying to hire a recruiter so you can focus on the "business aspects". Recruiting IS the business. In the early stages, there should be little else to manage, and if you're not offering anything unique to that recruiter beyond a salary, why would they work for you? Why would they stay?

If you can make it as a one-man operation (or a team of you doing the full cycle recruiting together), then you can think about scaling. Until that time, forget it.

Damn, didn't know I can expect such a huge help, thank you! I will for sure be well prepared before starting it. Much knowledge to get, but I am happy and motivated as never before. Thanks once again, I appreciate it.

 

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[Firebird92]

@Contrarian What do you think is better Recruiting or B2B Sales for starting your own online business? I've heard that they're both really similar and you develop extremely similar skillsets, what's your take on this? I've been offered a entry level role as a 180 recruiter for data engineers, seems like a great path, but I'm wondering should I hold out for a SDR/BDR role in B2B sales.

 

[Danny01]

I run something similar; a recruitment website which gets over a Million Pageviews a month. The difference is I earn from Advert and Sponsored Articles from businesses.

 

[Firebird92]

I run something similar; a recruitment website which gets over a Million Pageviews a month. The difference is I earn from Advert and Sponsored Articles from businesses.

Cool, are you a recruiter/sales person as well?

 

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[Contrarian]

@Contrarian What do you think is better Recruiting or B2B Sales for starting your own online business? I've heard that they're both really similar and you develop extremely similar skillsets, what's your take on this? I've been offered a entry level role as a 180 recruiter for data engineers, seems like a great path, but I'm wondering should I hold out for a SDR/BDR role in B2B sales.

Hey @Firebird92 , sorry for the late reply.

Depends on your ambitions; there are pros and cons to both.

Presumably on the B2B sales front, you're looking at getting into SaaS or a similar area?

I'd far rather own a successful SaaS company than a successful recruiting firm. That said, it's a lot easier and requires far less resources to build a successful recruiting practice than it is to build a successful SaaS company.

Potential earnings if you work for someone else are probably about the same for both career paths, although it's worth bearing in mind that recruiting is an extremely tough industry to be in during a recession. It's the first thing to go when the market turns and the last to come back again.

Having started in recruitment and then moved into B2B sales (selling $50-250k online marketing solutions), I personally find the latter far easier despite having much less experience in it. Yep, it's usually easier to bring a six figure deal together than make a placement. Not simpler...but easier. Your mileage may vary.

In terms of the career paths on their merits as jobs alone, knowing what I know now I'd pick sales hands down, assuming the comparison is between mid-high end recruiting vs. software sales.

Another factor to bear in mind is that the sales route will usually require you to be on the road constantly once you get past the SDR level. Recruiting is primarily a phone business.

However, if you're looking for a path to self-employment and entrepreneurship? That might change things.

I'm going back into the recruiting world myself. Not because I have a particular love for recruiting, but because if you pick the right niche and geography, and execute well enough, you can realistically make a high 6 or even 7 figure annual income as a solo operator, with minimal expenses. And being an independent sales rep (as I am now) still, ultimately, leaves you taking a % and working for somebody else. Sales only leads into entrepreneurship when you have a product or service to sell. And for that you have to either invent, resell or deliver one. So I will deliver one in the form of recruiting services.

I've worked at building multiple online businesses and had marginal success at best, while seeing runaway success as a B2B sales rep on a part-time effort; it's confirmed for me where my true gifts lie.

A recruiting firm is not the ideal Fastlane business model. It's a time predator, hard to scale (although it can be done), and difficult to make predictable or turn into a saleable asset. But I figure - if I can be making $1m/year three years from now, and I keep all of it since I live in a tax haven, do I really care?

And the answer is no.

So, there are many other kinds of companies I would rather own, but this looks like the optimal route to success for me personally. Your ideal path might be different.

 

[Tourmaline]

@SWB What led and/or keeps you doing recruitment training instead of recruitment yourself? Is it mostly a better fit for how you like to operate?

 

[Monkeycom]

3) Do you have any other ideas for getting clients than cold colling, e-mails and linkedin?

The golden rule for agencies - Team up with people who already have your clients

 

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[Firebird92]

Great thanks for the reply mate, my only job offer was with a recruitment firm, so I guess I will follow the recruitment path. I do want to be self employed in the future and after reading your post, it seems like recruitment is pretty good for that.

 

[ersantenna]

Hi all,

1) How would you market a recruitment/work agency to make it known and slightly different from other companies?
2) Additionally would you rather start to get clients from your local area or would you try to go globally?
3) Do you have any other ideas for getting clients than cold colling, e-mails and linkedin?

It's a tough questions

 

[tlssdenverco]

Hi all,

1) How would you market a recruitment/work agency to make it known and slightly different from other companies?
2) Additionally would you rather start to get clients from your local area or would you try to go globally?
3) Do you have any other ideas for getting clients than cold colling, e-mails and linkedin?

Linkedin is a good platform to find leads for your marketing if you know the right person to contact.

 

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[ginniagarwal]

I am writing answer all three questions one by one:

1: You need to reconnect with your past business relationships. When you are marketing the recruiting business, don’t forget previous clients and unplaced candidates. Send the people a gentle reminder that you are still available to serve them. Let them know how you can help. For the candidates who are still in recruiting database who haven’t placed yet, then send your current job openings.

2: The best thing is to start first with the local area and then begin to scale up from there.

3: Start participating in events and try to make your online presence way more apt for candidates.