Serviced Offices for Recruitment = lost business
Now I could be venting at an unprofessional recruitment company that I have just called, but my bet is they are in serviced offices. I am not mentioning any names, as I cannot be sure it was Regus.
In general I think serviced offices have their place in getting your company off the ground, as the alternative can be very expensive. Saying this I have a word of warning, do not use their receptionists to answer the phones, unless you want to loose clients and candidates.
The problem is they are answering calls for all the companies in the building and often for other buildings too, so your client will be in a queue, with the response "please hold the line" and before they can say anything they are put on hold, talk about annoying and then they are then left long enough to call another agency!!
OK it may make your business seem bigger than it actually is, but to be honest recruitment is a people business and if one of my clients calls me I do not want to miss the opportunity, just because the receptionist is answering another call. So my advice is give out your direct line number, then you are in control, I promise you they will not think any less of you.
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Stuck in a Restrictive Covenant
A while back I was made aware of a new website called Zubka, a job board with a web 2.0 twist. At the time and I was not convinced, and recently Louise made reference to them. What made me look again, was a recent email they sent and a client looking to start out on his own, but worried about restrictive Covenants in recruitment contracts.
My normal response to restrictive covenants is to have a back up, just in case your previous employer decides to take you to court. Because without your contact list you are going to find it tough at the beginning. I should know as it happened to me twice and I survived.
So if you find you cannot contact your old client list then Zubka could help, because here you have a list of clients or agencies who are willing to pay referral fees giving you an opportunity to earn some revenue while while your hands are tied for a year.
A word of warning is agencies that use the system will prefer to place someone and get a full fee rather than pass on a percentage, so choose carefully look at the agencies who are trying to fill positions they don’t normally recruit for as a starting point.
With good fees to be earnt from £1000 up it is worth taking a look, while you are waiting for the restrictive covenants to be lifted!
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Inspiration for those in business and those in the wrong job!
Well its Friday and I am keen to find something easy to read or watch, on this occasion it isn’t a recruitment funny but something more inspirational and topical, certainly with the launch of the new iphone.
Many of my readers are recruitment consultants making their first step to go on there own, so to you I hope you will find this speech from Steve Jobs the founder of Apple, motivational and if you are stuck in a rut or a career with which you are not happy, then take some inspiration from him.
I apologies to my American readers, whom I am sure have seen this speech before, but it is the first time for me even though it was back in 2005. The speech was to new students at Stamford university and covers getting fired, motivation etc but one comment of the many that stands out is "Love What you Do"
What I like about his speech is although Steve is incredibly successful, its the warmth in his delivery that stands out for me.
So on this Friday I hope you find some inspiration.
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Trying to beat the restrictive covenants in your contract of employment
I read today with interest in the Recruiter Magazine a West Sussex recruitment consultant (Salli Coburn) from Hylton Bishop who recently lost a case over restrictive covenants, something I have also experienced at first hand.
As a result it is important to protect yourself by reading your contract and working round it, although it is rare that companies will pursue you it can happen. I feel very sorry for Salli being charged costs of £18,000, It seems a case of breaking a nut with a sledge hammer. In my case a director and a manager left to set up a company and took three members of staff, in this case I can understand a company taking legal action and a fine, but we survived and the company is now one of the most successful companies in their market.
Still anyone thinking of leaving her company will think twice I am sure.
To go to these extreme lengths for a consultant does seem over zealous, surely some less costly arrangement could have been made. I would love to hear the comments from the consultant in question and her point of view.
If you are interested in more info regards to this you may find this link useful from Roydens on restrictive covenants.
Tags: restrictive covenants
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Recruit Wisely or it will be your downfall
When it comes to recruiting your first consultant there are many factors, such as personality, drive, hard work, maturity, professionalism, experience, even the way you train or manage them will have a huge influence on whether they succeed or not.
I am not going to go into what makes a good consultant, I just want to emphasis that your new consultant can be the difference between success and failure.You will need to have enough working capital to carry someone, who will likely not produce anything in their first 3 months, maybe even more. In addition you will hang on thinking they may suddenly produce business, the likely hood is they wont, but they will bring your company down in the process.
The only real way to ensure this doesn’t happen or at least help limit the damage is to TAKE REFERENCES!! I know that most of you wont bother, because hey you were the top recruitment consultant, right!. Take it from me, if I had checked references I could have avoided some horrendous heart ache.
Tags: recruitment, references, interviews
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Your Contacts are Sacred, treat them like So!
The most important asset we have as a recruitment consultants is our database of contacts. Unfortunately we do not protect this data adequately, in fact I am confident that you like me, do not back up this data as regularly as we should or even have a copy at another location, incase of fire.
Now finally with the advances of broadband it is now possible to upload your database of contacts and cv’s onto a web based server, without it taking a day to achieve. In addition it is not only cheap, it is secure with encryption coding to counter database theft.
Although this may seem the worst thing to do with our sacred data, it is in fact much safer than on your own computer. If you are not convinced then just consider the fact that you are probably already using an online database storage system, for confidential information with the likes of Hotmail or Yahoo, with some of us now uploading photos on to flickr as another example.
So if you don’t already have online storage in place, then I suggest you do so as soon as possible. If you have your own website then you can up load your data onto your own server using ftp software, or you can use a dedicated site for storing data such as xdrive or omnidrive, and I have just come across Box.net, Inc., if you use Arithon recruitment software then this it is included (excuse the plug) plus the additional confidence in knowing that the data is automatically backed up.
So by having your software stored on a web based server you will know that if ever your office is destroyed by earthquake, or your computer spontaneously catches fire (Remember Dell Laptops) or your data is wiped by a virus and you need to contact a candidate within the next hour, because their interview has been cancelled. You can confidently contact that candidate by loginnig onto your data from another computer, rather than wait until tomorrow, for the IT guy to tell you that you have lost all your data.
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Keep Your Recruitment Costs Down
It may seem obvious but when you start your recruitment business, the money you put aside is never enough, but with careful house keeping you can get it to spread much further, particularly as Banks are not keen to help in your first year.
Apart from salaries and advertising one of the biggest costs will be office space. It isn’t so much the cost you need to worry about; it is the contract that you sign. I have a huge warning here, avoid contracts that tie you into more than 3 to 6 months you could live to regret it, I learnt this the hard way.
The best strategy is to work from home when you start, and with recent advances in technology and the common use of virtual offices, there really is no need to have a office. OK you may feel the need, but you will be putting the company under a huge strain. Wait 3 to 6 months, get regular business and increase the revenue you have on deposit for a rainy day. When you have built this financial reserve, it may then be worth looking at offices, but consider serviced offices at the start such as Regus. as they enable you to rent office space on a month to month basis, without a huge deposit. Obviously working from home is difficult but if you are motivated to become a successful recruitment consultancy, this shouldn’t be a distraction.
Company brochures, letter heads, business cards a couple of years back were necessary, but with emails and your own colour printer you can avoid these printing costs. I don’t think I have ever had a business enquiry from a brochure, in fact when I started I decided that I wouldn’t buy any letter heads until I sent my first invoice.
So apart from the cost of setting up the company with the accountants and organising relevant company insurance, the only other cost you will have is a computer, a printer, broadband connection, database software, Skype, fax and a phone.
In regards to Skype you can have your own number so that you never miss a call, as it can be redirected wherever you are. I used to use a virtual office to do this, but they took so long in answering and not passing on the message, it was safer not to use them, and of course I saved money in the process. There are alternatives, but I have only used Skype and I have been more than happy, although the quality could have been better for mobiles. Saying all that the fact you can manage calls and see who is calling you certainly makes you more efficient.
Recruitment Software is really worth the investment, as it will save you at least 2 hours per day, even against a general contact database such as ACT or Maximiser and it doesn’t need to be expensive. I used to use Arithon, which at £50 per month, makes it very easy to budget for. (Please note having used Arithon for the last 2 years, I am now their Sales Manager)
The only other big expense is advertising, and it can be so easy to waste money if you get it wrong. I will assume that you will have some idea what works, as an ex Recruitment Consultant or Manager, but what I do suggest is you look at other means of advertising without spending a penny, as it will make you a better Consultant at the same time.
So to finish the only area you should spend as much as possible, is on telephone calls, as this will directly relate to money in your pocket and don’t forget if you look after the pennies the pounds will look after themselves.
Tags: recruitment, recruitment consultancy start up
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Expect the Worst, Restrictive Covenants
This may sound negative and the last thing I want to do is to come across this way, but I have learnt that the placements you expect to come in don’t and the ones that do are the ones you least expect.
When I chose this title I was thinking of my worst experience of setting up a new recruitment consultancy, which are the restrictive covenants in your contract prohibiting you ability to operate another recruitment consultancy.
I had first hand experience of this with a company I joined, where they managed to stop the company from operating, although this is quite rare it can happen. Knowing this when I started my own agency I knew I had to have a back up plan, just in case my ex employer tried the same thing, as a result I am glad I did.
If this should happen to you, then my experience below will I hope help you to succeed, you will just need to modify it for your own market and knowledge.
When I started on my own I set up a recruitment consultancy for Healthcare Sales as this is what I have been doing for the last 10 years. Knowing what could happen, I knew I needed a backup plan. As a result I picked a market that I was comfortable with and that was general sales recruitment for the local market.
With this in mind and at the same time as setting up the healthcare side, I bought the local newspapers, plus back issues and cut out every sales advert for a 3 month period, as they had contacts names and telephone numbers. This meant I had a list of live contacts I could use given the worst case scenario, which as it turned out I needed. So the next day I started to canvas these company and it began to produce an alternative revenue to the point a new division was created. And of course when the restrictive covenants had expired we were able to do Healthcare once again.
It is also worth noting that it is quite rare for companies to try to take you to court, as it is very costly for them and negative energy, but it does pay to be one step ahead.
And the other point is if you expect the worst then over compensate create more opportunities, so that the placements you don’t expect come in.
Tags: restrictive covenants
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Nolan Bushnell’s Video for Entrepreneurship
Today I came across this entry on Google Video, Nolan Bushnell’s take on Entrepreneurship, Nolan who founded both Atari and the Chuck E Cheese’s Pizza-Time Theaters Chain, has some very good advice for you budding new entrepreneurs and although it was filmed back in September 2000, it is still relevant today.
The video lasts about half an hour so you will need to put some time aside but well worth it I am sure the original tickets would have cost a fortune but this way it is free.
Tags: Entrepreneurship video
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Use recruitment software but do not spend a fortune!
I was going to go into more depth about Recruitment Software although I would be biased. The reason is that after 20 years in Recruitment I have finally stepped sideways to join Arithon as their UK Sales Manager. I was so impressed with their software after using it for the last 2 years; I knew I felt comfortable in promoting it. If you remember Victor Kiam, “I loved the product so much so I bought the company”, that seems to be a relevant quote here.
I have gone into more detail in regards to their software prior to joining Arithon, which you can find on this website. What I will say is that the reason I joined Arithon, is because as an ex user, this software is ideal for small to medium sized Recruitment Consultancies. When you consider bespoke software for recruitment consultancies can be so expensive and it is often developed in house for the larger consultancies, you will find that Arithon will enable you to compete at a fraction of the cost. More importantly it isn’t going to eat up your funds, at £50 a month per user; it makes it the most competitive on the market, with all the functions you could want.
The key in this business is not to waste money but use it where it is going to bring revenue, so it was such an easy decision for me not to spend a few thousand pounds on a Recruitment Software package, but instead spend it on advertising and marketing, where I knew it would bring in revenue. In addition as it is a database, I also I knew I could upgrade it later. Fortunately Arithon is always trying to be one step ahead of the competition, so I never needed too.
As this section is about starting out, I felt it is important to give an alternative, but if you are on a very tight budget then it would be worth considering an off the shelf database package, such as Maximiser. I used this 10 years ago and it was fine; although it isn’t for recruitment it will be cheaper and will get you up and running if cost is an issue.
I could go on forever about the attributes of Arithon but I suppose that’s why I joined them.
Tags: recruitment software
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