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Aaron_Mach
27-08-2012, 11:39 AM
I have the made a life changing desicion to go upskill myself and will be start studying full time at university as a mature aged student (Feb 2013).

I am a current senior BDM and have previously worked in recruitment so I am considering setting up a small recruitment business as a means of primary income during the 5 year course. If I choose this path I am fully aware that such a business requires a very high level of self discipline and sales activity- it's going to take lots of hard work and perserverence!!

I have a strong professional network that I have naturally built up over time that I can leverage off for clients and candidates. However I'm very interested to hear feedback/advice from existing recruitment and HR professionals about the state of the Australian labour hire market.

Also any thoughts around current candidate sourcing methods would be greatly appreciated.

Aaron

Moz
12-09-2012, 05:25 PM
One of the big changes that has happened in the last decade is that many medium to large companies in the private sector have hired their own specialist internal recruiters, some have hired whole teams!

While many of these companies still use recruitment agencies, they do so only on a contingent basis and often for only the positions they can't fill themselves. So depending on how good their own recruiters are, you may only get the "hard to fill" jobs. In some cases this means "impossible to fill".

Many companies also only deal with a list of "preferred suppliers", who are automatically sent all open requirements. As you can appreciate this is pretty scrappy work because your chances of making a placement and actually getting paid for your efforts are limited, when there are multiple recruitment agencies working on the same job.

Despite these challenges, some of the established players are still doing okay, although others are struggling and I know there is some "belt tightening" going on. Generally speaking I would say the recruitment market is "patchy", although it varies a bit between industry sectors.

I have certainly seen the market in better shape than it is at present, but if as you say you have a strong professional network then that would be a great help, particularly if you can get some clients from your network. Even better if you can get some retained work or at least some contingent assignments on an exclusive basis.

If you are able to win good quality business, even just on a contingent basis, there is no reason why you could not succeed and generate a reasonable income.

In my opinion some keys to success in contingent recruitment are;

(a) building relationships with good companies whom people want to work for and who offer competitive salary packages;

(b) being tenacious in your candidate sourcing and not just doing what everyone else is doing (lots of recruiters just advertise on Seek),

(c) be efficient in your interviewing, and

(d) very important - qualify the work you take on! - as a single operator or even a small recruitment company, you cannot afford to waste time on "clients" that aren't really ready to hire (or don't actually have approval), or those who farm the same job out to half a dozen recruiters.

As for candidate sourcing methods, the audiences attention is very fragmented, so utilise every avenue you can. Advertise broadly using a mix of recruitment advertising products such as Seek AND niche job boards. Newspaper can still be effective for certain types of positions, such as the Fin Review for snr finance/accounting roles, but the cost is prohibitive. Some online forums allow job ads also. Use your network, LinkedIn and straight out headhunting.

As for "social media" such as Facebook etc, my view is that it's a waste of time for professional roles, and particularly if you are working to a time frame. Developing a business presence on Facebook over time may yield some results in attracting passive candidates in the long term, but I am very skeptical of it's effectiveness and it's efficiency.

Tiger
13-09-2012, 07:53 AM
I second comments made by Moz. This will not be an easy venture for you for all those reasons. Recruiters with whom I've dealt on and off (more so as a candidate however) have over the past six months or so pointed to a real downturn in business. One, a small operation, told me it is just so-so and she's been in the business for more than 20 yrs.

There is little doubt from those whose livelihood it is to predict the state of the economy etc, that we really are in the beginnings of our downturn as other parts of the world climb out of theirs. And the first thing to go in such a situation is jobs - people lose jobs and companies are not replacing them/recruiting. Parent company where I am at present put in a hiring freeze at start of this year. Only sales jobs can be replaced but then it is a sales organization!

So you should be prepared for the fact that the first year as a minimum, may be particularly tough. Still if you keep your overheads down - perhaps use a serviced office somewhere and, begin now, to network all your contacts, that will help. Or, even see if someone you know has a spare office in their business you could rent by the hour when you are doing interviews etc.

The criticial issue will be the area in which you plan to recruit i.e. type of jobs. If your expertise is in an area which is experiencing a downturn more than others, that could impede your efforts.

It's great you are re-inventing yourself and I wish you all the best with your new venture.