Let’s face it – starting a recruitment agency is not a case of snapping your fingers and deciding everything in one single moment. The truth is, even though you may think that starting your recruitment business in the UK is a quick and straightforward process, a lot of things can hold yourself back – especially when you are short on your budget.
However, a lot of recruiters managed to start their businesses from scratch and without significant investments in the beginning. A lot of that is because recruitment is an industry that is non-demanding when it comes to offices and extra labor.
In order to help you start a temp agency with no money…Below, we are listing all of the steps you need to make to see your recruitment business up and running.
1. Don’t search for the perfect office – you don’t need it
One of the main advantages of starting a recruitment agency with no experience is the fact that you don’t need to invest in a shiny office for the start. Even though a lot of people immediately search for offices as soon as they register their agency, you don’t need to do that if you are starting fresh.
You can run your recruitment agency online from the comfort of your home – and meet clients in cafes and hotel bars. And if you really need a meeting or conference room, you can always rent a professional space and deliver the image of a prestigious business.
This can be a great way to keep costs as low as possible until you can afford an office and a potential team of employees that can help your agency.
2. Examine your basic needs and recruiting experience
What you should focus on in the very beginning of starting your own recruitment agency are your basic needs and your recruiting experience. This is an important step in every business journey and one that gives you an exact glimpse of business knowledge and what you can do with it.
That being said, your basic needs include:
- a work computer (preferably portable one like a laptop) and reliable Wi-Fi
- a phone you can use to call clients
- an accountant that will offer free consultations and work your papers for a flat monthly fee
- a solid name for your business (including a domain name for your website address)
- insurance for both public liability and business insurance
- a bank account for your business
As you can see, all of these things can be acquired for less than a thousand pounds which is certainly not a big investment when starting your recruitment agency. However, you should also consider your basic needs in terms of how you are going to attract clients. One of them is your online presence – mentioned in the step below.
3. Work around your online presence
As we said above, your website can be the main tool for searching new clients and job seekers. You can invest most of your savings in a professional-looking and responsive website – and a domain name that is easy to remember.
There are many affordable website builders with advanced features such as Wix, Weebly and Squarespace – which offer you easy functionalities and drag-and-drop features that allow you to design your website yourself. However, if you are looking for something more functional (and scalable in the long run), you can also choose WordPress as the most popular content management system out there which we use as part of our recruitment web design service.
As soon as you choose some of these platforms, examine your basic needs when it comes to your website. Choose a catchy logo and a theme that makes it easy for clients to seek talent (and vice versa). Once you have that up and running, it’s time to publish some content.
However, make sure to narrow things down in the beginning and see what is your focus. For example, some recruitment agency owners decide to start with certain industries and expand later on. So, you can ideally start in one field and offer tailored recruitment services before you start building up your expertise.
4. Use a financing service to fund contractors
If you are completely broke after spending on your basic needs and business presence, relax. You need money to make money – and the best way to get that money is from an invoice factoring company. As long as you have potential business to fund it, a service like Fund My Contractor can help you start investing in lucrative contract placements.
Now, a lot of recruitment agency owners don’t believe services like these – which is totally okay. Fortunately, there is always the need of a ‘helping hand’ from a partner. You don’t have to do things alone and having someone you trust by your side can actually help you make most of your recruitment business.
5. Getting down to business
At this point, starting a recruitment business with no money should be history for you. What you should focus is getting down to business – even if that means manually searching for top clients in your local market and negotiating the best deals with them.
Generally, the recruitment agency marketplace revolves around supply and demand. As such, you should always be in search of clients who need workers – and at the same time – job seekers who need part-time or full-time jobs. Again, when starting out, you can narrow things down to specific industries or job sectors.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, starting your own recruitment agency with no money is definitely possible – once you see and focus on your priorities. One of the benefits is that it doesn’t require a lot of labor or office to begin with. And that basically means that you can build up a nice base of clients without a big sign over your window or a shiny office.
What is important to know for the end is to always make sure your clients know who you are. Believe it or not, recruitment is an industry where the smallest personal touch can make a business booming. So, what are you waiting for?
Drop in and introduce yourself and your business to the local businesses in the best light possible!
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