Recruiters are a talented bunch.

Every time they fill a vacancy, they haven’t just made one sale, they’ve made two. The first sale is to the client, and the second is of course to the candidate.

That’s why recruiters are considered the best salespeople around because they’re always selling to two people. Not only that, but recruitment is not like selling cars or electricals, it is selling people and selling careers, and all the complexity that brings.

It is a challenging job, and a skilled job, and that’s why in recruitment the rewards can be so high because getting it right is so valuable to both the client and the candidate.

But for talented recruiters working for a steady salary, the rewards they actually see from their efforts and talent are usually nowhere near the value they are generating for their agencies.

And that’s why many recruiters who have at least a few years’ experience and a track record of success in their job, want to take control of their career and their earnings. There won’t be many that haven’t thought about how they could run their own recruitment business. There will be nearly as many who think it is out of reach – an impossible dream.

But it isn’t.

The Recruit Venture Group was established precisely in the knowledge that there are hugely talented recruiters out there who could easily make the jump to starting their own enterprise.

The Recruit Venture Group’s unique joint venture model makes that possible.

It puts up 100 per cent of the finance needed for launch, takes care of the costly and distracting back office functions like IT, payroll, credit control, accounts and HR and also provides mentoring and guidance from a team with decades of experience in recruitment.

That means the recruitment professional partnering with The Recruit Venture Group is allowed to get out into the marketplace and start generating the revenues from day one. The Recruit Venture Group already supports 46 such businesses, and another three have been launched within the last few months.

This is not a franchise – these are individual businesses, with individual brands, and founded on the energy and vision of the recruitment professional who has made the leap to being an entrepreneur.

Paul Mizen, Managing Director of The Recruit Venture Group, said: “Good recruiters are already very talented people because they are always managing the complex and sometimes competing interests of both client and candidate. Many driven and determined professionals are also treating their salaried jobs as if they are their own businesses. They are always thinking about how to grow their own desks, hit the next target and expand what they are doing. So it’s the talent mixed with the right working attitude that means the recruiters we have helped start their own enterprise find the transition very natural. Our model means those recruiters are also able to simply get on with building networks of clients and candidates from day one, meaning no time is wasted in generating those first revenues.”

If you want to see how far your talents can take you, speak to The Recruit Venture Group today. Contact…..

 

Recently released figures show further falls to unemployment across the UK, which have been met with despair by some recruitment industry leaders; who fear tough times ahead with fewer people Continue reading

Don’t let the medium overtake the message.

Use technology. Don’t be distracted by it.

By Paul Mizen, Managing Director of The Recruit Venture Group.

In reviewing Jamie Susskind’s new book, ‘Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech’, Nick Cohen makes the dual point that the great debate of the 20th century was how much of our collective life should be controlled by the market; the great debate of the 21st century will be how much should be directed and controlled by digital systems.

This is ‘big picture’ stuff. And, in a world where algorithms control the sentencing of prisoners in the USA, and determine your suitability to rent a place from Airbnb, it’s appropriate to question where we’re all going.

Let me bring this into sharper focus. In the recruitment we’re already in a place where some CVs are never read by a human. And if you get the job another algorithm will monitor your performance. Scary, right?

Now, I am not a luddite, and the place for technology in the recruitment sector is something I’m very clear about. And I will return to it.

But firstly, let’s think about it in a really objective way. No matter how sophisticated, interactive and ‘intelligent’ the IT becomes it is still only a medium. A means through which we communicate. Our problem, I would suggest, is that for much of the time we allow the medium to overtake the message.

Ask yourself, how many meetings and conversations have you had recently in which you spent most of the time talking about the system, the interface, the online process, the ridiculous way the office asks you to update your password every week and why that really urgent email you sent sat in your outbox overnight causing a massive problem the next day? And how little of the time did you spend discussing the actual sale, deal, client requirement or staff issue?

If I were to boil that down to an admittedly simplified viewpoint I’d say that the technology is in danger of becoming a distraction.

Technology is a wonderful enabler. So use it to enable, convey and communicate your ideas and requirements. Don’t make it the subject of the discussion.

Let me put it another way. Even the most enthusiastic petrol head drives to a meeting without spending the travel time, or the meeting itself, discussing the details of the car’s engine. So why spend time debating code and the relative merits of a software upgrade when you should be crafting your message, getting your facts in order and refining your communication into well honed and unambiguous sentences that enthuse and satisfy their recipient?

There is absolutely no doubt that Artificial Intelligence will play an increasing role in commerce, and life in general. There’s also not much doubt that even the guy from IT will solve your meltdown problem by switching it off and on again. Between those two parameters lies the real world of work today.

It doesn’t take much computing power to work out that if we all spend more time talking tech, and less time getting on with the job, productivity will fall.

I said I’d return to the specific point about technology in the recruitment sector. So here I am. It’s essential. No recruitment consultancy can hope to compete and succeed without relevant, efficient and reliable systems. Processing client data and matching it to candidate CVs needs to be done swiftly and effectively. Invoicing needs to be timely and accurate. And let’s face it, some of the most powerful media available for the announcement of new roles are digital. The Job Boards are vital.

Two things emerge from my argument.

One is that, in general terms, the unashamedly ‘old school’ ethic of getting on with the job is what makes for success. Use the technology but don’t let it rule you. Better to let the technology enable the swifter transmission of data – including invoices!- while you get on with the work. Work such as talking to clients and listening to their needs. Things like identifying prospective customers and framing a great pitch to make them see why they should place their business with you. Stuff like taking time to actually engage with staff, face to face, so that you get a feel for what drives them. And what doesn’t.

The other thing is really specific. It’s directly connected to what I do. At The Recruit Venture Group we specialise in helping recruitment professionals start up their own consultancies. We provide risk free funding and a package of support and mentoring that allows them to take the leap into starting up with real confidence. But here’s a really important thing. We provide them with the technology and systems. We give them access to our gold standard back office meaning they’re up and running with top notch tech from the moment they open their doors for business.

We’ve launched 46 successful joint ventures so far. Every one of them puts at the top of their feedback to us the fact that having the technology in place for them, without them having to worry about it, was vital. It allowed them to focus on what they do best – which is recruitment. It means they can get on with the job.

Using the technology makes them competitive and efficient. Not being distracted by technology makes them more productive.

Which kind of proves my point really.

By Paul Mizen, Managing Director of The Recruit Venture Group.

I suppose my headline might appear as a statement of the obvious, but it does warrant closer examination. Think it through. You start up your own recruitment business, because it’s your dream. You’ve taken control of your own destiny, put the years of experience as a recruitment consultant into your own venture and now it’s all systems go.

Well actually that’s not always the case. Why? Because all too often the excitement, not to say potential, of starting your own recruitment business can get lost in …..starting your own recruitment business.

It might be a bit less demanding if you’re starting out as a bedroom recruiter, but most routes to launching a start up will present you with the challenges of incorporating your company, sorting out premises, hiring staff (I know – the irony!) and planning and executing your branding and marketing.

All of that of course can only happen when and if you’ve arranged the financial support you need. Arranging that can be an experience in itself.

Everything I’ve mentioned so far is to do with just the initial stages of a start up. The point I want to make is that things can get worse still after that.

Often, for a while, it’s alright. It’s your business. This is what you wanted. You’re sorting your branding, developing your website, honing your management skills as you resolve issues and forge together your team. You’re signing off the invoices – perhaps a little worried that there are more outgoings than income, but hey, it’s early days. You sort the nice people at HMRC and you cut a deal with your local newspaper, as well as the job boards. Phone calls. e mails. Busy.

But, you’re the boss. That’s what matters. Come the end of the day you do that thing. Hands behind your head you swing around in your ‘boss chair’ surveying your domain. And then two terrifying realisations hit home. The first one goes along the lines of ‘how much new business and client development have we done this month? And the answer comes quickly. It’s ‘none’.The second one falls into place like a the last piece of a jig saw. There’s been something nagging at the back of your mind for a while and you couldn’t put your finger on it. Then you realise what it is. You’re missing something. The one thing you really wanted to do. The thing you’re really good at. Recruitment; you haven’t been doing any of that either.

In a way that scenario is the backdrop to the entire concept of The Recruit Venture Group’s business model. We realised some years ago that what makes a recruitment start up successful is the opportunity for the person starting it to focus on what they’re best at. Which is recruitment.

What we’ve done is create a specially tailored joint venture package aimed specifically at the recruitment sector. We provide 100% risk free funding. We bring our back office to your business so that you have high quality and totally reliable IT and admin systems from the start. It’s your business but we’re there for you. Providing up to date information on taxation and legislation, as well as chasing along your cash flow, what we provide is all the things that I outlined earlier as the demands that deflect an entrepreneur’s attention. When it’s needed most.

With over 45 start ups already up and running as joint ventures with us I think we can fairly claim to have relevant experience and insight. And what’s it shown me? It’s proved beyond doubt that the most valuable commodity a start up entrepreneur in the recruitment business needs is the time to focus on recruitment; the thing they do best.