In a labour market characterised by both job-hopping millennials and older workers with an interest to switching to rewarding new careers, starting your own recruitment agency may seem like a sound idea. However, with many thousands of recruitment agencies already operating in the UK, there are various factors that you will need to consider if your business is to stand out and be successful.

Here are just five of them.

1. Your reasons for starting a recruitment business

Are you looking to start your own recruitment agency because of the opportunity to use your knowledge and experience for greater financial reward? Or maybe it simply seems like the logical next challenge in your recruitment career?

2. Whether you are ready for the hard graft

Running your recruitment agency isn’t a job where you can expect to clock off at 5:30pm every day. It’s an industry, after all, in which you will be frequently catering to people who are already in a job, and who you may therefore need to work longer hours to accommodate.

3. Your recruitment agency’s niche

We have previously written about some of the industries that it is safest to start a recruitment agency for, but whether your chosen niche is an ‘easy’ or ‘tough’ one, it’s vital to be sure about your target audience from an early stage.

The recruitment sector is saturated to say the least, so you will need to consider how your recruitment business can be distinguished from bigger competitors. There may be certain relatively unexploited industries or regions in which you have just the right expertise.

4. Your strategy for success

One of the key reasons to choose a niche in which you already have a good level of knowledge is the need to know the sector that your new agency is serving, and what the key factors are for success in that industry.

In the earliest days of your recruitment agency, you are likely to only have limited resources to deploy, so you will need to be sure of how those resources can be best used. You will also need to have a sure sense of your own strengths and weaknesses, and how you can play to those strengths while minimising the effects of your weaknesses – or even turning weaknesses into strengths.

5. The construction of a business plan

Business planning is crucial for any new recruitment agency, and it will be a much easier process when you can clearly define your business, including what services you are to offer and which will be those of greatest importance or prominence.

Such aspects of your recruitment agency as its support services, marketing, growth, competition, financing and legal matters will all affect how your business plan is constructed, so you will need to be well-versed in them all.

Remember that when you want to relieve much of your stress in the earliest months and years of your recruitment agency, here at TBOS, we can provide a comprehensive recruitment outsourcing service, covering a vast range of back office functions. Call us now, on 0845 8811 112, to find out more.