From recruitment consultant to Managing Director Sound good to you

Wednesday Nov 22

Increasing numbers of recruitment consultants appear to leaving their job in recruitment in search of adventure to set up their own rec 2 rec agnecy, but just how easy is it.

Well, from our perspective, the rec to rec marekt does appear to be one of the easiest markets to for a someone in an employed recruitment job to leave and set up their own show.

The primary reason for this appears to be the fact that business development in recruitment to recruitment is very much easier than in most, if not all, other recruitment sectors. A good recruitment consultant given a couple of hours on the phone should be able to generate a handful of recruitment vacancies to have a go at.

In other industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, business development is a considerable challenge. Most pharmaceutical companies have strict Preferred supply lists and consequently picking up vacancies from scratch is exceptionally difficult without insider contacts within the industry. Consequently, many pharmaceutical recruitment agencies MDs are ex industry managers.

So returning to rec 2 rec, if you've billed well as a recruitment consultant, there's no seems to be no reason why you wouldn't be able to scoop some vacancies and do the same for yourself. However, and it's a big however, running a business is probably more complicated than the average employed person would imagine. Everything from IT issues, to accounting problems can drain away your time when you want to making money. sometimes this can happen on a daily basis but as a start up you often don't have the budget to pay an expert.

It's cliche, but you need to be a true self starter, someone who encounters a problem, doesn't know how to solve it, but goes out and hunts down a solution until they've found one. There's no IT department when your e-mail goes down in year one, all you've got is a PC, google and a good supply of tea and biscuits, and you need to solve your problem to get making money again.

If that hasn't put you off, there's no substitute for research, speak to as many people who've set up a business as possible, listen, learn, take notes and plan. It may be the best thing you've ever done. Just in case it isn't, all good plans have contingencies so pack a parachute, and know where your best exits are to minimise any damage.

Good luck

The editor