7 Reasons why starting your own recruitment agency is a great careers choice for a work-from-home lifestyle

Working from home has become a dream come true for many people. More time with the family, more time for hobbies, exercise and the things that matter in life. For many the pandemic has been a revelation, however, for me it was business as usual as a homeworking small recruitment business owner.

Recruitment Agencies specialise in bringing together clients and candidates to fill job vacancies. Personally, I believe this is one of the best ways that professionals can work from home. If you are looking to make that change whilst also becoming an entrepreneur.

To highlight why recruitment might be the business for you like a work-from-home endeavour we have listed 7 reasons why starting your own recruitment agency is a great way to work from home

Reason 1: Recruitment is ideal for the WFH environment

Being a recruitment consultant is very much in tune with the work from home environment. It requires very little equipment, just a laptop and mobile phone. Although in the age of Skype, Teams and Zoom only a laptop is needed. Recruitment is also very heavily focused on two types of activities, one, talking to people on the telephone and two, engaging in-depth research online.

These two activities are generally very WFH friendly as a majority of your time can be spent in desk-bound work.

Reason 2: Recruitment allows you to leverage your current industry knowledge

You may not believe it but you will possess a large amount of industry knowledge in your current role and career. This knowledge can be especially useful as a niche recruiter.

Reason 3: Recruitment allows you to leverage your network

Now when we talk about leveraging your network we are not talking about Avon type selling - annoying friends and family.

What we are talking about is helping industry contacts make great carer moves. This combined with career knowledge can be a great way to make it as a recruiter.

Reason 4: Low start-up costs

Setting up a recruitment agency is very cheap. There is very few cost besides, your labour, a laptop, phone, and software costs and marketing.

Personally, I used the software “Zoho One” for a number of years and it provided me with everything that I needed. From an Applicant tracking system, a customer relationship management tool, programs for social media and email marketing for only £35 per month. It even includes a website creator as well.

These costs outside your labour are initially very little. However, the more money you have saved up the more likely you will be successful in launching your own recruitment agency.

Reason 5: Recruitment offers a wide range of flexibility

Recruitment allows you to be very flexible. This is one of its strengths as an option for home working. Why is recruitment flexible? Because it is not 9-5, because your candidates will also be working 9-to-5 so they will need to be contacted out of hours. This means you will have the flexibility to have time off during the day.

Reason 6: Barriers to entry are low

One of the most amazing things about starting a recruitment business is the ease of setting up. In most places around the world, setting up a recruitment agency requires very little regulation. Nor are there high barriers to entry, you can set up today and tomorrow to begin winning business and placing people into roles.

This is a wonderful thing, in the United Kingdom all you need to do is set up a limited company and you are ready to trade. You could run a recruitment agency as a self-employed person, however, we would not recommend that in this instance.

These low barriers to entry are great if you are looking to get started with little hassle or fuss.

Reason 7: Recruitment is one of the few industries that creates win-win-win situations

One of the things that I love as a recruitment consultant has been the ability to create win-win-win situations.

When you find a candidate a new job they win (as they have a new job), your client wins (they have found a new staff member) and you win (you get paid a commission).

This is a great situation as it leads to three groups that end up winning. In life, there are rare occasions when this happens. It is a great feeling and a great way to make you money.

Note of Caution

Before five straight into the world of recruitment, I have some words of caution for you.

Recruitment is a tough industry to get started as it is competitive and generally it is paid by results.

This means that you can put in a lot of effort and end up with very little to show for it.

Sometimes you can submit dozens of candidates to clients and not get one hired.

Which is a pretty sorry state of affairs.

Recruitment also requires a large amount of “phone time”, not everyone likes talking on the phone, so you might want to consider if this is a course of action for you.

Do your research. In the actionable takeaways, we have outlined some ideas for you to do some research on the topic, so that you can make an informed decision if this is right for you.

Actionable takeaways

You may have been ensured by this so o would suggest if you are serious about this idea you do a few things:

Call some recruiters and ask what working in recruitment is like.
The same but watch youtube videos.
Make a decision if you want to actually do this for yourself or start for a company initially before going solo.

Call to Action

As you have read this far, why not sign up for our newsletter. Every week it is packed with useful information and content from the world of homeworking.

If you are considering setting up your own recruitment agency, you might consider reading the books - The Rich Recruiter - Recruitment Hacks - The Savage Truth - all three have different perspectives on the recruitment industry and will give you a flavour of what it is like.

TL;DR

Recruitment is great if you want to work from home.
I have worked from home as a recruiter for 8 years.
Recruitment has low barriers to entry and low start-up costs.
Recruitment allows you to leverage your industry knowledge and contacts.