Breaking through a highly competitive industry that involves competition between thousands of other recruiting companies can seem daunting. But there are a few lessons for new entrepreneurs to heed when starting their own staffing company focused on positions in technology and growing your company.
Leverage your experience. A few years of experience in recruiting is obviously a great starting point. Having a mentor, years of training, and experience through trial and error can help present an “a-ha” moment. It’s the moment of entrepreneurial realization and acknowledgement that you have the chops and the passion to start your own staffing company. This experience lays the groundwork for the early stages of your business.
The experience gained before starting your staffing company includes relationship building. You’ll rely on existing relationships to bring business in early, build your reputation, and grow your client base.
Lastly, having knowledge of the tools and resources you’ll need to start or continue growing your staffing company is crucial. Starting out, you may only need a computer, a phone line, and internet connection but branding, a website and a Payboard subscription or two is very helpful if you can afford it. As your client base and successes build momentum, you’ll identify when to bring on more recruiters, account managers or business developers to maximize its full potential.
Find your niche. A new staffing company should pick a niche in terms of the kind of jobs and companies they’re targeting and staff according to that niche. Doing so will focus your time, effort, and resources. For example, a technical staffing company should find recruiters who are technology oriented. And with specializing in a specific technology vertical, it is best to target a broader geography. For example, a general technical recruiter would work on any technical position within a smaller region, where as an SAP specific recruiter may need to service a national (or international) clientele in order to cast a wider net in the SAP market.
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Identify the right people to work with. There are different roles that have different skillsets in the staffing industry. While it’d be ideal to bring in recruiters or staff that can handle a recruiting job from start to finish, these types of successful hires aren’t very common.
Be realistic and play to the capabilities required of the function. If your company needs a specific area of expertise—be it a business developer, account manager, or recruiter—consider the skills, experiences and personalities that best succeed in the role. Learn and gain an understanding of what job functions work well with each of these areas of expertise so you’re able to find the right hire for the right situation in your company.
The reality is when you’re first starting your staffing company, you’ll need to identify your areas of weakness so you can hire to fill in those gaps. To make room for your core competencies (whether it be sales, recruiting, business development, etc.), outsourcing areas like payroll can be a huge benefit and saver of personal bandwidth.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, you can’t be everything to everybody as a staffing company. Being too limited can keep some potential clients with unique asks away but being too broad doesn’t reinforce your capabilities as a specialist in specific disciplines. Find your niche.
As a start-up technology staffing company, the priority is to do right by others so clients can see your company follows through on ethical approaches other competitors may not always follow through with themselves.
Through the lessons of trusting your experience, finding your niche, maintaining focus, and surrounding yourself with the right people (clients, candidates and team members), you can create a successful foundation for your business.