For nearly a decade, I’ve been totally immersed, purely in the recruitment start up and SME world and there’s not a lot I haven’t seen or heard. I’ve maintained a 100% record of never having had, or been connected to, a recruitment business that’s failed. It is for these reasons that I feel I am informed enough to list the top 7 start-up mistakes…

Recruitment back office support is a broad term

By the nature of what Davidson Gray does (setting up and supporting new recruitment businesses), we get loads of enquiries from people wanting to set up their own recruitment business. We often get asked the question, “do you supply recruitment agencies with back office…

How Much Does It Cost to Set up a Recruitment Business?

As my business specialises in setting up new recruitment businesses, you won’t be surprised to read the most common subjects I am questioned on are, “how do you set up a recruitment agency?” and “how much does it cost to set up a recruitment business?” 

The first question, ‘how…

In my blog How to Scale Your Recruitment Business, I discuss how it’s actually very…

Treating Your Staff Well – A Cautionary Tale

As my business is to back, set up, and support recruiters who want to build their own companies, it’s natural I speak with a lot of recruiters who want to set up on their own, with many motivated to take this step because they don’t like their current employer and how they run…

Leadership is the ‘in thing’

How many times have you seen images on LinkedIn portraying leaders as the good guys and managers as the villains? Here’s one by Steve Jobs, clearly a supreme business builder and entrepreneur, but this soundbite when taken on its own doesn’t really work.

But if this polarized view is true in the real…

Why is factoring for recruitment companies so important?

Factoring is a crucial service a new contract recruitment agency needs to get on top of. But, that can be easier said than done as factoring services through the traditional third-party route can involve complex processes, multiple levels of decision-making and a lot of chasing your tail – that’s…

Recruiters spend a long time on LinkedIn, and if you are looking to start a recruitment business, you’ve likely asked yourself if you need to pay out for a LinkedIn Recruiter licence. In my Essential Checklist for Your New Recruitment Business blog, I questioned whether upgrading to LinkedIn Recruiter is worth the money. So, I wanted to examine the options in more detail and find out what…

Here, we highlight the difference between growing and scaling your recruitment business, along with tips on ‘smart marketing’ and new technology suggestions to help you achieve growth.

Rhys Jones

Written by Rhys Jones Managing Director – Davidson Gray

Rhys sold out of his previous recruitment businesses in 2012 to focus solely on helping recruiters set up and build recruitment businesses. Follow Rhys on LinkedIn or contact him direct …

Welcome to my eBook. As you’re taking the time out to read my guide on how to set up and build your own recruitment business, I don’t think that it’s a huge assumption to make that you are considering becoming your own boss. If that is the case, you are already improving your odds of being a success by taking your new job of business owner seriously and doing some research.

 It’s a scary statistic that 4 out of 5 new recruitment businesses don’t make it past 2 years,…

So, you’ve made a good start, money is starting to tot up in the bank account and like most recruitment start-up owners you’re keen to spend it, hopefully on your new business! If you’re ambitious to grow your business and your goal is to grow a good-sized company, the chances are that your first investment to you is a no-brainer, your first employee, but is it really the best option?…

As I speak to lots of recruiters who want to build their own recruitment company, after all my profession is investing in startup recruitment businesses, I get a fair few whose goal from day one is to build to sell.  Is this really a smart move? 

As with most questions like this it depends who you ask. It also depends on circumstance. For example, if…

Since setting up Davidson Gray to invest in and support recruitment business start-ups, I must have had hundreds of conversations with recruiters considering working for themselves. The biggest reason by far most recruiters settle for a new job rather than setting up, is the desire for security.

However is moving jobs really more secure?

Statistically, 4 out of 5 new recruitment business start-ups don’t last beyond 2 years,…

I find it ironic the recent popularisation of coaching is having the detrimental side effect of reducing its use, particularly in recruitment. I’ve seen as coaching has become the buzz word for staff development, training is now often referred to as coaching, so real coaching is being squeezed out. 

Coaching is extremely different to training, if you really want to realise your own, or your employees potential effective coaching is vital.

I recently posed the question on my…

Oddly enough it’s common for recruiters who progress beyond running a desk to stop using KPI’s. It’s the same for a lot of SME business Owner / Managers who not only don’t KPI themselves, they don’t even track the businesses progress beyond placed and invoiced figures. This is easily done in the early days of growing your business, as the owner makes the gradual transition from running a desk to running the business, but remember “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” and if you aren’t…

Following on from my blog "why bad managers give KPI’s a bad reputation". this blog explains how to work out KPI activities targets using efficiencies bespoke to each recruiter. I have always been an advocate of KPI’s being tailored individually. Broad brush targets don’t play to recruiter’s strengths, react to commercial changes on the recruiters desk and can demotivate…

Mention KPI’s to a lot of recruiters and you get an instant negative reaction. As explained in the book “The Chimp Paradox” by Steve Peters, the brain gets infected by bad experiences, so if a recruiter has been “beaten with a stick” over KPI’s it’s natural their view of them will remain negative and they’ll reject the concept of KPI’s being a good thing.

KPI’s used well are an amazing tool to plan and deliver success, highlight development areas and grow recruiters into business…