If you’ve been involved in the recruiting biz for a while, you may be coping with a question that troubles professionals in all industries: What’s the next career step? How can you leverage your experience and skills to advance in the field? One strategy is to assemble your own recruiting team that you can lead. This isn’t the sort of move to be undertaken without due consideration, however. You have to plan ahead so you don’t get in over your head, as so many would-be entrepreneurs do.
Determine Your Business Model – How many clients will you be dealing with? How much help do you need to manage them? If you’re in a niche field with few placements, it may be possible to go it alone as a sole proprietorship (or, for added legal protections, a limited liability company). With this option, there are relatively few start-up costs, and you could even work at home. Another avenue to consider is joining an existing recruiting network, which will take over some of your responsibilities for you.
Become Acquainted with Applicable Laws – If you’re running your own show, you need to be aware of any and all business regulations (e.g., licensing requirements) in your area. Also, liability insurance may be worth looking into—recruiting firms can be sued if an applicant believes (rightly or not) that he or she has been victimized by discriminatory hiring practices.
Prepare for Expanded Responsibilities – We’re in a 24/7 business world. That doesn’t mean that you have to spend every waking moment dealing with clients, but you also can’t expect to “clock out” at 5 p.m. That’s especially true when you’re running your own recruiting team. Expect to spend a lot of off-clock time answering business-related texts and logging in to your ATS software.
Get the Right Software – One of the issues that tends to plague recruiting teams is chronic disorganization. One recruiter contacts a candidate who spoke with another team member just a few days earlier. Confusion reigns as to who was responsible for finding a given applicant. Or, what happened to that resume you were looking at last week? Having access to first-rate applicant tracking software, preferably with cloud capabilities, is key to forestalling common problems such as these.
