Have you been busy searching the World Wide Web for an indication of the start up costs for starting a recruitment agency?
Of course you have. Well sit back and make yourself a cup of tea as TBOS have covered everything in this article.
FIRSTLY, A WORD OF ADVICE BEFORE WE GO ON…
TBOS recommend non-recruiters looking to start their own recruitment business to first obtain some experience in an actual recruitment agency. Do not fall for expensive recruitment training days, you definitely cannot teach recruitment in a day for a hefty price tag. Our advice is to work in an established agency for a year, there you will experience the day-to-day duties and will gain an insight into having this as your career. This will also ensure you make the right decision about starting your own recruitment business as well as give you invaluable experience which increases your chances of succeeding in a fiercely competitive industry.
APPROXIMATE START UP COSTS
These costs can vary for any start up agency but will hopefully give you an idea of the things you need in your first month of trading.
PHONE LINE & INTERNET
- £30-£50 per month
It’s highly recommended to have good telephone and internet connections for you to access candidates and clients easily, and vice versa. This could be your mobile, landline, home broadband or mobile internet. It really depends on what works best for you.
COMPANY REGISTRATION
- £12 if you register directly at Companies House (This is a one-off payment)
Registering your company can be a timely and confusing process if you do not know what you are doing. That is why there are many companies on the market that can do this for you, however they will charge more than the initial £12 fee. TBOS offers this service too, our team ensures you are set up within 24 hours, with your tax and shareholders registered correctly. A lot of the new directors will use this service as it delivers peace of mind from the get go, with no nasty surprises at a later date.
SPECIALIST BACK OFFICE & ACCOUNTS SUPPORT
- No Fees Until Your First Placement with TBOS
TBOS provide full start up support from the very beginning, every director receives a full accounts team at their new agency’s disposal. Apart from the initial company registration cost, there are no TBOS fees until you make your first placement. Once this happens you will proceed on a rolling contract whereby you pay-per-placement you make. This gives you the freedom to make placements without the hassle of invoicing, chasing credit, managing payments and much more. You can find out more about our start up plan below.
- Preferential Finance Rates
- Business Planning & Advice
- Introduction to Business Banking
- Preferred Supplier Discounts
RECRUITMENT WEBSITE
- Anything from £100 – £2000
This really is like ‘how long is a piece of string?’
You can go for the budget website option Wix to get started. However, you may need to redevelop your website at a later stage as it won’t give you the full accessibility and functionality you might want for a recruitment website.
There is also WordPress, this is a popular choice for many businesses around the world, many of which operate in the recruitment sector. The only disadvantage to this platform is you will need a WordPress website developer to give you a hand building the website. These costs can vary but it’s worth doing your research to see if they have built recruitment-like websites previously.
A favourable choice in the UK recruitment market right now is Volcanic they have built a reputation in the industry for creating bespoke recruitment websites, although we are not able to comment on their pricing.
RECRUITMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
- Free trials, £50 per user/per month variable
A lot of the Recruitment CRM’s you see today will offer free trials or demos to show you their products. It’s definitely worth doing your research on them and whether they can integrate with your recruitment website too. Popular choices we have seen in the industry are Bullhorn, Firefish Software, Webrecruit & JobAdder.
JOB BOARDS
- FREE – £1000 a month
This is completely dependent on the number of job posts you have as well as the time period you would like them live for. At this current time, Indeed allows free job posting in the UK, however there has been mentions of how long this will last. If you are a member of APSCO, TEAM or REC you are able to receive job board discounts as well as other benefits. TBOS is also a registered TEAM Service Provider, we have seen first-hand that many new start-ups receive amazing benefits, one of which is job board discounts, free legal templates and their TEAM eXchange scheme.
We have noted below the most popular job boards in the UK today.
RECRUITMENT CONTRACTS
- Anything from £300 – £1000
As we previously mentioned if you are a member of a recruitment association like APSCO, TEAM or the REC, they do offer you legal templates and documents which you can use for your new recruitment business. However, you will have to pay a fee for the membership. With that said, new start-ups with TBOS receive exclusive access to our preferred suppliers list and their discounts, one of which is with our legal partner SA Law.
FINANCE
- Variable depending on your requirements
WARNING: YOU DO NOT NEED TO SIGN ANY LONG-TERM CONTRACTS
If you need to obtain finance either to cover initial start-up costs or to fund contract placements, it’s worth giving the TBOS team a call to discuss your requirements in more detail. We can give specialist advice on the best business loans and negotiate invoice finance rates on your behalf so you don’t get ripped off. Unfortunately, new Recruitment Directors are easy bait for Recruitment Investors, Invoice Finance companies and Pay & Bill companies so be sure not to sign any long-term contracts before talking to TBOS first, we may just save you from making a costly mistake early on.
We also offer an excellent value Pay & Bill solution called TBOS Freedom, this solution is perfect for new start-ups who are placing 1 contractor, 20 contractors or more. There is also no risk on this plan as the funds are fully credit insured.
Go check it out, we have a free profit calculator.
YOUR NEXT STEPS
Now you know the start up costs for starting a recruitment agency, we sure hope we have given you a lot to think about. Starting your own business is a very exciting time and with the right support you’ll get off to the best possible start in the industry. Just think, you might be our next big success story…
‘TBOS have been a great asset to my agency from the very beginning. They arranged and supported the set up of my Invoice Finance facility and accompanied me to the set up meetings to make sure I wasn’t being swindled on the price or agreed terms.’
Read the full testimonial from
Feel free to contact TBOS today for more information on how we can help you start your recruitment business.
