We often see discussions about whether Recruiters perform better in the office or not. Truth is: for some, it might work and for others not. Â Recruiting remotely carries its own challenges, and there is a lot to consider when it comes to planning and structuring your team without the office buzz.
Drawing on my experience over the last few years, here are my 10 rules for building a remote recruitment business:
1. Don't obsess over what your staff is doing all day. Instead, have them track their hours, use the system and run regular meetings on - productivity, candidate reviews & vacancy reviews. Trust the data and the results.
2. Have a WhatsApp group or whatever tech you prefer where everyone can have those watercoolers moments & communicate instantly. (People need to respond instantly)
3. Have formal and informal meetings throughout the week. Every day!
4. Build your credit control, marketing & tech enablement centre and let your consultants focus on candidates & clients. This has taken us years.
5. Know what your ideal hire looks like. For us, we go for experienced embedded Recruiters from Eastern Europe & Sourcers from the Philippines. Our back office which is way meatier than any other firm our size is also made up of professionals from the same regions. In the future we may add more independent recruiters and add our services & experience to them. We will never hire someone without experience. It's too hard in a remote setting!
6. Know your unit cost per hire and have your hiring / firing triggers in place. Rule by data not emotion.
7. Have in person meetups every 6 months and treat those who can't make it to a gift, bonus and dinner.
8. Track birthdays and celebrate - if you give a shit about your people and their life they will care about you and yours.
9. I like to break down sourcing, back office finance, management/tech enablement, marketing & 280 recruitment into very clear roles so we can train them quickly and everyone knows their job.
10. Learn to delegate, create rules & systemise everything. You are not a genius; recruitment isn't complicated especially if you break down the 360 job into digestible chunks.
We do a lot more than Rec2Rec and I suspect your business will end up doing more than just recruitment as we all try and evolve with the market.
The Recruiter Startup Podcast lead to the RecWired community and studying what founders really need has helped us launch 🚀 and slowly build out the below income streams.
Building the Doherty Group Advisory and Charlotte Doherty becoming a strategic advisor has further added to our depth of understanding of the needs, wants, and gaps in recruitment firms.
Below is a breakdown of where The Doherty Group are making revenue.
Rec2Rec is still our core, but advisory, virtual assistants & corporate services have really added to our offering. Breaking it down further we see lots more leadership placements & more remote first roles.
Most have been domestic hires, but we have seen a big uptick in moving to Australia. I suspect the new year will bring with it mass emigration from the UK & Ireland’s to the USA, Australia, Dubai and Canada. I’m not seeing much track for Asia but that might be more reflective on our efforts rather than the market.
The news may be disheartening for the recruitment industry, but with the right planning and strategy, the revenue will continue to flow. Whether you need to elevate your offering, get the right team, technology and operations in place, or revamp your recruitment business, The Doherty Group Advisory can help.
Author: Dualta Doherty
