The 5 Key Reasons Some Start-Up Recruiters Fail

The 5 Key Reasons Some Start-Up Recruiters Fail So many recruitment professionals dream of starting up on their own, and the fact is that so many of them fail. Not all of them, by any means, but many don’t survive after the first year. It’s impossible, and wrong, to generalize but Paul Mizen, Managing Director of The Recruit Venture Group has the experience and insight to identify five of the reasons why the dream doesn’t come true for a significant percentage of would be recruitment entrepreneurs. 1.  It’s not a thing to do as a career change It sounds almost unbelievable but some recruitment start-ups are not launched by recruitment professionals. Having a craving to ‘try something different’ and telling yourself that ‘you’ve seen how recruitment works because you’ve done a lot of interviews’ is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. The fact is you need to know about the recruitment business. You need to know how it operates, you need contacts and you need real hands-on experience. Without those, you’ll fail. 2. Lack of finance and all that goes with it Who would start a business, any business, without sound finances? Starting a recruitment business needs financing at the outset, but it goes deeper than a need for a capital injection to rent an office, buy the hardware and sort a company car. The recruitment sector makes strenuous demands on cash flow, so having guidance and support is just as important as the upfront investment. Too many recruitment start-ups get up and running and then stretch themselves too far, too quickly. There are going to be a lot of outgoings before the income appears. Twelve months of getting that balance wrong usually tips the scales the wrong way. 3. Forgetting that it’s a two-way street It’s another vital balancing act. Going all out to attract clients is commendable, but it’s really short sighted if you haven’t pulled in candidates too. There has to be an offer and in the recruitment business what you offer is the right candidate for the role. It doesn’t matter if you’re delivering dozens of temps or that single CEO designate, you have to have a candidate pool as well as the clients who want them. Failing to acknowledge the two street is a one-way route to failing 4. Inappropriate infrastructure Building the two-way street, like any street,  is about infrastructure. If the game plan is to be a bedroom recruiter then a minimum of hardware and software will get you by. But even in that scenario a second-hand laptop and an out of date spreadsheet won’t cut it. If the sights are set higher then there’s a need for full-on, industry standard, systems. Asking a mate to sort some software may seem cost-effective, but it will prove totally ineffective. Without the right, relevant, systems the administration of cv’s, applications, job specs, person specs and all the financial controls will spiral out of control. 5. Failing to plan for life A start-up recruitment business is a demanding beast. The last thing a new boss needs is a pile of worry over domestic issues. A good business plan should embrace proper remuneration for the entrepreneur. It’s not about plundering the business for cash because now it’s ‘your show’  and ‘at last, you’re getting the rewards you deserve’. It’s about ensuring that the budget allows you to draw a sensible salary, to cover your expenses and maintain your lifestyle. Take out too much too soon, and you fail. Take out nothing until the big money comes in and you’ll drown in personal bills and mortgage arrears. Which means you’ll take your eye off the ball, and you’ll fail. In short, recruitment start-ups often fail because of inexperience, poor financing, not having candidates as well as clients, having inadequate systems and not having a fully thought through plan. It’s not a guarantee but implementing the opposites to all of those represents a very fair chance of success. About the Author:  Paul Mizen is Managing Director of the Recruit Venture Group, the largest venture partner of their kind in the UK.  

Depression is a workplace issue

Depression is a workplace issue I am not featured in my high school yearbook as person most likely to be giving career advice. In fact, people were probably thinking, as they signed my yearbook, that I was the person most likely to never even find a career. This is because I have had bouts with mental illness since I was a teenager. So I am enraged at Tom Cruises crusade against effective treatments for depression. Depression is serious: Fifteen percent of clinically depressed people die by suicide. If you are depressed you need to get medical help immediately. The World Health Organization ranks depression as the fourth most common disease (after lower respiratory tract infections, diarrheal diseases, and conditions arising in the perinatal period.) Research from Yale University showed that 70% of people who saw a doctor for depression were successfully treated. Unfortunately, most people who are depressed do not seek help. Probably because the world is full of lunatics like Tom Cruise who belittle the illness and its treatments. Statistically speaking, depression is a workplace issue: One in five working women suffers from depression. It is twice as common in women than in men, and among women, high intelligence is a risk factor for depression. So I am probably not the only woman you know who has been depressed. Depression at work feels like depression anywhere else: A wave of hopelessness overcomes you and you have no idea why its there or what to do to get rid of it. But if you are working, its more likely to happen at your desk. If you have a door on your office, you lock it. If you have an opportunity to work from home, you announce youre taking it. These are tactics I have used. But believe me, they dont work for very long. I never realized how optimistic getting out of bed was until I had depression. Getting out of bed is an act of hope that there is something to look forward to in life. When depression came, hope and faith left. For no apparent reason. Depression was immobilizing, and when I was depressed I spent most of my time at work covering up my inability to get anything done. For a while, people assumed I was taking care of things because I was a person who always took care of things. But its hard to hide depression at work. I started looking weird. People noticed, for example, that I couldnt have a conversation about anything because conversation requires interest and depression made me uninterested in everything. Everyone has an off day during an important lunch. But you cant have too many of those. If career success is about building a strong, competent image of yourself over the course of time, then depression is the antithesis it destroys your image relatively fast. People started to wonder who I really was. And so did I. I couldnt make decisions, I couldnt keep a schedule, I was not reliable and no one knew why. Depression made me hide. I was not a mom or a wife when I was depressed, so hiding was relatively easy. The only people who needed me on a day-to-day basis were my teammates at work. So the office was my barometer for how much I was falling apart. I went to a psychiatrist because I didnt want to lose my job. In my depressed mind, I felt that if I destroyed my career, the feelings of hopelessness would kill me. When friends ask me, How can you write a career column? How can you care THAT much about work? I remind them how my work saved me. Work has been a mirror reflecting myself back to me, and my career has been the thing I ultimately sought to save by getting medical help for mental illness. So for goodness sake, dont listen to Tom Cruise: Listen to yourself. Depression is a common, treatable illness. If you think you might have it, get medical help now. And keep an eye on your coworkers. Someone in your office is depressed. He or she might be hiding from friends and family, but its much harder to hide from work. Dont be afraid to recommend that person gets help stepping up at work to say what you see just might save a life.