Recruitment Business Idea!

[Fergal]

Traditional recruitment agencies are suffering because the recession has resulted in less companies recruiting and creating new jobs. I've been thinking about ways that recruitment agents might be able to expand their range of services and survive the downturn.

One thing that I've seen some recruitment agents do is change their focus from recruiting solely for permanent roles and begin to provide temporary staff to their clients. This helps their clients to keep costs down because they don't have the overhead of a permanent employee. The companies that I've seen use this have managed to generate some extra much needed revenue, but it is limited.

An approach that I've been considering involves turning the traditional recruitment business model on it's head, and charging candidates to help secure a job for them, as opposed to charging the employers. Jobs are hard to come by at the moment and candidates may be be prepared to pay for such a service, plus businesses that are recruiting may well be very happy to receive a free service.

If I was unemployed and looking for a job I'd be prepared to pay someone to help me with CV preparation, interview preparation and who would help to identify job opportunities that were suitable to my requirements. The service could include researching the relevant industry for companies that are expanding or who have recently lost key people.

I know of someone who is highly skilled in a specialist area and is facing redundancy in a few months time. He is currently spending his spare time, up-skilling and researching areas that will be important in a new employment position.

His time is valuable and I'd imagine he'd be prepared to pay for this type of service. This would allow him to focus on his area of expertise and outsource time consuming recruitment preparation and research to a specialist in the field.

The business that I'm suggesting would be similar in concept to the agencies that models and actors use all the time.

So what do you think, would the idea work?

[Mynameis...]

They are good to the employer ofcourse.
Well, to hire a temporary staff for the clients has been one of the solutions that employers have been trying to implement, because it has many advantages; one of which is that you are not obliged to pay them all the times, this makes you, as you said, gain some extra amount of money needed for later purposes.
Moreover, I didn't understand what did you mean by candidates in the second solution; did you mean the clients, the employess,... who?
The third solution is quite feasible, because people who don't know how to write their CVs are obliged to go to the experts and pay money for them so that they can help them do their CVs for them.
Furthermore, to enhance your work and to upgrade it is definitely a good idea for the employers, because there would be a further "attachment" to their works and further understanding, which will cause a more serious commitment to it.
Similarly for other solutions, they can be implemented and be a good ideas for recruitment businesses.
These may work if a serious "heart" is doing this and not just because you want to do it, because if you like something you will excell in it.

[Fergal]

...I didn't understand what did you mean by candidates in the second solution; did you mean the clients, the employess,... who?....

Thanks for your reply and sorry for the confusion. By candidates, I meant people who are looking for a job. The traditional approach is that a client company engages a recruitment agency to find staff for them. The client company pays the recruitment agency a fee for this service and the employee / candidate doesn't have to pay anything.

What I'm suggesting is that agencies provide a job search, CV & interview preparation service to employees / candidates who are looking for a job, and charge them for this service.