How can you ensure your tools are future proofed as a recruitment start up?

“Our new funder can’t invoice our International clients… we have outgrown them.”

These are the words said to us by a returning client – a rapidly expanding recruitment business.

Choosing the right tools and partners when you’re starting your business can be tricky; it requires some research, some joined up thinking and some future proofing.

If the options you go for at the start are chosen simply because they are the cheapest or most convenient at the time, you may well end up paying for it twelve months down the line when you are hit with the hassle and cost of changing to systems or providers that can cater for your growing needs.

As a recruiter you will need to choose the right tools from the off. Let’s look at the three main ones you’ll need straight away, and how to ensure you have the right choices for you and the future of your business:

Your CRM / Database

What are you going to need from your database? There are some pretty good budget options out there if your requirements are basic – not every recruiter relies on a CRM, however for others it is like an extra limb; a secure and easy to use setting where all your data can reside and interact in one place.

Choosing the right CRM that can cater for your future and grow with you will be vital – ensuring you have the capacity to grow not just your network but your own team as well; will you need to add additional users down the line? Will you need to be able to track the activity of your staff?

It’s worth considering properly at the start too whether or not you will be wanting to use marketing automation tools for engaging with your database and, if you won’t be using these features from the start, are you able to bolt them on as you grow?

Did you know: if your CRM needs aren’t overly complex, DynamiQ can in fact be used to collate, store and manipulate all of your client and candidate data meaning you may not need a separate CRM at all.

Website

Every modern business needs a website; a shop window to the world and a hub for your online presence. However, it is easy to be swept up in fancy sounding developer’s offerings like advanced SEO, integrated job boards, analytics tools and bespoke web page design when in actual fact what you may need is probably substantially simpler.

Even if your plans are highly ambitious and you have an aggressive growth strategy out of the blocks; chances are you won’t really need to spend big on your website initially.

You can build and manage perfectly reasonable template sites yourself if you’re not in need of an internal jobs board or candidate portal, and the good news here is that even if you do suddenly require your website to grow with your business – there are many excellent developers out there that can turn your new site around in a matter of weeks.

So, unlike your CRM, you can’t go too far wrong with your first website and you may well be better off going cheap and cheerful until your needs become clearer.

Finance

Knowing what you are going to need from your funder in three, five or ten years’ time is impossible, so finding a finance platform that can support your business’ growth throughout, whatever happens, is going to be really important.

A platform like DynamiQ will give you the capacity to invoice whatever you need from the start and can provide everything you need whether you have one temp out or a hundred.

Any recruitment start-up runs the risk of outgrowing their providers. Like your CRM (and unlike your website) changing your financier isn’t simple, so getting it right from the start is a priority.

You should consider the level of tech support you will need and whether you will need mentoring support and advice for complex cases. Will you need to invoice internationally? Can you integrate your finance platform with your other tools?

We’ve ensured that using Quba will mean you are future proofed as much as possible; recruitment companies, whether start-ups or established, will be catered for up until they are turning over circa £7-8 million per annum; at that point you’ll probably want your own in-house finance team and funding directly from the bank in any case.

We provide all the technical support you need throughout, and no matter how big you grow advice and assistance is in hand. We are able to invoice wherever needed Internationally so your business will never be restricted by what your funder can provide.

Future proofing your business tools from the start is going to save you time, money and effort later on.