When Jeff Bezos was asked during his first meeting with Washington Post writers how he’d define success at the Post, he replied “Growth”.

The strategies pursued by the Washington Post’s revival under Jeff Bezos are applicable to any sector: invest in staff and technology, understand that customers will not pay more for less and focus on building the business in a digitally focused era.

Growth is vital for every recruitment business. It creates a positive environment and generates new opportunities. Both of which build momentum and fuel more growth.

We will help you unlock 3 key areas to fuel your recruitment business growth.

Your recruitment business growth can be quick or more even-paced. However, without growth, your market position will be weakened. Businesses that aren’t growing fall behind competitors and run the risk of losing top employees who feel their careers are stagnating. If you are worried about how to scale your recruitment business, download this quick guide to discover success metrics from recruitment experts and unlock the growth potential of your recruitment business.

In this blog, we have used Harvard Business School’s Analysis to supercharge your recruitment business. Let’s find out how.

When Harvard Business Review (HBR) analyzed Apple’s growth strategy, they uncovered six core themes: new processes, new experiences, new features, new customers, new offerings and new models.

HBR determined the ‘easiest goal’ to achieve was by maintaining relevance with your core market with new features or experiences.

HBR also highlighted several businesses that invested 10%–20% of their ‘innovation budget’ to new customer strategies, applying a fail-fast, test-the-waters approach to either gain traction quickly or exit.

We’ve translated the HBR’s analysis of Apple’s growth into three recruitment-specific growth segments.

Using ‘new people’, ‘new process’ and ‘new business’ as the foundation for recruitment business growth, we’ve listed certain questions in three areas that recruitment leaders need to consider and reflect on.

Defining how you plan to grow needs to be intentional – not driven by luck. The answers you give will help identify your next set of growth opportunities for your recruitment business and help you scale it to the next level.

#1 New People

When it comes to focusing on expanding your workforce, here are some questions you need to think about:

  • Are there new markets we could capture if we developed new skills?
  • If so, what skills would we need and how could we build them?
  • How do we encourage our employees to identify new business opportunities?
  • Do we have enough employees who can identify and capture growth opportunities?
  • How has our staff headcount grown in the last 12 months?
  • Are our resources aligned with opportunities?
  • Is our employee churn rate too high?
  • How much time does our team spend on generating revenue?

Our team at Sonovate lets you focus on streamlining your recruitment business operations, utilizing key business opportunities and freeing up your resources.

Before you focus on the next key foundation for your recruitment business growth, book a demo with our experts to understand our embedded finance platform, and our tailored products and services to finance your business.

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#2 New Process

Here are some points to reflect on when it comes to new processes:

Internal

  • What are our top admin challenges?
  • How effective is our advertising – what’s the ROI?
  • What channels are our deals coming from?
  • How effective is our upsell process? (contract length, margin, salary)
  • How evenly spread is our deal source – is there an imbalance/opportunity to generate more leads?
  • Do we have a defined process to get testimonials/referrals?
  • Do our KPIs help us make data-driven decisions?

When it comes to resolving admin challenges or dealing with contractor timesheets, Sonovate products can help you ease off your workload.

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Suppliers

  • How much advice and support do we receive from our suppliers?
  • How much profit is released from invoices into our business?
  • Does debt concentration impact our drawdown?
  • Are our debtor days increasing or decreasing quarter on quarter?
  • How flexible is our funding facility?
  • What fees and charges are we incurring?
  • What reports are we using to measure growth? Are they useful for decision-making?

If you’re worried about how flexible your existing funding facility is, here is a quick quiz to assess it.

When your funding facility or debenture is due to expire, it’s an ideal time to review these arrangements. We’ve created a quick guide to help you out!

#3 New Business

Effectiveness

  • Has our NFI grown per head?
  • What’s our deal conversion rate?
  • How many new businesses have we won in the last quarter?
  • Who are our most profitable customers?
  • Why do we lose business?
  • Where can we sell to existing customers?
  • How many sectors are we recruiting in?
  • How often do we conduct a SWOT analysis to assess our position in the market?
  • Is our average margin healthy? (Has this increased/decreased when compared to the previous year?)
  • How has the selling process changed for our sales teams and channels? Have we modified our sales strategy to keep up?
  • How diversified is our business? What’s our contract to perm split? Has this changed in the last 12 months and what is the impact on revenue?
  • Have our contract placements increased or decreased?
  • What’s our average pay rate and charge rate?
  • What’s our average contract placement length?
  • What’s our average perm fee?
  • How many permanent placements do we make per month?
  • What percentage of placements in the last 12 months are new customers?
  • How much revenue comes from new customers versus existing customers?
  • Can our company grow faster by selling to current customers or new ones?

Penetration

  • What’s our account penetration % (how many clients)?
  • How balanced is our client base?
  • How effective are our partnerships?

Expansion

  • Should we offer more or fewer choices in our service portfolio?
  • What potential sales partnerships and industry alliances should we be planning?
  • Which new customers should we target and what should we sell them?
  • Should we seek growth by expanding into new countries?
  • Should we seek growth by expanding into new sectors?
  • Are there new markets we could capture if we developed new skills?
  • If so, what skills would we need and how could we build them?
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Our platform: How can we help to scale?

Sonovate provides tech-driven finance and workflow solutions to recruitment agencies, online labour marketplaces, consultancies, and other businesses that engage contractors and freelancers. Our platform is designed to reduce admin, save time, and let you focus on growing your business. Choose from a funding and back office platform for an all-in-one solution, or just invoice finance to complement existing systems. Giving flexibility at times you need it, or growth engines when the time is right.

Blog updated on 17th October 2022