any freelance/self-employed recruitment consultants out there?

[dizzydaisy30]

Hi all
I am hopeing for a bit of advice.

I have been working in recruitment for the last 8 years and about to go on maternity leave in Sept. I am already looking into things for when my mat leave is up as I am not very keen on going back to my current company. Ideally, setting up on my own would be preferred option, using some of my old contacts, etc.

I wondered whether any of you have taken the plunge and worked as freelance/self employed recruiters after your mat leave was up and how things worked out for you?
Any tips will be appreciated...

Hi, I can't tell you what it's like but I have just finished mat leave and decided not to go back. I'm currently in process of trying to get things set up on on own. As I hadn't thought about this till last couple of months I didn't prepare before mat leave started. I really wish I had done, as now I feel as though i'm starting everything from scratch no candidates or clients. 9 Months is a long time in the world of recruitment. Try and take as many contacts with you as you can. Also keep in touch with clients if you can. You say you've been doing it for 8 years so your contacts must be well established, in which case you won't be easily forgotten. I only have couple of years experience and not a huge client base. Are you going it alone or going to use one of those shared equity companies? Sorry not much help but just thought we could exchange ideas.

Hi Dizzy and Jasmin, I set up as a freelance RecCon about 10 years ago. I still do it now but mainly on a word of mouth basis working only with previous candidates and clients I have worked with got years now. My first piece of advice would be invoicing - In the beginning I got screwed over by clients not paying my invoices - or leaving it for months before they did pay - I didn't want the cost of court cases and the time involved so in most cases just let it go and never dealt with them again, as with any business you get out what you put in - I would be sending out cv's and marketing all night and meeting clients during the day and candidates in the evenings - it was tough going. Make sure you get your T&C's legally done - good luck to you both - are you specialising in a specific industry?

Oh as a thought - your previous companies will probably have restrictions on you approaching their clients anyway - even if they were 'your' clients within an agency they belong legally to them - so Jasmin probably better you can start with a clean sheet anyway.

Hi Razors and Jasmin - great advice. I still have got a good few weeks before my Maternity Leave and started collecting some contacts on the client and candidate side. I will be going alone although have a contact who can help me with factoring some contract deals (in case they happen) - cheaper option than the companies who usually do it for a big chunk of your take. I specialise in engineering/IT and have got good client/candidate base. My current company is not really that switched on to chase me for going after my clients when I decide to leave. At the same time I do not intend to rub it in their faces that I will be doing things on my own. I suppose things I need to think about are T&C, clients paying (on time would be nice) and general logistics of it all as atm I heavily rely on our back office. When going alone I will be the sales person, the admin person and the accounts - SCARY! but exciting at the same time.

I am definately up for exchanging ideas!