How the Online Flat Fee Recruitment Industry was Created

Geoff Newman, founder of Recruitment Genius, was recently interviewed in which he shares: how Recruitment Genius and the online flat fee recruitment market were conceived; how they business remains profitable despite operating to such small margins; and his vision for the company’s future.

Enjoy watching the video or read the transcript below:

Where did the idea for Recruitment Genius come from?

So like many great ideas Recruitment Genius was actually born down the pub.

After a hard days work at a recruitment agency a friend and myself went down to go and enjoy a couple of drinks when the news came on about unemployment reaching 3million. And like so many people down the pub, I was putting the world to rights and just made a flippant comment “wouldn’t it be great if we could help reduce unemployment?”

I guess with our recruitment hats on we recognised that many organisations didn’t like recruiting because it was just an expensive hassle. So what we wanted to do was make recruitment really easy and affordable. But then we had to start thinking “what is actually affordable?”

Now ironically we were drinking Lucky Beer that was priced at £1.99. So I just suggested “well £199 seems pretty affordable” and that price was absolute genius because it created a constraint that focused our creativity. It forced us to recognise what customers valued and were willing to pay for and what was just superfluous and so from that point on Recruitment Genius was born and with it a brand new category in the recruitment sector.

So is £199 great value?

I know that £199 is exceptional value for money.

Many organizations could not even advertise on one job board for £199 – but using our service they go on up to 2,000 – which generates an even better response.

But I guess it’s not just about generating a great response, it’s importantly what you do with it that counts – and that’s why we’ve developed some really intelligent technology that automates the recruitment process to remove a lot of the hassle.

Do you guarantee to fill a job for just £199?

We can’t guarantee to fill a job for £199 because there are so many things that we just don’t control – it is based on advertising after all.

For example an organisation may be just asking too much, or paying too little, or they may have an ineffective recruitment process those are things we just can’t control.

But we do offer a lot of advice to companies and we do have a 93.7% success rate and for those reasons our customers just don’t ask us to offer a guarantee.

How do you make money?

We make our money by focusing on delighting our customer’s and helping them fill their jobs. And because of that the business just flows in

Naturally we do have very small margins.

But because we have a lot of repeat business and recommendations it means that we remain profitable.

What type of organisation do you help?

Organisations from every sector and size imaginable use us

From a self-employed individual who is taking the bold step of recruiting their first member of staff

Through to large corporations that have thousands of employees

So whilst we can’t exactly specify our customer based on their sector or size – there is one thing that sets them apart, that they’re a smart recruiter that wants to take control of their recruitment with a really easy and affordable solution

How important is the candidate experience?

The candidate experience is really important to us.

Recruitment Genius was fundamentally created for them to help reduce unemployment.

We’ve already done so much to help keep them up to date about the progress of their job application

And we’ve invested a lot of resources to help improve they’re service and we know its working because so many candidates love our service they end up becoming clients themselves, though naturally we can’t rest on our laurels but we know that our ultimate aim is to make sure they feel like they have been treated like an individual and respected.

What is the future like for Recruitment Genius?

So the future for Recruitment Genius is looking great.

Just as Amazon is the de-facto for books, we want to be the de-facto for recruitment and it is true to say that we have already achieved so much and I know that if we continue to focus on delighting our customers with really innovative solutions that make they’re lives much easier and recruitment much more affordable then I know we’re going to achieve our goal.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

What makes me get out of bed every morning? Well that’s easy, it’s the really talented people that I work alongside. You know, their passion is infectious and it makes it a great place to work but also its our customers. They keep telling us what a great job we’re doing and recommending us, and so it’s a really great place to be.

What awards have you won?

I’m really proud of all the awards that we’ve won.

Whether it’s recognising the contribution that we’ve made for our online recruitment or recognising the technology that we’ve developed such as with our automated telephone and video screening tool,

But probably my favourite has got to be the British Chamber of Commerce – Best New Business.

There were over 12,000 entrants and we won!

In 10 years time, what would have made you proud?

In 10 years time I’d be really proud if we’ve genuinely helped reduce unemployment by delivering really easy and affordable solutions. Providing we’ve done that, and we’ve had great fun along the way, I couldn’t be happier.