Preparing a recruitment business for sale is a process that should begin years before you intend to exit – not weeks.

Pretty much every recruitment business leader I know has a strong feeling that the world they operate in has changed. It’s more expensive, less stable, and people are buying (and job hunting) differently.

Recruitment agency profitability is determined by far more than billing volume. The most profitable recruitment businesses in the UK are not necessarily the largest.

Scaling a recruitment business requires more than simply hiring more consultants and chasing bigger clients. In the UK at least, hiring employees has become increasingly onerous.

In Spring last year, I started working with a client who ran a small business (25 staff) placing tech infrastructure and UX specialists.