How to reduce your dependency on recruitment agents

Think back to the last time you were looking for a contract. How many applications did you make? Can you remember the name of every agent you rang (or who rang you)? And can you remember the name of every organisation that received your CV during that time? No, me neither.

Let’s try an easier question. Can you list all of the companies within a 1-hour commute of your home that might need your freelance skills within the next 6–12 months?

Okay, I’m just teasing now. The answer to all of these questions for most people is a resounding “no”, but this is exactly why many contractors – particularly those just starting out – tend to be overly dependent on recruitment consultants for finding contracts.

The good news is that – with an investment of just a few minutes each day, or each week – you can build up a personalised overview of the job market and target clients that will give you at your fingertips the same information or better than a recruitment consultant next time you are looking for a contract.

Use a CRM to develop an elephant-like memory

Most contractors will have heard of Customer Relationship Management or CRM, but it is probably something you associate with sales teams – in fact, one of the best-known names in CRM is Salesforce.

What you might not realise is that you inadvertently landed a part-time job in sales the same day that you became a contractor, and you were handed exclusive responsibility for selling a single product: Yourself.

Enter the CRM, a piece of workhorse software that will help you gather and collate information about clients past, present and future.

There are plenty of CRM systems around, including Insightly, HubSpot and Zoho. Some offer free versions or trials, although the features and limits vary. You don’t necessarily need specialist software, either. A simple spreadsheet can do the job perfectly well if you’re prepared to keep it up to date.

The important thing is to have somewhere to record the companies, recruiters and individuals you come across, rather than relying on your memory or trying to dig through hundreds of old emails when your current contract ends.

Start from where you stand

The chances are that you are already receiving – but probably immediately deleting – an amount of useful information each week. Our guide to finding IT contract work covers the other routes you can use alongside recruitment agencies. That might be solicited or unsolicited phone calls or emails from recruitment consultants either trying to fill a role for their client or checking your availability.

So the first thing to record in the CRM is who contacted you, from where, and about what. That simple action will allow you to build up a picture over time of which agencies and which recruitment consultants specialise in your particular domain; and with that information, you can also start to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

The second thing you can do – if you are prepared to pick up the phone or respond to an email – is to probe for information about which companies are hiring for those roles.

You might be committed to your current client for another 6 months, but it might not hurt to know for future reference that Company X has already recruited your exact skill set twice this year, for example.

Naturally, some recruiters won’t disclose the identity of their clients, particularly before you’ve been put forward for a role. But over time, you’ll still learn a surprising amount about the companies recruiting in your field.

Harvest information online

Successful companies – big and small – tend to be companies that are growing, and therefore hiring; and those types of companies have a habit of distributing press releases every time they hit a particular milestone, whether that is a profit announcement, or relocating to larger premises, etc.

If you are interested in working in a particular geographical area, then subscribe to the local online business news; if you are passionate about a particular field, then subscribe to the leading online journals.

The movers and shakers will start to crop up in articles over a couple of months, and all you need to do is scan the headlines once a day or once a week, and make a quick note in your CRM, including website address, geographical location and the names of any employees mentioned in the article.

If you find yourself interviewing with the very same company 7 months later, there is also something enormously impressive about being able to talk to the interviewer about the development of the company, and the articles that you have read previously.

When you have the name of a company, there is a lot more that you can do, as well, for example:

• Subscribe to their job alerts. Consider making a speculative application, too; in a low-pressure situation where you are already “spoken for”, it can be a great time to test your CV and see what sort of responses you get from the market.
• Advanced tip: Set up “change detection” for companies that don’t have a job alert. Some job pages – particularly those run by smaller companies – list their contract positions but annoyingly don’t offer job alerts by email. Services such as Visualping and Distill can monitor a webpage and notify you when something changes, such as a new vacancy appearing.
• Set up company-specific Google Alerts. If you find a company that is of particular interest, then you can crank your corporate stalking up to the next level by setting up a Google Alert. Google Alerts are immensely useful because they can harness Google’s search power across news and other indexed content, leaving you free to put your feet up and wait for interesting developments to be delivered straight to your inbox.
• Get social. Most companies have a presence on LinkedIn nowadays, with many also using other social networks. Although the level of engagement varies greatly, following a company’s updates gives you another point of access and a further source of information. You might spot a new project, a senior appointment or plans for expansion long before a contract role appears on a job board.
• Check your LinkedIn network for inside contacts. If you come across a company that you have never heard of before, then do a quick check on LinkedIn. Do you have any first- or second-degree contacts with links to that company? If so, drop them a quick message for a bit more information. For more ideas, see our LinkedIn profile tips for contractors.
• Keep in touch with previous clients. If you finished an assignment on good terms, there’s no harm in contacting your former manager occasionally to see how things are going. We’ve also covered why keeping in touch matters for contractors. Even if there isn’t an opportunity at that particular company, they may know someone elsewhere who needs your skills.

If you are prepared to make this simple investment of a few minutes each day or each week – effectively not much more than scanning a few emails and making a few notes in your CRM – then you should find that within as little as 2–3 months you will have a surprisingly long list of companies who just might need your skill set the next time you are looking for a contract.

And if you do manage to find work without going through an agency, there may be other benefits too. Read our guide to the advantages of contracting directly with clients, including negotiating rates and dealing with clients yourself.

This article was written by Peter Roy and updated by IT Contracting.