“Our mission is to help recruiters launch, operate and scale their own businesses without the fear, anxiety and stress of doing it alone,” says Thompson, who, with Kluver, used his own savings to bootstrap xrecruiter.

They took on a pilot client in 2021 and when that worked well, launched to the wider market in 2022. “What we tell partners now is: we’ll help you get started and then support you to operate your business so that you can focus on your clients and growth,” Thompson says.

“We make sure you’ve got no gaps, no blind spots. You have next to no operating costs, and, in return, we share a small part of your success.”

Room for more amid competition for talent

Cameron says there’s still room for lots of new start-ups in the recruitment industry, as many employment sectors still have major shortages. “Health and aged care are strong, the resources sector is also still buoyant, as is agriculture to some extent, although executive recruitment and IT are surprisingly flat,” he says.

Particular regions also have better prospects than others. Employers around Brisbane have “a bit of buzz”, generated by the upcoming 2032 Olympics. Perth and Adelaide are reasonably good, but Melbourne and Sydney are “feeling a bit of pain” at the moment.

Even with these ups and downs, the Employment Placement and Recruitment Services industry market is still growing at a compound annual growth rate of 1.7 per cent between 2019 and 2024, according to market analysts IBIS World.

Several companies at the upper levels of the industry have consolidated and many new entrants are sole practitioners or boutique agencies who may have the industry experience and contacts but not the business experience – and this is where xrecruiter comes in.

Currently, xrecruiter supports 55 partner recruitment agencies across Australia and New Zealand. “We get the high performers and ambitious recruiters who want to be business owners,” says Thompson. “They realise that with our support, going out on their own, they can earn three times as much as working for any other recruitment agency.”

And the start-ups’ success has a knock-on effect to xrecuiter. Their revenue in 2021-22, the first full year of operations, was $25,000. The following year it rose to $900,000 and then $16 million by 2023-2024, with $10 million in the first quarter of this financial year. Another 17 new agencies are in the set-up stage and due to launch in January 2025.

Collaboration beats competition

Cameron says that xrecruiter compliments the work of RSCA, an association of 1000 member companies.

“Starting a small business in 2024 is pretty tough,” he says. “It’s a big risk and can be lonely, as many of our new members are micro businesses. And xrecruiter is giving them that community. We’re very proud of the fact that we’re moving away from being an industry of competitors to an industry of collaborators.”

Previously, recruiters were very suspicious of each other, Cameron adds, and never realised what they could learn from other agencies. “Everyone thought they had their own secret recipe for success but, really, there’s no secret knowledge. We all know how it works.”

At xrecruiter, the slogan and hashtag is, ‘Better Together’. “We’re changing the status quo of ‘everyone’s your competitor’,” Thompson says. “Now, it’s the opposite. We sometimes get three recruitment agency owners all going to one potential client meeting together, taking job briefs and all working on filling roles together.”

Their own growth plan is to launch into the US next year and then Canada and the UK in 2026.

“The success of all of our partners makes us really proud and happy,” Thompson says. “It’s one thing to have a good business but it’s another thing to feel like you’re actually making a big difference in an industry in Australia and New Zealand – and, hopefully, going global.”

To learn more, visit xrecruiter.io/