Read time: 3 minutes

Welcome to The Solo Recruiter (TSR)! This is a weekly newsletter dedicated to providing actionable insights in a few minutes for busy recruiters. By subscribing, you unlock access to recruitment business know-how that has been tried and tested.

As a TSR member, you’ll get:

• Our entire database of past and future actionable tips as soon as it’s launched!

• Access to me, where you can ask me stuff pertaining to recruitment or solopreneur.

• Proven actionable ideas to take your recruitment business or side hustle to the next level.

Leaving Recruitment For Greener Pastures

After the last post, there were some who plucked up the courage to reflect, which is a healthy move because no one wants to be stuck in a rut.

So if you are no longer passionate about recruitment, what else can you do?

It depends on your interest but there is no shortcut. You got to “study” for it if you are not in that industry.

So if you have been recruiting for AI, you can be a business development professional in the AI industry.

The crossover is not impossible as long as you understand the gist of the AI product and how to sell.

It’s different if you want to become an AI engineer. That takes more hours of self study and training and if you are motivated enough, you create skills validation projects (SVP) to showcase your ability.

SVP are projects you initiate on your own to demonstrate your proficiency of technical skills (i.e. AI prompt engineering)

Some of the skills I relate to as a recruiter is project management and business development. Most recruiters should have these two skills to varying degrees of competency.

And if you are still passionate about recruitment, but hate the idea of working for agency or corporate, you can launch your own recruitment firm. Seriously why not.

The entry bar is low but to do well requires skills which I have been consolidating in this newsletter. Subscribe if you haven’t.

Launching your own agency is highly do-able and the overall startup cost for year 1 will set you back by only around S$3K+. This is not a lump sum upfront, so you do get to pay it over several intervals to your corporate secretary, the government (MOM in Singapore), and an insurer (I will explain).

The corporate secretary is the company that helps you setup your recruitment company, alongside all the necessary filings for tax.

You also pay the government agency (MOM - EA) for issuing you the employment agency (EA) licence. Total cost of getting an EA licence is S$500 in 2022. This will go up with inflation (no doubt).

And then in Singapore, you also need a Security Bond and Banker’s Guarantee (SBBG). Some countries don’t need it. For example, Hong Kong.

What’s the SBBG?

In Singapore, operating an employment agency requires you to put up a bond.

Depending on your EA Licence type, the amount of bond ranges from S$20,000 to S$60,000.

It is quite a sum and probably you are wondering if it still makes sense to go through with this.

After all, how many people are willing and able to set aside S$20,000 to S$60,000 as a bond?

Let me show you the way around this hurdle.

First, let’s understand there are two types of EA and their main difference is the salary of the positions you can recruit for. If your EA handles predominantly roles that command above S$4500 per month, you can go for a SELECT EA Licence.

The SBBG for SELECT EA Licence is S$20,000.

If you want to handle all types of roles without being constrained by salary floors, you can go for the COMPREHENSIVE EA Licence. This allows you to handle all types of roles without salary restrictions. However, the SBBG is S$60,000 and on top of that, you have to be certified as a Key Appointment Holder (KAH). Apart from the cost of examination, you need to deal with exam stress.

Most don’t want that.

Ok, you decide quickly SELECT EA Licence is for you, since you handle most mid to senior roles and their salary hardly falls below S$4500. Then, the question is where to get that S$20,000?

Thanks to services like ALLEGIANCE (DM me for referral at no added cost to you), you can actually buy Employment Agency Bond from them to take care of the SBBG requirement.

It is essentially an insurance.

Let’s break down the cost.

An EA Bond from ALLEGIANCE will set you back around S$1337.50 pending GST and this is for a period of 3.5 years.

If you do the math, this is a no-brainer deal because you are just paying about S$382.14 per year to fulfill your SBBG.

This is much better than locking in your S$20,000 with banks who will charge you 1.5-2% for processing that SBBG on your behalf. So, if it is 1.5% p.a. for 3.5 years for S$20,000, the bank will effectively charge you S$1050 as service fee. This is on top of locking away your S$20,000 until you close down your EA for more than 6 months.

Now you know why taking up an EA bond is so much better.

As a recruiter who wants out, you have options.

The key is to understand what you want and work towards it purposefully. You will achieve your goal.

What’s weird is people wanting to fulfill their dreams without understanding that nothing comes by for free. Your goals require effort, time and hardship. If you get this, you get most of the things in life.

p.s. If you are a recruiter who’s keen to start your own agency instead of working for your boss, subscribe to this newsletter and DM me for my turn by turn guide to EA setup.

p.p.s. A warm welcome to everyone who subscribed The Solo Recruiter. You are now a part of this Spartan tribe that are committed to getting results. I call you Spartans because you mean BUSINESS. Ah-woo~!

Let’s connect on LinkedIn where I share tips for recruitment business. I’m also planning a Live Stream on FB to talk about being a solopreneur because of the overlapping skill sets it takes to be a great solo recruiter.

​About this newsletter: You are receiving this email because you subscribed to my weekly TSR (The Solo Recruiter) newsletter. Every other week, you learn the strategies that successful recruiters use to grow their businesses by doing the vital few. If you are interested to launch your own agency, drop me a DM.