Former members of the Independent Recruitment Group (IRG), the free-to-join community for recruitment companies that collapsed in March, may not have to wait long before they can join a replacement organisation.   

Following the demise of the IRG, its former national director tells Recruiter that plans are already afoot for a new recruiter network. 

Diana Broughton says: “A number of the group’s more active members, along with some new influences from the industry, will be forming a new recruiter network – continuing to support each other and reaping all of the benefits of being part of a group.

“We have learnt how to work really well together as small agencies and want other recruiters to come and share in our success. We have forged some fantastic relationships which we have the IRG to thank for – it is time to move forward.”

Broughton adds: “Many IRG members are disappointed by its closure.” 

The IRG, which launched to the market in 2011, allowed members to share not only ideas but also jobs and candidates in a secure environment thorough its social network IRG Socialise. It also worked with a network of self-employed recruiters, who shared a certain percentage of fees earned with the IRG.

At the time of its launch, IRG founder and group managing director Sean O’Donoghue said: “They keep a minimum of 90% of all billings they generate, work from wherever they choose and do not need to worry about overly pushy KPI [key performance indicator] targets.” IRG members also qualified for discounts on recruiting tools and services.

In a statement, issued to Recruiter on Friday (26 April), O’Donoghue indicates that despite the IRG’s demise, he is keen to continue to play a role in supporting small agencies. He tells Recruiter: “I am not giving up on the little guys in the industry that easily.” He adds that he does rule out joining forces with one of the other professional bodies “to help them to support better their small agency members”.

Explaining the collapse of the IRG, O’Donoghue says that under-estimating the length of the recession was a key factor. With the IRG leadership team having to spend more time on running their own agencies, they had “less and less time to give to the IRG”, he explains. “This ensured that we were not able to grow in the right way so that we could support our members.” 

Not charging membership fees also contributed to the decision to cease operations. This made it impossible to employ “the couple of full-time staff” needed “to grow faster and offer improved services”, and the result was “we had try to run it ourselves”.

O’Donoghue, who started the IRG in 2010, adds: “I had taken the IRG too far to be able to change it from a social enterprise to a for-profit commercial organisation without losing a huge amount of respect and loyalty from our members.” 

In a parting swipe at the recruitment industry’s remaining professional bodies, O’Donoghue says: “I sincerely hope that the industry’s professional bodies take a closer look at what they are doing for their small agency members right now.” He adds: “Many of our members were members of a professional body, yet still felt they needed extra support from us.”

O’Donoghue says he is now focusing his energies on turning around his own recruitment agency, while also considering other possible ventures put to him.