Help me start a business

[Burdett]

Hi everyone

I am looking to start a business by the end of June. At the moment I don't have a lot of money with being a student and if this business goes according to plan I will be taking a year out.

I have looked into the funding options that the local council and business link offer and I have been in touch with a business link registered supplier. While the funding is very helpful even with full funding from each organisation (which is unlikely) I will be stretching my finances to the limit.

I have decided the only way to raise the money which I want is by offering my services to businesses who are members of this forum at a reduced rate which will give me much needed funding, experience and maybe even a testimonial. I hope to raise at least £500.


When businesses need employees they ask for CVs from candidates. It will be my job to check their references on their CVs. I am thinking of charging £25 - £30 per CV check with various discounts for bulk buying. I am prepared to offer this service to you for £12 per CV check.

For £12 you will get a quality service which will include:

• Gathering references
• Last 2 references checked
• A traffic light report on their CV references (red, amber, green) - did they lie on their CV? Did they perform well in their last job?
• 3 week turnaround time (will depend on CV amount given but could be much sooner)

Does anyone want to help me out and at the same time let me help you out?

If you would like to know more just ask as many questions as you want and I will gladly answer. If you are interested in this service PM me for details and to discuss payment terms.

Thanks for reading.

 

[BootCamp]

Its pretty different idea, but probably be something I would wish to check up on myself. Maybe a larger organisation would undertake this, I don't know.

Good Luck

 

[Burdett]

Its really for small to medium sized organisations. Large organisations will already have a human resources department while small businesses might only have themself to do it so it saves them time so they can grow their business.

 

[4little1s]

Sounds a good idea, as above post - try contacting smaller organisations as larger ones will have a HR Director / dept etc.

Mind you, saying that, I used to work for some large organisations and their HR dept always seemed pretty busy to me...they might welcome the external support

 

[billie1]

Its really for small to medium sized organisations. Large organisations will already have a human resources department while small businesses might only have themself to do it so it saves them time so they can grow their business.

Bear in mind that even though large organisations have an HR Department, they still tend to use recruitment agencies. If you can replace the reruitment agencies by providing the HR Department with CV's where references are already checked, I think the business could work. These days companies are tyring to save money so its a good time to push through this idea.

Also if you can team up with someone who know about recruitment you can also add sourcing CV's to your services and can offer organisations a certain amount of CV's to match their job description.

 

[Burdett]

Anyone interested in this?

I am hoping to start the business by mid May so this offer will only be offered until then. After that I will have a special offer for UKBF members and will sell at £20 for 1 month. After that it will be £20 - £30.

 

[Tunafish]

What techniques are you going to use to check up on references? A lot of big companies use external agencies already to check out references as well as to perform plenty of other checks (criminal check, address history check, credit check, employment history check etc). All of these individual checks would cost you money in some way or another (either through an upfront fee or just the cost of your time), I'd be interested to hear what services you offer and how you plan to implement them.

 

[Burdett]

At the moment I am planning on offering 3 different services (more if you look at it another way).

The first service is just a basic CV reference check. I will phone up past employers and ask about their past employment and ask them to send me a reference of the employee.

The second service is doing an internet search. This service varies in costs. A basic one just searches google for their name to see if they have been in any newspapers or if there is anything said about them on the internet that is negative or positive. Have they ran into a burning building to save a kitten? The higher cost service involves searching social networking sites and looking at what their character is like or if they have said anything about past employers. It wouldn't be good PR for the potential employer if in the future that employee was let go and just moaned about the company and how bad it was.

The third service is absence checks. Employers would phone me up to check on their employees if they phone in ill to see if they are actually ill or pulling a sickie. A police force did this and they reduced the number of sick days that their staff took.

 

[Tunafish]

At the moment I am planning on offering 3 different services (more if you look at it another way).

The first service is just a basic CV reference check. I will phone up past employers and ask about their past employment and ask them to send me a reference of the employee.

The second service is doing an internet search. This service varies in costs. A basic one just searches google for their name to see if they have been in any newspapers or if there is anything said about them on the internet that is negative or positive. Have they ran into a burning building to save a kitten? The higher cost service involves searching social networking sites and looking at what their character is like or if they have said anything about past employers. It wouldn't be good PR for the potential employer if in the future that employee was let go and just moaned about the company and how bad it was.

I'm not sure how appealing (or even how legal) this would be to be honest. Using information that you find on social networking sites to help decide whether or not to employ someone? How could you really judge someone by the way they act on Facebook and assume they'll act in the same way at work? I know there have been recent cases of employee's getting sacked for badmouthing their companies on Facebook, but surely it would be rude to not employ/sack someone just because their professional character was different from the one they portray at work/in an inerview.

I assume you would also have to ask for permission to go round checking out a potential employee's Facebook profile (just as you would when you would want to check a reference).

The third service is absence checks. Employers would phone me up to check on their employees if they phone in ill to see if they are actually ill or pulling a sickie. A police force did this and they reduced the number of sick days that their staff took.

This sounds interesting. How exactly would you check that people are actually ill and again are there any laws that could limit what you're able to do?

One thing you should do before you begin (if you haven't already) is heavily check out your competitors and try to even use their service if possible. This will no doubt help you discover a lot about the industry.

 

[Bri]

£40.00 for a CRB

£5.00 + for a Dunn & Bradstreet credit check( can this be used for personal checks, only done business ones here)

Interfering with someones personal habits is intrusion( see tonights news about Labour emails slagging the tories)

Past employers are not obliged to give any other information about a past employee other than agreeing about the time that person worked there.

I wouldnt be paying £30.00 + for something I could easily do myself.

Throw away C.V.'s and get back to straight forward application forms

 

[Burdett]

Tunafish-

What you find on social networking sites is there for everyone to see so I think it’s legal. I will just be supplying information that I think is relevant. It will be up to the employer to decide what they want to do with it. I don’t think there are any social network discrimination employment laws out there.

As for absence checks it’s not really checking if they are ill – you can fake it on the phone but its doubtful if you answer the phone to a phone number you don’t know. The service is more of a sign in. A local police force used it and I think the message was just a ‘get well soon type’ message. It reduced sick days there so it worked.



personals1-

I will email you in the morning if you are serious. Hopefully your message will be still there.


Bri-

You could do it yourself but the point is that I am saving you time. Small business owners are overworked as it is. You should be concentrating on the value of the service.

How many hours am I saving you when I do the reference checks? Couldn’t you be putting those hours to good use by growing your business or just taking a well earned break?

How much do you pay an employee? Let’s say £12,000 for an admin assistant. If you hire someone who has lied on their CV and show that they are a disaster then you have wasted thousands of pounds when you could spend a few hundred pounds checking a few CVs.

My services allow you to save time and money and give you peace of mind when recruiting.

 

[Bri]

Good reply and well thought out business, we just hope we are helping you cope with taking the rough with the smooth.

Thinking about it, it might be an excellent time to start considering the number of people chasing the same job currently.

 

[Burdett]

The CV checking services are essential in a recession as more people are likely to exaggerate or lie what they did in their last job. Before the recession there were 35 applications for every job (there will be more now) which probably took up a lot of their time even if they didn't check all the references

 

[SRD]

Tunafish-

What you find on social networking sites is there for everyone to see so I think it’s legal. I will just be supplying information that I think is relevant. It will be up to the employer to decide what they want to do with it. I don’t think there are any social network discrimination employment laws out there.

As for absence checks it’s not really checking if they are ill – you can fake it on the phone but its doubtful if you answer the phone to a phone number you don’t know. The service is more of a sign in. A local police force used it and I think the message was just a ‘get well soon type’ message. It reduced sick days there so it worked.



personals1-

I will email you in the morning if you are serious. Hopefully your message will be still there.


Bri-

You could do it yourself but the point is that I am saving you time. Small business owners are overworked as it is. You should be concentrating on the value of the service.

How many hours am I saving you when I do the reference checks? Couldn’t you be putting those hours to good use by growing your business or just taking a well earned break?

How much do you pay an employee? Let’s say £12,000 for an admin assistant. If you hire someone who has lied on their CV and show that they are a disaster then you have wasted thousands of pounds when you could spend a few hundred pounds checking a few CVs.

My services allow you to save time and money and give you peace of mind when recruiting.

I think it's a flawed business model in many ways. One glaring thing, if you were to go ahead with this business, you should not be targeting small business. You would be better off approaching large organisations trying to get contract work.

Second of all, I really, really dislike this idea of checking up on people via social networking sites. There MUST be, or at least SHOULD be some law against using social networking site for that type of thing. At the very least it's immoral and dishonest, and that is a direct reflection of your business.
It's typical of the way the nation has become, what a nanny state we are.

£30 for checking out a CV?! I just can't get my head round that. I've highlighted a point in your post above about how many hours would you save me checking out references. Hours? Are you kidding? Most business owners would want to check that sort of thing out themselves, and if there were numerous CV's, would have their secretary check them out.

One CRUCIAL point that makes this flawed, have you ever tried to get a reference from anyone? Employers are not allowed to say anything bad on a reference anyway. So even if an employee was a complete disaster, you wouldn't be able to find that out.
Not exactly something you'd want to spend 30 quid a pop on. Or even 12 for that matter.

I would advise you not to spend any further time on this, it's a seriously flawed business model.

Lastly, and I would very, very rarely say something like this, but PURELY from the way you would be going about this, checking up on people via social networking sites etc, I hope this business fails.
Modern Britain seems to have a serious problem regarding peoples freedom and liberties.

 

[inspiremydesign]

I kind of agree with the poster above, it is slightly an over exaggerated business model.

You can check up on employees who are ill by valid doctor's notes, phoning them and deciding on their tone of voice or ruthless excuses wont do justice at all.

I'm not sure the cv checking will go down to well at this time considering nearly EVERYONE is getting redundant.

If you really want to make money whilst helping people and the environment we live in, i recommend you to start a green business. Anything that includes recycling, re-using, solar energy etc.

Unfortunately during this recession, many home owners are being forced out their homes, trash companies are hired to throw furnitures in the land fill.. you could redirect that to your business, sell it on ebay or car boot sales, or just recycle and re-use as a different product.

Think about what you can try to do to help people get out this recession and what could you do to reduce climate change.

There's currenly alot of organisations willing to fund green companies so why not take advantage of that.

 

[inspiremydesign]

By the way, I'm only 19 myself, was a student a few months ago. I too was thinking of ways to make money but once I started the idea of a green social organisation, it took off from there!
Just dont limit your idea's to one area, try new things and do it the right way!
Checking up people's information on social networking sites is higly not recommended, I wouldn't do business with you because you cant be trusted.
People put information of themselves on their personal pages for friends to view, not sell the information to other companies, why do you think facebook thought but didn't tried it.. ***privacy***

 

[Burdett]

SRD –

Why should there be a law be a law against it? Those users have willingly put that information for everyone to see. Surely part of hiring someone should be assessing their character as well as their skills?

My main service which I plan on marketing the most is the CV checks so I don’t plan on getting many internet checks.

I don’t think there is a law stopping past employers from telling the truth about past bad employees. If there is there is something wrong with the law.

As for the price there will be various discounts for different things. The price will only start at £30 if they want more than 30 days to pay. If not then the price starts at £25. There would be discounts for me just to get the information and not to write a traffic light type report. Discounts for bulk buying. Discounts for other things


Inspiremydesign –

Actually in a recession is probably the best time to start a business like this. Hiring hasn’t stopped altogether. It is still continuing but on a smaller scale. Those organisations that are hiring are seeing more candidates applying for a job which will put even more constraints on their time which is why it’s a good idea to start now.

 

[inspiremydesign]

Inspiremydesign –

Actually in a recession is probably the best time to start a business like this. Hiring hasn’t stopped altogether. It is still continuing but on a smaller scale. Those organisations that are hiring are seeing more candidates applying for a job which will put even more constraints on their time which is why it’s a good idea to start now.[/quote]

__________________________________________________________

It's good to start a business during this time, I didn't doubt that.
But do you have any skills, experience, qualifications under your belt?

What makes you stand out the crowd compared to other agencies who are already doing this and they have more than 5-10 people working together and cheaper?

You haven't thought it out very well at all though, how could you go on to someone's social network profile and steal info that's not yours, again this comes down to privacy of information. If facebook or twitter aren't doing it, why should you?

I'm an employer myself, although I run a social organisation and recruit staff from respected agencies who thoroughly go through every detail before they accept them on my terms.

What your doing here is dodgy work to make some quick money whilst exploiting other peoples private lives.

I'd leave it to the professionals ... http://www.verifile.co.uk/?kw=cv ch...66&network=s&gclid=CJD5oPe48JkCFUU_3god4yMVRg

 

[Burdett]

I am at university so I have A Levels and GCSEs


Why am I unique from other companies:

1. I produce traffic light type reports - I don't just find the information and give it to them

2. I am planning to barter some of my services. In the future 5-10% of all sales will be through barter.

3. I will be the only company in Teesside - might not be relevant here but could be where I am from.


I won't be stealing any info from social networking sites. I doubt the info that is on your personal pages on there is copyrighted by you. The information is in the public domain (well kind of) anyway. This service will not be a majo one anyway. I am not planning to market it in a big way.


I am not exploiting anyones private life. How private is the information if it is on someone's social networking page for the world to see?

 

[cal900]

I have to say I hate your idea of checking people out on facebook, myspace and bebo.

Why not just stand outside there house and see what sort of people come and go. It's just as bad.

So you find a few pics of someone drunk at a party, are you going to decide that this person can not be trusted?
What boundries have you set to decide if they should get a job?

I wonder what sort of person would go about doing this tbh

 

[Burdett]

Being drunk in your own time does not necessarily show bad character. Just because I search for information on their pages doesn't mean that I will find anything relevant.

This service will not be one of my main services. Infact I anticipate it will probably be one of the least used services. When it comes to internet checks I will mainly just be checking Google unless asked to do otherwise by the client.

 

[SRD]

I don’t think there is a law stopping past employers from telling the truth about past bad employees. If there is there is something wrong with the law.

How much research have you done on this?

I'm an employer, and have had to give references for past staff. There have been a few times where I wish I could've said "don't touch this person with a barge pole," etc, but unfortunately, I couldn't.
Whether or not there is a flaw in the system is irrespective of the fact that this seriously flaws your business model.

Regarding the social networking sites. On Facebook, most people have private profiles, so in order for you to view their profile you are going to have to befriend them on false pretences. Obviously not illegal, but fundamentally wrong. I would seriously check out the legal implications of this method of checking people out.

 

[Burdett]

I have actually done a lot of research including contacting the Information Commissioner who said there was nothing legally stopping me from doing it.

When it comes to the private profiles those profiles are then private and not open for the world to see so I probably wouldn't be able to do that check.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Just a small point, would it be against the data protection act to pass to a third party information on a cv which was sent only to a named person in the first company without the originators permission, and presumably you would store the information on your own computer

 

[Burdett]

According to the Information Commissioner the client would have to inform the candidates that they will be checking the references on CVs.

 

[inspiremydesign]

I am at university so I have A Levels and GCSEs


Why am I unique from other companies:

1. I produce traffic light type reports - I don't just find the information and give it to them

2. I am planning to barter some of my services. In the future 5-10% of all sales will be through barter.

3. I will be the only company in Teesside - might not be relevant here but could be where I am from.


I won't be stealing any info from social networking sites. I doubt the info that is on your personal pages on there is copyrighted by you. The information is in the public domain (well kind of) anyway. This service will not be a majo one anyway. I am not planning to market it in a big way.


I am not exploiting anyones private life. How private is the information if it is on someone's social networking page for the world to see?

______________________

Oh come on! Your having a laugh right?

"How private is the information if it is on someone's social networking page for the world to see"

It's not good for your image or the business you'll present! Social networking sites are for socialising with people you KNOW and are FRIENDS with, my facebook profile isn't there to auction myself off to companies or sell my private life. Keep business and pleasure seperate!
I don't spy on my employees social networking profiles.. who cares if he smokes drugs or she is a stripper.. as long as it doesn't affect our business its cool.

If that's what your really planning to do, I hope you don't succeed because I hate people who steal private information, two faced and untrustworthy to their friends.

I bet you've already dobbed your mates profiles to their employers right

If you were to go about this the right way, I would have shown my support but I think its utterly down right pathetic. I might aswell advertise my private life on bill boards

 

[inspiremydesign]

Being drunk in your own time does not necessarily show bad character. Just because I search for information on their pages doesn't mean that I will find anything relevant.

This service will not be one of my main services. Infact I anticipate it will probably be one of the least used services. When it comes to internet checks I will mainly just be checking Google unless asked to do otherwise by the client.

____________________

So if i were one of your clients (which i strongly doubit I'll ever be) .. you would go on to google and search my future employees details? Anyone who knows how to use a computer keyboard and click a few buttons could do that. But again, you won't find anyones details on search engines. If a trainee police officer applying for the job boasted about driving 50 Mph on a 20 Mph road on his social profile.. how would you find true evidence for that?

I'd say just scrap the whole social network, google search idea.. unless your planning to sell information of a CEO to newspapers.. its all wrong!

Why dont you do something which will help businesses survive abit better during this recession, something like helping to reduce costs of their office equipment, mail, deliveries, catering, electricity, advertising etc. I think that's a far more better solution that doing a cv checker thingy off facebook and google.

I helped a few of my friends businesses awhile ago, it made me feel brilliant that I saved them a couple of thousands of pounds.

If your serious about business, do something unique, honest or improve a service.

 

[Robert Wheeler]

It is not about whether it is right or wrong to check social networking sites, it is whether there is a market. I can see there being a real demand from employers who would like to have people checked but do not want to associate it with their internal business practices.

I personally think you should use every resource you have available to you to check out a potential employee. If you are in a limited business then you owe this to the shareholders. Anybody who has found that they have some junkie or a drunkard in their business that has gone under the radar long enough to be difficult to sack would value that kind of information. If I am about to invest money in someone to bring into my business on any basis I will check every piece of information I can get my hands on. I know the kind of people I want in my business and I know the kind of people I do not.

 

[Rufford]

Hi everyone

I am looking to start a business by the end of June. At the moment I don’t have a lot of money with being a student and if this business goes according to plan I will be taking a year out.

I have looked into the funding options that the local council and business link offer and I have been in touch with a business link registered supplier. While the funding is very helpful even with full funding from each organisation (which is unlikely) I will be stretching my finances to the limit.

I have decided the only way to raise the money which I want is by offering my services to businesses who are members of this forum at a reduced rate which will give me much needed funding, experience and maybe even a testimonial. I hope to raise at least £500.


When businesses need employees they ask for CVs from candidates. It will be my job to check their references on their CVs. I am thinking of charging £25 - £30 per CV check with various discounts for bulk buying. I am prepared to offer this service to you for £12 per CV check.

For £12 you will get a quality service which will include:

• Gathering references
• Last 2 references checked
• A traffic light report on their CV references (red, amber, green) – did they lie on their CV? Did they perform well in their last job?
• 3 week turnaround time (will depend on CV amount given but could be much sooner)

Does anyone want to help me out and at the same time let me help you out?

If you would like to know more just ask as many questions as you want and I will gladly answer. If you are interested in this service PM me for details and to discuss payment terms.

Thanks for reading.

Hmmm - great idea!

Challenge I guess is that:

• the only time a company would check CV references would be after the job offer has been accepted by the candidate - the market is therefore low compared to my first thoughts
• you, I guess, would be come legally responsible fro what you write and that needs consideration - responsibility to client and candidate..
• the jobs market is diminishing and for the next year is it not?

I'm sure the list is longer but - first thoughts

 

[Burdett]

Inspiremydesign – Employers might think different to you. They might want all the information before hiring a candidate and what they do in their private lives might affect their working life. For instance should a member of the commission for racial equality hire someone who has joined a group supporting the ku klux klan or black panthers?


If the candidate is going to be a role model for children and he boasts on his profile that he takes drugs every weekend. Do you really want to hire them? Shouldn’t that make a difference?


I am going about my business the right way. I won’t even be advertising this service at startup. It will be advertised further down the line. I will be mainly focused on CV checks and absence checks.


You wouldn’t find the actual information of an officer speeding but the fact that the police officer boasted about breaking the law should cause you concern especially when the officer is there to uphold the law.


Rufford – I think there will be some companies who will want to check out the top 5 candidates and there will be others who check more so they don’t put all their eggs in one basket. My job will be to persuade them to do that.

I might be legally responsible but I am going to try and lessen my legal responsibility by not giving advice but guidance instead. Advice you can be sued for and guidance you can’t.

If I am right and companies will check more than one candidate a recession will be good for business. I will have less customers but those buying will buy more because they will have more candidates applying for the limited number of jobs available.

 

[gjohnston644]

Best of luck for your business.