The short answer
There is no single delivery date, because we do not build the whole thing at once. We pick the one part of your week that costs you the most time, build that first so you are using it while the rest is still being made, then add the next part. In practice a recruitment agency build is an ongoing arrangement, month by month, rather than a project with a finish line.
That is not a dodge. The agencies that get the most out of this are the ones whose system looked quite different after several months of use than it did on day one, because every month of real use shows the next thing worth automating.
Why there is no single number
The honest answer depends on three things, and you will know all three after one conversation.
- How wide the first piece is. One job, such as answering calls out of hours or turning inbound email into records, moves faster than five jobs at once.
- What your software lets us in to. Some systems are easy to read and write to. Others need a work around, and that adds time.
- How fast decisions come back from your side. A build waits on your answers about how you actually work, not on code.
Anyone who quotes you a fixed number of weeks before seeing your week is guessing. We would rather tell you what the first useful piece looks like and roughly when you will be using it.
How the build actually runs
We start narrow on purpose. One job, built properly, running against your real work, with you using it and telling us what is wrong with it. That first piece is the thing that proves whether this is worth continuing.
Then we layer. Once calls are being answered and logged, the next question is what happens to those calls. Once documents are arriving, the next question is who is being chased and when. Each layer is shorter than the one before, because the hard part, connecting to your systems and learning how your agency really works, is already done.
This is why the arrangement is monthly rather than a single handover. You are paying for a system that keeps changing shape as your agency does, not for a piece of software that is finished and then forgotten.
What it plugs into
We build around what you already use. The point is not to replace your systems, it is to stop people typing the same thing into three of them. That usually means:
- Your inbox, so applications and client emails become records and jobs instead of unread messages
- Your phone line, so calls are answered, understood and written down
- Wherever your candidate and client records live
- Wherever your documents live, so right to work paperwork, compliance files and signed terms land in the right place
If a system you rely on cannot be connected, we tell you before we start rather than halfway through.
What stays with a person
Anything with judgement in it. A system can answer a call at nine in the evening, take the details, log it and tell you about it in the morning. It can draft the reply, chase the missing document for the fourth time and file what comes back. It should not be deciding which candidate goes forward, what to say when a placement goes wrong, or how to handle a client who is unhappy.
We build so there is always a person looking at the things that matter, and so the system shows its working rather than quietly making decisions on your behalf.
The honest limits
The first weeks are not magic. Early on you will be correcting it more than you expect, and that correcting is what makes the later months work. If your records are messy, the build will surface that, and cleaning them up is real work that someone at your end has to care about.
It also will not fix a process that is broken on paper. If nobody currently chases candidates for documents, automating the chasing just means the chase happens and is still ignored. We will tell you when the problem is a process one rather than a software one.
The best way to get a real answer on timing is a short call where we look at a real week of your work, the actual calls, emails and chasing, and tell you which piece we would build first.
Questions people also ask
Can you start with just one thing?
Yes, and we prefer it. One job, working properly against your real week, tells you more about whether this suits your agency than any demonstration.
Does the system change after it is built?
It should. The builds that work best keep being adjusted month after month as the agency uses them and spots the next thing worth automating.
What slows a build down most?
Waiting on decisions about how your agency actually works, and systems that are awkward to connect to. We check both before quoting any timeline.