The Independent Recruiting Group (IRG) is appointing 12 regional directors to help manage its rapid growth, according to founder and group managing director Sean O’Donoghue.

Founded earlier this year, the IRG is taking a two-pronged approach to developing a UK-wide network of independent recruiters and, as O’Donoghue told Recruiter, “to give the smaller independents a voice”. This would be accomplished in part through offering support and leverage to smaller firms with no more than 10-15 staff to compete more effectively with the larger recruiters.

“Our community is run by independent recruiters for independent recruiters,” O’Donoghue said.

Agencies that join the IRG, at no charge, can collaborate with other IRG members to serve candidates and clients across a variety of industry sectors. Through its social network, IRG Socialise, members are able to share not only ideas but also jobs and candidates in a secure environment.

The other part of the equation involves the creation of a network of self-employed recruiters who work with IRG and share a certain percentage of fees earned with the organisation. O’Donoghue said that IRG can give those recruiters, “who want something better than working in target-driven, big brand organisations”, the safety of becoming self-employed and “working with us, not for us”.

He added: “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 targets.”

O’Donoghue said that raising professionalism was key. “Our values are based on self-help and self-responsibility our members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others,” he said. “We will raise standards and the perception of our industry by coming together as specialists.”

He stressed that IRG is not another trade body. A former managing director of IT recruiter Lorien, Ian Brookes, is a non-executive director and on the IRG board of trustees. He told Recruiter: “There’s been a lot of social media ’noise’ in recent months in the recruitment sector around the authenticity and value of existing and new trade bodies. Let’s be clear, we are a network organisation of recruiters and agencies.

“Our priority is to help independent recruiters and agencies build a great business by showing leadership in what great recruiters do, and creating a joined-up community. And one thing is certain looking at the future of work for recruitment professionals, there is a better lifestyle and career outside the large agencies.”