Insider Media Limited

A recruitment website company based in Nottingham is set to go global and is aiming to have one million users by the end of the year, its co-founders have said. After investing £400,000 into Staffbay.com, Elliot Kidd and Tony Wilmot told Insider that their new venture will "change the face of the job market".

The pair, which own Derby-based Frontline Recruitment, have made the move into online trading as they invested the cash in starting up the Staffbay.com website.

Staffbay.com, a free to use employment website, offers candidates a chance to build a multimedia profile which is searchable and viewable to potential employers.

Wilmot said: "The site is built for the European market, but there’s no reason at all why it can’t be used on a global basis. We recently had an enquiry from the US, for example."

"Privacy is key for us," said Kidd. "Any quality candidate is probably used to fielding calls all day from recruitment agencies, and that can become annoying. With Staffbay.com they can choose who they want to speak to and all contact is kept strictly between the employee and the candidate."

Wilmot and Kidd said that in the four months since Staffbay.com was launched it has registered 1,300 employers and 20,000 employees on the website.

Kidd admitted that should the website be as successful as he hopes, there is nothing to stop other companies copying the Staffbay.com model but said this was not a concern.

"We know that our competitors are keeping an eye on us," he said, "but it’s going to be very difficult for conventional recruitment firms to change their business model and offer something completely free, as we’re doing.

"We’re going to go hard at this until we’ve got traction. We want to get to a point where we’ve got ten million employees and one million employers registered – then we can think about our exit strategy."

Kidd said the immediate task in hand was to raise awareness of the new business.

He added: "We’re confident that, as word spreads around we’ll get increased attention."

Wilmot added: "Staffbay.com is a big jump forward for our industry, and we know people will not want to get left behind.”

Staffbay.com can count entrepreneur Karren Brady amongst its fans. Brady said: "Potential employers like me can go online, and whether you’re in Bombay or in Torquay, employers have the ability to look at your CV and to watch you in action."

Wilmott and Kidd’s Frontline Recruitment business has offices in Derby, Leicester, Mansfield and Nottingham, as well as Bradford and Sheffield.