After a long hot summer (well by UK standards anyway) it can be difficult to keep that same spring in your step at work when the mornings get darker and your office becomes noticeably colder. It can be tempting to slow down and begin your countdown to Christmas BUT before you slip into hibernation mode there are a few things you can do to freshen up your desk and become the best recruiter in the room!
Catch up with your contacts
The average recruiter has around 20 live vacancies at any given time and probably speaks to around 30 different candidates every day. With the usual phone tennis trying to catch the right people at the right time you can find yourself spending hours every day just trying to have a quick catch up with the right person! Time consuming as it may be this is one of the most important things you can do to get organised and freshen up your desk! By touching base with the right people you can gauge the level of urgency for each role – making sure that you don’t waste all of your time finding candidates for companies that can’t interview for another 2 weeks and likewise don’t neglect those that are ready to interview and offer before the end of the month! It’s equally as important to speak to your candidates, especially in an industry like IT where candidates are going off the market in record time!
Don’t neglect your admin
‘A tidy desk is a tidy mind’ – corny but it’s totally true! Organisation is key to working efficiently and getting the results you need quicker! As we mentioned above it’s good to catch up with your clients to see which roles are more urgent – so once you have that information don’t let it fall under a pile of paperwork and post-it notes only to be forgotten about! Set up a spreadsheet of all of your roles and use a traffic light system so that you can see which roles are urgent / which you need to find candidates for / which you have outstanding CV’s for etc. That way you can see where all of your business is up to in one place and you’ll be able to plan your day a lot better.
Set mini goals
There’s nothing worse than having no money on the board and a great big target hanging over your head. If you focus on that number you’re going to get stressed and probably miss your target altogether! You need to start smaller – thinking about your target for the day and what you want to achieve (e.g. send 4 candidates, set up 2 interviews and pull one new piece of business). Write some realistic objectives at the top of your diary and (ideally) don’t leave at the end of the day until you’ve finished them!
Take a break
Short breaks away from your desk are really important to maintain motivation in any office. With big targets and busy workloads many of us can be tempted to working through our lunch, but a quick walk / trip away from the office can do wonders to re-focus and keep employees happy. So before you think about having that Tesco meal deal at your desk, why not take a real break!
Shout up to your colleagues
Look around the room, chances are you’re surrounded by people with similar experience, knowledge and networks of people that could be relevant to what you’re doing! Say you’ve just found an amazing candidate, but you haven’t got the right job spec on your desk – your colleague may know of a company local to them that recruits for their skillset – and better yet may have details for the hiring manager there! Even if you don’t get the result you want straight away you should always shout up to your colleagues – it takes less than 10 seconds and it could help you further down the line.
Keep learning
‘If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got’ – it’s a phrase we live by at Searchability and we believe it! You can have 30 years of recruiting experience under your belt – but would you recruit the same as you did in 1990 as you would today? Not only are trends emerging all the time – look at the evolution of social media for example – but there will be new careers coming to the market that didn’t even exist before! It’s important to stay ahead of the competition and keep up to date with your industry and any new recruiting trends that could help you be the best recruiter yet!
If you’re interested in becoming a recruiter and want to find out more about the benefits of joining Searchability then get in touch today at [email protected].
