Recruitment is such a busy role that it can be difficult to stay productive and take care of the tasks you need to.
Before you know it, the day is over, and you’ve barely ticked off anything on your to-do list. Typically, a recruiter will have a range of tasks which will include:
- Advertising roles
- Headhunting for candidates
- Screening CV’s
- Conducting phone/video interviews
- Arranging and conducting face to face interviews
- Meetings with clients/managers
- General admin tasks
If you spend too much time headhunting candidates, you might end up running out of time to call candidates who have applied for jobs (and vice versa), and as we all know, the days can quickly turn into weeks and months.
These are some of our top tips for improving your productivity as a recruiter, whether in-house or recruitment agency.
Track Your Time
It may seem like a tedious, and perhaps pointless task, but tracking your time can be hugely beneficial in improving your productivity levels. You have around 8 hours a day at work, so working out where you spend your time and ensuring you split your time carefully, will help you become more productive. Consider when you are most alert in the day and use this time for the more complex tasks. For example, if you are more productive in the morning, this is the ideal time to take care of your candidate sourcing activities. You may want to spend the early afternoon contacting candidates and spend your late afternoon advertising jobs and writing up job descriptions or undertaking meetings. Ensuring you spend the right amount of time on each task, will help you tick off that to-do list. A good way to improve your productivity is to assign specific times for your tasks. For instance, checking your emails first thing in the morning, during lunch and around 3 pm, and the same with your social media accounts. Setting specific times for your tasks will ensure you don’t end up getting side-tracked.
Turn Off Distractions
Most of us tend to dip in and out of tasks and this is one way to severely reduce your productivity. You may stop to check your emails, have a quick browse on the internet, or check your social media accounts, and before you know it, you have lost hours of the day
To avoid distractions, make sure you are working in a quiet environment, if you are working from home. If you are in the office, you could put your phone to ‘do not disturb.’ Turning off your mobile phone while you focus on a specific task is another useful way to reduce your distractions. Muting your notifications will also ensure you are not side-tracked when working on any specific task.
Take Breaks
It might seem like the best approach to work is to keep your head down for 8 hours straight and avoid taking a long break or speaking to anyone. In fact, this is the most unproductive approach to the working day. We are humans, not robots, and we need rest, and stimulation, we also need exercise. Scheduling in breaks is vital and getting out for some fresh air and exercise. The HSE suggest that short, frequent breaks are better than less frequent longer breaks, so a 5-10 minute break after 50-60 minutes is better than a 20 minute break every 3 hours.
You will feel more empowered if you take time to rest throughout the day. If you are working from home, you may even want to take advantage of it by having a power nap during your lunch. Everyone is different, and some people love a power nap, while others feel worse for it. Whatever makes you feel better – do it!
Delegate Tasks
If you have a resourcer or some admin help, don’t be afraid to delegate some tasks to them as required. Recruiters tend to try and juggle everything themselves, even when there is help available to them. If you have the help there, use it! Focus on the tasks that are going to be most beneficial to you, and will help you tick off those KPI’s.
Automate Tasks
One of the greatest investments you will ever make as a recruiter is recruitment tech, whether it be an Applicant Tracking System or a Recruitment CRM. These can make your recruitment efforts much easier, by taking out some of the time-consuming tasks, such as screening applications and communicating with candidates. You can get candidates through the process much quicker using recruitment tech and plan for your future needs.
Investing in recruitment tech is all good and well but it can be a minefield, so how do you ensure you choose the right one for your needs? At Rectec we have invested time and resources into making the process of choosing a supplier much easier, through Rectec Compare. We know how important it is to make the right choice, otherwise, your investment may not be fit for purpose. Our service is completely free of charge, so you have nothing to lose!
A quick, responsive process is what you need to attract and engage the best talent.
At Rectec we help organisations to find the best Applicant Tracking System or best Recruitment CRM to suit your needs, accompanied by our unique complimentary tech marketplace, to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business.
You can click here to register for Rectec Compare – and best of all, it’s completely free of charge.