Barbara Bruno
on Dec. 14, 2011
Dear Barb:
I’m expected to make at least 50 calls a day, conduct interviews, check references, write out my recruiting lists, answer emails, answer incoming calls, and do research. I think it’s impossible to make 50 calls and get everything else done that I’m expected to do. The owner of my company doesn’t produce which is why I think he’s lost track of what is realistic. Do you think it’s possible to make 50 calls every day plus do everything else I listed?
Frank H. New York, NY
Terry Petra
on Mar. 22, 2011
“As a general rule, you should assume that time is always against you when you are trying to make a deal – any kind of deal.”
image source: Letheravensoar
Robert J. Ringer – Author
These words are as true today as they were when Mr. Ringer wrote them in his best selling 1973 book, “Winning Through Intimidation.”
Daily, I receive calls from recruiters who want to know how they can get their clients to move with a greater sense of urgency throughout the hiring process. A good starting point is to remind them that, state of the economy notwithstanding, the very best employees are always in short supply and in high demand. Companies have to move quickly if they hope to successfully compete for the most sought after talent. As one recruiter stated, employers fit into one of two categories, “… the quick or the dead.”
Cali Yost
on Dec. 6, 2010
I often present work+life fit strategies to groups of people who work for someone else—a big company, a government agency, or an academic institution. Inevitably, a participant will ask, “So, Cali, what does your work+life fit look like?”
I’ll begin to explain that, “I work for myself, and…” but before I can finish, it’s not unusual for someone to interrupt with, “Uh, see you have the perfect fit. You’re your own boss.” Cracking a knowing smile, I respond, “Yes, working for yourself has benefits, but is it perfect? Not necessarily. Unless you’re careful, there are dangers that can dash even the strongest work+life fit against the rocks.”
Owning your own business does give you more control of how, when, and where you work. But, you’re also the only one responsible for making sure all of that work gets done. And unless you’re diligent, it’s easy to become the business owner that’s all toil…and no life. So, what do you do to avoid this fate?
Michael Gionta
on Nov. 2, 2010
Editor’s note: today is Election Day in the US. Make sure to go to the polls today and let your voice be heard!
One of the advantages of building a recruiting firm that can manage itself is that it allows me to “step away” for a few days here and there to pursue other interests. For the past few months I devoted about 75% of my time to managing a political campaign for someone running for US Congress in a tightly contested primary. One of my clients asked me recently what parallels I can share from running a successful recruiting firm and running a successful political campaign.
I shared the answers and thought it would be a great topic for an article. I am not going to share the name of the candidate or their party affiliation because how one manages a campaign in a primary would vary little depending on the party.
By implementing the strategies I will share below, my candidate won her primary election and was the ONLY candidate not endorsed by her party to win in the primaries in our state out of nine contested races. These strategies will help you “win” in building your office, hiring and training recruiters, getting clients, recruiting candidates, etc.
Jenifer Lambert
on Oct. 21, 2010
photo by Tom Hickey
Somebody asked me recently how I get so much done. I glibly answered that I have a lot of energy and delegate well. But the question stuck with me — do I really get “so much done” and if so, how?
Anyone who knows me knows that I have the mind of an investigative reporter, so whenever I am posed a question that doesn’t have an obvious answer, I do some digging. In this case, I decided to do a time study on my own activities for a week (I highly recommend that every recruiter do this occasionally). I recorded everything I did and how much time I spent on it — from the moment I started my work day to the time I “clocked out.” It provided me some insight into what I do well when it comes to using time and, even better, it pointed out some gaps that I can fill in to become even more effective with my time.
Gary Stauble
on May 19, 2010
Editor’s note: Gary Stauble’s “2 Minute Coaching” gives you quick, easy-to-implement ideas on various subjects. Here he offers advice on using an egg timer for personal productivity, orchestrating a “yes” within 24 hours, and how to streamline client meetings.
Some of the best ideas are also the most simple, low-tech, and easy-to-implement. With all the advice out there on personal productivity and time-management, it’s easy to overlook this simple tool: the egg timer.
One of the best ways I know to boost my productivity on workdays is to use a countdown timer during golden hours.
Scott Love
on Dec. 14, 2009
You can have the greatest attitude, a strong telephone presence, and the best recruiting and client-development skills. But if you lack strong work habits, you are destined to failure.
Work habits are comprised of the following seven components:
First, the Plan
The plan is how you are budgeting your time. Your time is fixed, limited, and deserves to be allocated in blocks of time. Think of your day starting at 4 pm. You spend the time late in the afternoon divvying up the hours of the next day into segments where each hourly focus is fixated, with laser-beam intensity, on one type of activity. If you spend the block of time on one type of activity (such as only recruiting calls from 9 to 11, or only qualifying calls from 11 to 12) then you synergize your efforts and increase your effectiveness.
Second, the Goals
Start each day by finding the answer to this question: What are the two or three things that I need to accomplish today in order to consider it a successful day? Write them down. Congratulations, champ. Statistically, you have just tripled the odds of your achieving those goals because you invested seven seconds in scribbling them on a sheet of paper. Personally, I write these daily targets on a dry erase board next to my desk, where I also have my ultimate career goal, my annual billing goal, my monthly goals, and weekly targets.
Michael Gionta
on Oct. 7, 2009
We all have the same amount of time. When I choose to study between 6am and 7am before everyone in my house gets up, but you choose to sleep longer or watch morning talk shows, much is revealed about both of us.
I have had three distinct careers and am in a fourth as a trainer and consultant to successful recruiting firm owners. I have achieved top 1% to 3% status in each. However, and this is key, when I began each of those journeys, I was much less than impressive. I never leapt to the head of the pack out of the gate. As a matter of fact, I was often significantly behind the pack out of the gate.
You see, I not only acquire knowledge — I APPLY knowledge, too. I rarely invent, but I often study and apply.
For those of you out there who are frustrated because you feel you need to be significantly different than everyone else, I am here to tell you that you don’t. Follow and execute the path of others who have and/or are doing what you want.
Jordan Greenberg
on Nov. 1, 2005
Once again, one of the “Golden Rules” in our business regarding the principles of a “Class A search assignment” has proven to be gospel. In my twenty-fifth year of headhunting I have become vigilant about qualifying the searches I will and won’t spend my ultra-valuable, only-thing-I’ve-got-control-of, straight-commission time on. However, every now and then I get snookered into working a Class B search because of the allure (see mirage) of a big, juicy fee.
In this case one huge factor that was missing from the key ingredients necessary for a Class A search was the direct, consistent contact with the hiring authority. Please consider that we are spoiled in my practice because of the “localness” of our activity. Approximately 90% of the several hundred placements I have made are the result of face-to-face contact with our clients and the candidates that we screen for such clients. So why did I continue to work on a VP of Sales search in which the client artfully dodged my request to visit every step of the way? Perhaps the chart below will justify my rationale, but in the end the truth always prevails.
WHAT WE HAD, WHAT WE LACKED
1) Reputable client company we had done direct contact (phone or face-to-face) business with in the past.
2) Written, signed, attractive fee agreement.
3) Adequate job description.
4) Marketable, acceptable compensation plan.
5) Accessible candidates with in our established network.
6) Sense of urgency to interview and hire.
7) Strong appeal for service client offers; “hot niche”.
It may be easy to understand why we worked on a search of this nature from the list above because we thought we had so much going for us. But ask yourself, what legitimate reason(s) could a professional, intelligent hiring authority have to not communicate directly with her search partner or partners on a critical high-level placement? Perhaps she’s so busy that time simply does not permit. But what should that say to you about the true priority of the search? Maybe she does not want to be influenced by a conversation with what one recruiter says versus another. But what does that tell you about the chance of ever working with her exclusively?
All we were left with is this matter, this process, this seemingly significant search was to speculate. So when one of our candidates had a crucial question about how to put her “mini business proposal” together for a final interview we were left with the response from the HR rep. He was a competent facilitator of interviews but was an inadequate intermediary for my top candidate’s critical request. When I attempted to contact the client, AKA hiring authority, she never responded.
At this point it was clear that our only liaison, the HR rep, was really tasked with one priority – keeping me away from the all-powerful client. So I instructed my candidate the best I could without the help of the hiring authority and hoped (against hope) for the best. At the same time I apologized to my team for wasting their precious time in helping me on a fruitless search as I knew the end was near and the result would not be successful.
What I still didn’t know was why this client, with whom I had previous success placing candidates, would not deal with me one to one. The morale of the story – there’s always a good reason!? In this case it was a super-strong candidate she had identified on her own before requesting our assistance. She was merely “using” our services to reinforce her assumption that no other better candidates could be surfaced.
This humbling experience reminded me of another Golden Rule in our business. This one in the form of a question that needs to be asked “before” we commit our resources to any search opportunity – i.e., “Do you have any candidates for this assignment that you have already interviewed or are about to consider?” Had this question been asked before we spent our well-intentioned efforts on this search I would have known that all we had, despite the chart above, was a Class B Assignment at best. So even when it feels and looks like you have just about everything going for you as a recruiter to fill that substantial opening; think again. Think about anything that is lacking from your client and probe. Then respond.
Gary Stauble
on Nov. 1, 2005
It’s 9 AM and you have a planner in front you with 30 important calls to make when the “urgent” call comes in from an unemployed candidate needing an update on the status of his resume. You then check your email (for the 4th time in the last 60 minutes) and see that you have 15 new emails to go through, 10 of which are SPAM. Little events like this eat away at your most precious and irreplaceable resource; time.
It is very easy in this business to be extremely busy doing the wrong things. The frantic pace of many recruiters’ desks adds to the illusion that something meaningful is happening. There is no doubt that there are a great many details that need to be tended to, but how and when you take care of them can make a significant difference in your paycheck at the end of the month.
Here are 5 simple steps for increasing your effectiveness
1. Think of all activities as being in 1 of 2 categories
There are really only 2 categories in your work as a recruiter: revenue generating activities and everything else. You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule which says that 80% of a typical salesperson’s success comes from 20% of his or her activities. One of the characteristics that big billers have in common is that they consistently focus on the 20% and virtually nothing else.
More often than not when we are trying to decide what to focus on during the day we are actually choosing between a wide variety of tasks that could all be classified as a “good” use of our time. Big billers have a finely tuned ability to gravitate toward the best activities while allowing many good, but less important, activities to go undone.
2. Create systems for everything
Creating systematized ways of doing things will help to free up your time. Set an aggressive goal to only do a certain small number of hours of administrative work per week and see if you can find creative ways to achieve this. For instance, if your goal is to do no more than 2 hours of administrative work per week you will start to make note of what items are wasting your time and then be able to consider a way to automate, delegate or trash that activity. If you are able to off load administrivia, research and data entry to a researcher or support person you will have a much better chance of staying focused on leveraged activities.
For example, you may want to create a folder (or signature file) in your email software where you keep form emails for specific situations (marketing email, follow up email, prep email) that you can customize quickly, hit forward, and send out. Any message that you send out regularly ought to be saved and updated regularly. This way you write the message once, save it, and never have to write it again.
3. Work in blocks
If you plan your calls in blocks of time (marketing block, recruiting block etc.) and guard this time carefully you will be much more efficient. If someone calls with an “urgent” request that is not urgent to you, tell her you will call her back during your next break. Leave a half-hour towards the end of the day for database updating, web research and administrivia.
4. Track and analyze how you spend your time
It’s important to understand how much of your time is spent on productive activities that contribute directly to the results that you want and how much of your time is spent unproductively. If you are the type of person who has no idea where the time goes then I’d suggest the following activity:
5. Establish an ideal daily schedule
Objectively looking at your habits and deliberately choosing more productive habits enables you to create an ideal daily routine. The ideal daily routine is a template of how your perfect day would go. It’s a map that guides the way your day will unfold. So it’s a guideline but not an inflexible template. It will assist you in focusing on the best activities and feeling more control of your schedule and production.
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