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Five MORE Work Hacks for Successful Full Desk Recruiters

Are you new to recruitment or looking to develop your work ethic?  Here are  five more invaluable work hacks to help you make the most of your time; and offers heartfelt advice to those considering a career in recruitment… 

Miss the first five work hacks for full desk recruiters? Check out the first post on our blog to catch-up.

  1. Start early, leave late

When I was new to the industry, I was always interested in how full desk recruiters who started early and left late tended to be the most successful.  It’s not about being seen in the office at those times, it’s about maintaining a busy day.  There’s a lot to do on a recruitment desk and 9 to 5 simply isn’t enough time to cover it.  Always be conscious that arriving early to learn, make contacts and post and fill jobs is what makes one recruiter stand out from another.  You don’t need to be ‘always on’, but you do need to put yourself in your clients and candidate’s shoes.  Your clients don’t want to speak with you outside of office hours but your candidates might!  So, if you want to speak with them, you must be available.

  1. Take a lunch hour

Calling candidates on their lunch hour may seem like a good idea but, in my experience, it’s rarely successful.  Lunch hours vary from company to company, so you’ll need to know when your candidate takes lunch and have their mobile number…it soon becomes tricky.  If you’ve made previous contact with them and you’re building a good rapport, they’re more likely to take your call during lunch.  So, my advice is – take a lunch hour and give yourself a break.

  1. Have an ‘open phone’ policy

Depending on the market you staff for, most jobs are 9 to 5 so you’ll probably be speaking with candidates outside of these hours.  Have an ‘open phone’ policy where you’re willing to take calls before and after your working hours (including starting early and staying late).  Say, anytime between 8am and 11pm.  Give your candidate time to get home, put their kids to bed, have dinner and then have time to speak with you.  If 10:30pm is their only free time, call them at 10:30pm – especially if they’re a good candidate – it’s worth your time.  That half hour outside of office hours will pay off.  Sometimes, it’s the most important half hour of your day, and sometimes it’s the most important half hour of the day you never had.

  1. Don’t be ruled by email

If someone wants to speak with you, especially if it’s urgent, they will call you.  If they email mentioning they would like to speak with you at some point, it’s probably not that urgent.  When you finish for the day, have a family life, have a social life, put your phone down and forget about it.  If you’re constantly checking emails, you’ll feel like you’re working all the time and risk burning out.  If you need to make a call at 10:30pm, make that call and put your phone down again.  Build some boundaries into your busy day.  Move from ‘I’m working all the time, I’m checking my emails.’ to ‘I don’t check my emails between 5pm and 8am.’  Consider an out of office email response with words to the effect of: ‘If you’re a client or a candidate with an urgent issue, please call me on my cell phone now.  Otherwise I will respond to your email tomorrow.’  It’s not going to benefit you, your client or your candidate to reply to emails in the late evening, it might make you look like you’re working hard, but I would prefer seeing someone working smart.

  1. Remember, recruitment is not an easy option to make money

Recruitment is a long game.  Once you’ve developed your pipelines, you may be able to take more work home with you (and I recommend doing some aspects of your work outside of office hours, such as client research), but the important thing is your mindset.  Get into the same mindset as other full desk recruiters and let your Manager see it.  Prove to your Manager that you’re a recruiter for the right reasons and you’re not expecting an easy money-making option.  You can earn a lot as a recruiter, but it’s not a quick and easy 9 to 5 job.  If you treat it that way, you’ll see your colleagues performing better than you and get frustrated – or you simply won’t deliver what’s required to sustain your desk, or your job.

Is recruitment right for you?

If you’re questioning whether recruitment is right for you, if you will like it, if you can do it…you may need to take a step back and evaluate what you really want from a career.

Full desk recruiters can’t make everyone happy all the time.  Colleagues, clients, candidates – you’ll do everything you can, but due to the nature of the job you might not make them happy.  When you put five candidates forward, only one is going to get the job.  When you put five candidates forward and none get the job, you’ll upset six people – five candidates and your client…

Recruitment is a lifestyle in how you get out there, meet people, engage them, learn their needs, aspirations, and genuinely help them.  Whether it’s helping an organization to succeed or helping someone find their dream job, working as a recruiter can be extremely rewarding – if it’s right for you. If you’d like to learn more about how your recruitment software can help streamline your workflow for maximum efficiency, contact us today! 

Five Work Hacks for Successful Full Desk Recruiters

New to staffing or looking to develop your work ethic?  Below are five invaluable ‘work hacks’ for full desk recruiters new to the job to help you get up and running, make the most of your time and achieve more every day… 

During my time as recruiter, I noticed several behaviors which were very telling when it came to how long people stayed in the staffing industry.  People who did certain things and behaved in certain ways tended to stick around and keep their jobs, and those who didn’t often struggled.  The following tips aren’t ‘bullet-proof’, but they can certainly aid your development as a recruiter from day one.

  1. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

I’ve seen a lot of people hiding in corners, trying to avoid making phone calls for fear of making mistakes and facing the criticism of their peers.  It’s not worth it.  Office criticism is just something that happens and, more often than not, it’s a term of endearment helping you to become part of the team.  Everybody’s been there, nobody makes a call and ‘nails it’ on their first attempt; and your colleagues know that.  It’s all about practicing and developing your phone skills.  When you ‘fluff’ a call, roll with the punches and soon enough you’ll improve.

  1. Research outside of office hours

When I started as a recruiter, one thing that helped get me up and running was doing my research during the evening or outside of office working hours.  That way, during regular business hours I would have my research ready with a list of numbers to call, and I would be on the phone non-stop.  Allocate an hour to business development, start dialing and as soon as you hang up (and document the call in your recruiting software), dial again.  If you stop dialing and start looking-up company websites, you’ll break your flow (and it is possible to find out too much about a company).  The most important thing is to get on the phone and talk with people.  Unless you’re an extrovert it’s uncomfortable initially, but if you develop your research and calling ethic, both will become second nature.

  1. Listen to your Manager

Genuinely listen to what your Manager says.  They’re not there to make you ‘do stuff’ that’s irrelevant or unimportant.  Do what they say, don’t over-complicate it, don’t turn it into rocket science, literally do what they say.  If they say ‘Call this person, find out where they worked in their last five jobs and what they expect out of their next position.’ – do exactly what they ask because they are giving you the best way to get things done.  Recruitment Managers or Owners haven’t just fallen into their positions by luck, they’re there for a reason and they want the best from you.  As a rookie  recruiter, I was guilty of over-thinking things, but you can keep it simple and succeed quicker than I did.

  1. Quality and quantity

When it comes to business development calls, being successful is very much a case of making a high-volume of well-informed calls.  I’ve seen people make calls and obtain insightful information, but not enough of them; talented people who eventually dropped out of recruitment because they were unable to meet the required volume of calls.  When you’re working through a call list, it may seem a little monotonous at times but it’s part of the job.  Hang in there, be tenacious and get through your lists – your effort will be rewarded in the long term.  Recruitment isn’t about a quick deal here and there – yes, those are cool – but it’s about building-up your contacts and the future pay-off.

  1. Play the long game

I’ve seen plenty of people get caught-up in the results others were getting.  Recruitment isn’t about short term gain.  You can deliver a hundred perfect phone calls every day for two weeks and your colleague can still pick up one incoming call and do more business then you’ve done in all that time.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s not about answering that one phone call, it’s about being persistent and doing the right things – long term.

Remember, it’s ‘water off a duck’s back’

Successful rookie full desk recruiters develop a thick skin.  Think ‘water off a duck’s back’, don’t think about what your colleagues are doing.  Listen to your Manager, forget about everything else, focus on your work and it will work for you.  Staffing and recruitment is an interesting, rewarding profession and getting to the stage where it becomes fun is just brilliant.

Contact us today to learn more about how our staffing software solutions can keep you efficient!

Preventing the No Call No Show

Nothing frustrates you more than wasting your time putting an employee on assignment just for them to fail to show up. Certainly there are legitimate reasons for the absence – car broke down, child is sick, etc. but the reason doesn’t prevent you from scrambling around to find a replacement or make up for the disappointed client. This phenomenon isn’t new and affects staffing firms all across the country. We compiled a list of the best solutions that we have heard for preventing the no call no show.

  1. Clear Attendance Policy – most importantly, have a clear written attendance policy establishing the expectations with the employee.
  2. Monetary Incentives – incentivizing employees to maintain good attendance records pushes employees to try to overcome whatever causes them to be absent such as finding alternative transportation or childcare. Setup an attendance program providing the employee with a bonus if they have good attendance.
  3. Fun Incentives – some employees may be more incentivized by a big prize than a small monetary bonus. Increase the fun factor by creating a raffle for a noteworthy prize. Each day, week, or assignment when the employee has good attendance results in an entry into the raffle.
  4. Competitive Incentives – if money and prizes don’t incentivize the employees towards better attendance, then perhaps friendly competition will instead. Reward the employees with the best attendance across the branch or company. If the assignment is big enough, the competition could even be narrowed to that level too. Announce the leaders in the attendance “race” as the contest runs.  The competition could inspire employees to improve their attendance or keep up their good attendance.
  5. Be the Better Assignment – some employees don’t show up for an assignment, because they receive a last minute call from another staffing agency offering them better pay. Offer competitive wages in order to win the last minute war for the employee.
  6. Call Ahead – a call placed to the employee the night before reminds them of the upcoming assignment and ensures there is no confusion over schedules.
  7. Wake Up Call – a call placed the morning of the assignment may serve as a wake-up call to an employee who may have otherwise over-slept. The Call Ahead and Wake Up Call methods seem like significant extra effort, but technology can help you. Call-Em-All is an automated call and texting service that allows you to alert and remind your employees. With this service integrated to your staffing software, you can pull your employee lists easily and the overall effort to call ahead is minimal.
  8. Overbook – no matter how much effort you put in to preventing the no call no show, you may always experience it. Instead of spending your time and money on prevention, you could plan for the inevitable event. Overbook the assignment. If the assignment calls for 10 employees, assign 11. It may cost more, but it eliminates the need for last minute scrambling and avoids disappointing the client.
  9. Employee Standby – if overbooking each assignment is overkill, keeping several employees on paid standby helps cover the no call no shows of multiple assignments.
  10. Reputation – when an employee has poor attendance, do not place them on future assignments and let them know the reason. When called for employment checks, share the poor attendance record. The poor reputation will eventually get the employee to improve.

The solution to preventing the no call no show may not be found in one single approach. Instead try combining several complimenting approaches to help reduce the occurrence and maintain happy clients.