It’s so easy to let the day get away from you. There are calls to make, forms to fill out, follow-up emails to send, and more. If you’re not prioritising your work and managing your team, you can see the day slip away without doing the most important task: recruiting. Stack up too many days and your book can get mighty thin.
The reality is you can not really manage time. You can, however, manage yourself and how you use that time. Learning time management skills will accelerate your organisation. It will make you and your team more efficient and focus on the right things.
The Importance Of Time Management
There certainly is no shortage of work to be done. In fact, you may be feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tasks in front of you. One trait that successful recruiters share is strong time management skills. By organising your work and assigning priorities, you can stay focused on the things that will meet your overall goals.
Learning strong time management skills can pay dividends in both your professional and personal life in several ways:
Increased Efficiency
The cliche is to work smarter and not harder. Imagine how efficient you can be if you work both smarter and harder! Focusing on your priorities will lead to better results.
Reduced Stress
There is more than enough stress to go around in the workplace. For recruiters, the job never really ends. Once a position is filled, there’s another project to work on. The more efficient you are, the better you will serve your clients and your company. You’ll also serve yourself better as well. Efficiency leads to less stress.
Increased Fulfilment
There are other benefits to getting the job done. When you are completing recruiting projects, checking off a list, and accomplishing things, you feel better about your job and yourself. When you successfully complete a project, your body reacts by releasing endorphins in your brain. This can give you more energy, a sense of satisfaction, and fulfilment.
Form Good Habits
We tend to think of habits as negative behaviour. However, reinforcing positive habits is a good thing. The more you do it, the more likely you are to repeat it.
Have you ever noticed how some teams or team members can hit on a winning streak where it seems like everything they touch leads to a great outcome? Often, it is because they have experienced success through a regimented approach. They learn good habits and do them over and over again. When they experience success, they are more prone to repeat the cycle that created success in the first place.
Avoid Procrastination
In the recruiting business, procrastination can be a killer. Knowing what tasks need to be completed each day and assigning a realistic time frame to accomplish them can stave off procrastination. You are holding yourself accountable to finish key tasks in an efficient manner.
It may seem counterintuitive, but effectively managing your time can give you more flexibility. The weight of unfinished tasks can seem oppressive. When you know what work you have to do and can schedule when to do it, it can lift that weight and free up your time.
It’s true that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. It’s also true that you can put off anything you don’t schedule.
Time Management Strategies
There are plenty of time management strategies and systems. It less important which system you adopt than that you choose one and get started.
If asked, most people will tell you they are great at multi-tasking. For all but the rarest of individuals, that simply is not true. Decades of psychological research demonstrated that rapidly switching between tasks takes a toll. This mental juggling can actually be counterproductive. Have a plan and stick to it. Do not allow the daily interruptions to distract you from working on your plan.
Time management strategies can be learned. Consider getting time management training to help your recruiting team be more effective.
The Best Recruitment Training Program
If you lose money in business, there are opportunities to recover. If you lose time, you simply cannot get it back.
Honing your time management skills will help you feel more confident and effective. It can reduce that feeling of being overwhelmed by the job and lead to less stress.
Effective time management is a worthwhile investment as any part of recruitment training your business may want to undertake, be it for managers or consultants themselves.
