From mid-December until the end of the year, little happens in recruitment. Few job offers are made, and everyone's focus shifts to Christmas, parties, time off, and their plans for the New Year.
But with only 5 Mondays until Christmas Day, there’s still time to get some work done so your agency can end the year on a high. The trick is to ensure every one of your recruiters is hitting maximum productivity every day.
Here's how to make sure they do...
Use your time wisely
In the run up to Christmas, you need to anticipate a drop in interest from candidates and clients alike. So make sure everything is done in terms of making the most money you can from the least amount of time possible.
Lay out the challenge: with 11 Mondays until Christmas, we need to get busy making placements. Make sure your recruiters know how important every task and decision is. Everything at this point counts towards how well you finish the year.
This also means any time out of the office needs to be productive. There’s no space for social visits with clients (save that for that last week of December!)as your recruiters must focus on the clients with the jobs they have the most chance of filling. And sometimes, this means postponing out-of-office trips.
It might be worth moving some of these meetings online to minimise time spent in-between the meetings or candidate interviews.
So, maximise your time, group your meetings together, pick your tasks carefully and constantly ask your recruiters: "Will this task help you to make your end of year target?" If it doesn't, park it!
Work the right jobs
In order to get the most from your recruiters’ time, sit them down and work through all of the jobs they have open. If they’re hiding behind jobs they can’t fill, tell them to close those jobs and move on to ones they can.
Encourage frank conversations and further qualification calls with clients. For example, you could pitch a client with:
"If we get the right candidate, are you in a position to start them before Christmas?"
If they can, work with that client on a more focused plan to get the deal done and the start date in December nailed!
Another important thing to remind your recruiters is that they shouldn’t take on any new jobs they have no chance of filling. Now is not the time for speculation! Now is the time to close jobs.
As a leader, you need to get everyone on the same page and focused on the short-term achievable goals, so encourage your recruiters to double down on their efforts in order to end the year with a bang.
Offer incentives
It’s worth creating an incentive to get your recruiters to double down on their efforts. Set a good old-fashioned Christmas bonus for your high achievers to work towards or set smaller goals and prizes week-by-week or month-by-month. When a recruiter succeeds, make sure everyone knows about it. The old adage holds true here: success breeds success.
The goal here is to create a managed time frame and to get all of your recruiters onboard. You need to keep the focus on how much time is left in the year and increase the urgency as you get closer to Christmas. The more effectively you end the year, the better the start to 2021 will be. It’s all about maximising the return on your efforts, determining what you can make money from, and where.
With only so much time between now and the end of the year, it’s important to set yourself up for success. So, work with your recruiters, determine manageable targets, and hold them accountable for them. If they succeed, reward them, and if they don’t, make sure they have a good reason why.
Save all of the client relationship stuff for December and focus your efforts throughout October and November on closing deals, placing candidates, and making money for your agency.
Bon chance, hunters!
