by Beverly Aarons
16. June 2009 07:56
One of the most empowering things about the recruiter's day is that prioritizing the events and activities that fill that day are completely up to the recruiter. That can also be a downside when accomplishing the most important things often gets sidetracked by constant interruptions, fires to put out and distractions that pop out of nowhere. Here are a few time management tricks that can help the recruiter get a handle on the time (and task) beast.
1. Separate your day's activities into two time categories: Billable activities and non-billable activities. Billable activities are the activities that directly impact your bottom-line. For example, meeting with clients, hiring quality job candidates or making offers would all be considered billable activities. Non-billable activities would be entering candidate information into a database or doing paperwork.
2. Apply the 80/20 rule. Spend the majority of your time (80%) engaging in billable activities and use the remaining 20% engaged in non-billable activities.
3. Do your biggest and most important daily tasks first. Filling up your day with small and insignificant activities can be wasteful and frustrating.
4. Batch similar activities. For example, instead of reviewing resumes two or three times a day set aside a few hours (or minutes) to review resumes then move on to the next "batched" projects.
5. Turn down "communications" noise. There's no need to check email or voicemail every hour or even every two hours. Constantly checking email/voicemail is a huge time waster. Check your email and voicemail once or twice a day to save yourself lots of time.