Ultimate Time Management Guide for Recruiters

For any business to be successful, it needs the right employees and this is where the recruiters play an important job.

Being a recruiter means you have to juggle daily with tons of information, scheduling meetings, and keeping everything on track. 

With the help of time management, you can stay on top and do your job in the best way, giving the results which are beneficial for the company i.e. finding the right candidates for the job. 

To start with this, here is what can help you. 

Why do Recruiters Need Good Time Management? 

Good time management means having effective use of your time. With this, you can plan your workday in a manner that helps in finding a job. 

time management for recruiter

Also, you need to put in a little effort and time, leading to effective results. 

Some of the benefits that you get from having good time management include: 

  • You achieve your goals much faster and easier. 
  • You waste the timeless and also help in avoiding friction as well as problems. 
  • You feel better and more organized, having leisure time.
  • You feel less stressed and even feel calmer.
  • You feel more fulfilled and carry out more tasks within less time. 

What Are The Time Management Techniques For Recruiters? 

time management techniques for recruiter

Implement one and more techniques of time management into a better work plan and be more productive. 

There are different techniques that you can try, but here are some of the best-suited ones that can be used by the recruiters. 

The list includes : 

Kanban 

The first one you get is the Kanban time management technique,  and it’s more visual and based on the board layout. This is divided into segments that represent different stages and project progress. 

This is a Japanese word that means signpost and the technique was developed during the 50s at Toyota to help aid production. 

Well, you can set it up pretty easily. You need to determine the stages and the numbers for completing the projects or tasks. 

And then depending on the stages, you need to create the corresponding columns. 

You can progress as you work and move the cards to the next column until it gets done. 

Why Is It Good For Recruiters? 

Well in the case of recruiters, using the kanban technique can help in finding the different stages that are needed in the hiring process. 

The first column can have the numbers of all shortlisted candidates; the next can be reserved for the introduction interview, the third for the second interview, and keep going. 

Different online project management tools are based on or include this technique. 

One of the famous ones you get is Trello and more to your use. 

For the recruiter, it’s ideally good to visualize the candidate pipeline as a birth using the columns to represent which stage they are in. 

This makes it quite good for the recruiters to know where they are at. 

Inbox Zero 

Recruiters have to depend on emails heavily when communicating with candidates. 

Also, meaning, particularly when it has been done in scale, can end up being overwhelming and wasting a lot of time.  That’s why you need to be organized. 

Using this technique of time management can help you in focusing on emails. Specifically, it can keep the inbox empty and close to empty. 

To reach your inbox to zero, here is what you should know : 

  • Make sure you have a designated certain part of your day, keep it for managing the inbox, and stick to the plan. 
  • Turn off the notification in your emails, don’t forget to close the tab in the browser. 
  • Learn how you can prioritize your emails.
  • Make use of marks and labels in email, setting them according to their importance and priority.
  • First reply to the most important and email answers when it’s needed, however, make sure it’s done quickly. 
  • See if you can do the delegation in some emails to the members of your team. 
  • Make sure you are deleting or archiving the old and unwanted emails. 

Why Is It Good For Recruiters? 

You can use this method to help in allocating the activities related to email. And also you can dedicate the day, which helps in setting time aside so you don’t have to worry about it all day. 

You can also declutter the inbox and respond to the emails which are important easily. 

Eat The Frog Technique 

The next time management technique is aimed primarily at prioritizing the tasks. 

When you are a recruiter, you are constantly into different tasks and at that moment, everything seems like they are urgent and important. 

This technique can help you in teaching how to select the worst or the important things to tackle first. 

Only when you are done with it, can you move to the next task. However, you can’t jump to the next if you haven’t done the first one. 

So to know how this time management technique works, you need to identify your tasks depending on the priority and label all of those tasks. 

It can be divided into categories like : 

  • Task A – Only the most important and urgent tasks, the ones you need to do it right away.
  • Task B – Second most important thing that needs to be done after all tasks from task B is done. They are vital but less important.
  • Task C – Tasks which you could do but there won’t be major consequences if you decide not to do it. 
  • Task D – Those tasks which you should delegate to some other person in the team.
  • Take – Those tasks that you don’t have to do as they are free to discard. 

Why Is It Good For Recruiters? 

Well, recruiters have to deal with different tasks on a daily basis, and they believe that everything needs urgent attention, even though it can be waiting, delegating, and sometimes some tasks are not even important. 

With this technique, it can help them in learning how to prioritize, giving them a clear idea of what they need to do and what can be discarded. 

The Eisenhower Technique 

This technique is especially important if you are thinking of trying the Eat The Frog technique. 

Before you do that, you need to define the priorities and the level of each task that you need to perform.  This is where you need to follow the Eisenhower Technique. 

Developed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, former US President who was famous for his productivity. 

The technique can help in understanding the prioritizing tasks and letting them know which one needs to tackle first. 

To understand how it works here is the different district matric is used to categorize the tasks : 

1st Quadrant – Important and Urgent ( Do)

The first one is those tasks which you need to do right now. It should be tackled first and never put it until the last minute. 

2nd Quadrant – Important but Not Urgent ( Decide )

These can be personal or professional long-term goals. The general rule says to schedule time depending on tasks. 

If you are putting them off and jumping to another, they can turn urgent. 

3rd Quadrant – Unimportant but Urgent ( Delegate )

In this one, all those menial, every day, and small tasks include which can be delegated or can be automated. 

If you have the work which is important, it’s better to assign it to someone else. 

4th Quadrant – Unimportant and Not Urgent ( Delete )

Activities or tasks which belong to this one are mostly distractions. These tasks should be eliminated from the schedule. 

Why is it Good For Recruiters? 

The technique helps understand and detail the urgent to not so urgent tasks and what to remove from the schedule. 

It’s important to have a clear understanding of what you should be doing which helps in improving time management, productivity, and efficiency. 

Timeboxing Techniqu

Well, the idea of using Timeboxing Technique to allocate the activities with their time period. 

These are the pre-set timeboxes that divide the time into the fixed sessions divided with the short breaks. 

You work until the time period ends and take a short break, and repeat. 

It’s quite the same as Pomodoro Technique as its sessions are divided into 25-minute work with 5-minute intervals. 

Why Is It Good For Recruiter? 

The technique helps in understanding the time and how much it would take to get one thing done. 

Also, it’s good when you need a push to be productive and to improve your focus. 

With the breaks in the middle help in staying energized and good for health. 

Top Tips For Recruiters To Do Their Time Management 

For the recruiters it’s important that they know her time is going, so they can tackle more situations. 

Recruiting process is not simple and finding the right candidate to make sure it’s working efficiently for the company, the whole thing needs attention and focus. 

Well here are some of the best time management tips for the recruiters to follow: 

Take stock of Things 

Start with thinking about what time is going on and examining what things you are doing already. 

Consider what is working for you and what is not, also it’s important that you are sure if something is going to work or not, what activities, processes, and mindsets you are chained to.

Get a list and write down everything, and let it sit while you follow the rest of the tips.

Automate Your Process 

When you are handling tons of applicants, it gets really tough to engage with each and every one of them. Also, it does not get any better if you are shortlisting it. 

However, there are tools that are available for you, which also allow you to automate different steps in the recruiting process. 

Some of the steps that you can automate, such as : 

  • Sending the initial thank you email when your application applied.
  • A rejection message to those candidates who didn’t get the job.
  • Moving candidates via the pipelines on their assessment scores. 
  • Self-schedule link is sent to someone who is moved to the next stage using the calendar. 

End The Busy Time 

There is a common tendency to feel that you have accomplished a lot when you are just busy. However, it’s quite the opposite. 

When you are overloaded to send the emails, do the phone calls, and do other tons of work, but when you sit down and think clearly about what you achieved, you get to know it’s something very little. 

And this pushes you to the panic mode in order to accomplish more, throwing yourself with more busy work and believing eventually you will get the results. 

However it ends up slowing your process and even stops, so it’s important that you are evaluating what you’re doing. 

Measure Your Results 

For most of the recruiters, they take phone calls as a success but what if those are not exactly fruitful. 

So not only you haven’t achieved what you thought but also ended up wasting your time. 

At the end of your time, it can be a day, week, month, or year. To understand your success, it’s important to look back on these points : 

  • How many candidates did you hire?
  • How much money have you made? 
  • What’s the number of satisfied candidates with their new position after spending some months?
  • How many candidates do you move to another step or for the short-term evaluation? 
  • How many relationship qualities with the candidate you have built for future jobs? 
  • Are your clients successfully meeting their goals? 

With all of these pointers, you can find the results and measure them to know if your actions were fruitful or not. 

Do Better Job  To Save Time

Well, you might believe doing less work is going to cost you money as well as success. However, when you do better work on tasks even though it’s a smaller number, this makes it more competitive and richer as a recruiter. 

Consider the clients which are best, the one you will get most of the work and compatible with skills. Include the collaboration and the comfort level. 

Here you need to keep all those clients and remove the rest. 

So start with something small if you don’t want to rid everyone at once. And focus on delivering the best results and saving time as well. 

Create Your Target Candidate Profile 

This is an important part when you are a recruiter, and you should have one, if you don’t, then create your target candidate profile to make your process easier and time-saving. 

It includes things such as : 

  • Personality traits 
  • Locations 
  • Preferred management style 
  • Motivational factors 
  • Experience which is needed 

By creating the target candidate profile, you can develop a much more defined, clear, and fair tactic for choosing the right candidate. 

Also, it helps in spending less time deciding and justifying the selection of the candidate. 

Make sure when you are creating your profile, prioritize the most important points that you need to have in a candidate. 

Make Your Job Posting Better 

One of the ways that can help you save time is to make sure you are posting the job better. 

It’s easy to use social media and job boards, as anyone can do the same thing. 

But it makes your job posting way too generic; this results in getting the application from candidates who are unqualified,  overqualified, and not fit. 

So make sure you are enhancing job postings so you can save the time and energy to remove all those not needed applications. 

Improving the posting of your jobs can help you boost the quality of candidates and search for new talent. 

Be More Selective 

You could speed hours and hours on shifting for resumes and the inquiries online regarding the open position about the company. 

This is why you need to be specific, and target talent when you are posting a job, this can help you be selective with interviews. 

When you are doing the interview, make sure you are selective, especially when calling. 

The candidate should be qualified and have the needed skills which suit the position. 

Screen the resumes to ensure you are not going to waste time when you are taking an interview as the candidate is the right fit for the application. 

You can boost up the process by using the recruiting software for it. 

Be Smart With Your Emails

For the recruiters, it gets difficult to handle the email as they aren’t aggressive when it comes to controlling. 

There are way too many emails that you receive and it’s important as it’s part of your job. 

This makes the recruiter stick with their email throughout the day, affecting productivity. 

A situation like this needs to organize the time and the way you are handling the email. 

Well, to start with it, here are some of the ways for your help : 

  • Start with setting some hours aside for email checking. 
  • Rather than answering every email and notification, designate the time, dividing it into once or twice in a day. 
  • Use the recruiter apps that can help in managing the email for you. 
  • You can use the templates to reply to and respond to certain emails. 
  • Skin through your emails as first thing in the morning, last for a half-hour, and use flags to highlight what needs your attention. 
  • Do the same when it’s in the mid-morning, afternoon, and end of the day to help you tomorrow. 

Use The Smarter Phone Screening 

How many times have you just picked up the phone or given a callback or simply want to use it in the middle of what you are doing? 

Well, you must be using the fullest of your phone call and have time defined when you are using the phone. 

Use the phone calls to ask different questions instead of email and interviews. 

It can help you in narrowing down the choices in candidates and preparing for the interview. 

Don’t just do it because you need to set up an interview, but use it to save time. 

Use The Apps For  Recruiter 

Well, there are different apps that are designed for recruiters, but they can help you in saving time and even more than that. 

They can help you in making sure you have organized resumes of your candidate and optimizing, marinating the report metrics for helping reach the goals, staying connected to the new recruiters, etc. 

time management apps for recruiters

There are different tools you can consider; some of the offers feature that you should consider such as : 

Job Publishing 

Once you have details ready for the job, you can post and publish the advertisement using the channels, allowing everything one click. 

Customizing Questions And Forms 

The next feature that can help has customizable application forms and screener questions, this is important for the modern staffing agency software. 

You can shortlist and reject based on what goes perfect for the job application. 

CRM 

Well, CRM  is important in managing the clients, hiring the managers, and keeping the information of your candidates in one place. 

With this feature, your team gets access to the information and data that help in keeping workflow smooth. 

Score Your Candidates 

With this, you can save time when you are reviewing the candidate information as it makes your work easier. Not just that, you can compare them with each other to know which one is better. 

So when you are viewing the candidate profile, give them a score and make notes based on the interactions. 

Make Time To Handle The Unexpected Situations 

There is no way that the process is always going to be smooth. As there is always a chance of something happening, and unexpected things can be expected in many cases. 

So when you are in this profession, make sure you are not avoiding it or managing it out, give them a room, and have plans. 

For example, if someone wants to talk to you, see if you can give them more time when it’s convenient, like an hour you set for unexpected situations. 

If you are not addressing it quickly and strategically, it can be a disaster. 

Also, don’t do it aggressively, or rudely instead of managing the time and being in control. 

Do What Is Going In Your Way 

The best way to do time management is to pick what works for you and eliminate what does not. it’s much more efficient instead of following a certain model. 

So play around with the ideas and see what’s going in your way. Tweak the plans that can fit according to your habit. 

Consider the personality as much as you and the candidate. 

Depending on your person, make your time management as comfortable for yourself as you can. 

Say if you are creative, use creative ways for organizing the time, tasks, and doing paperwork. 

Be Prepared To Handle Social Media Pull 

Recruiters need to be on social media as it’s a part of their work. but it can quickly turn into temptation. 

So you are scrolling down to your social media, trying hard to get your work done but after an hour, you end up lost in the middle of different memes and videos. 

And then you see you speed more than an hour on useless things. 

Social media is considered one of the productivity killers and it’s important that you have a time limit. 

Also make sure you are being aware of what and where you are spending time on social media, be mindful of the social media pull.

Use The Creative Strategies For Recruitment 

When you are posting creative and targeted job ads, it can help you in weeding out all those poor candidates. 

Using creative recruitment strategies can help rule out all the unqualified carnations much faster. At the same time, you are getting the attention of the right candidates. 

To catch the perfect one, you need to be more than posting ads using different boards and waiting for resumes. 

You need to work on crafting the job advertisement and compelling that to get the right candidate without taking much time. 

To start with this, here are some of the points for your help : 

  • Describe the culture of your company in the ads.
  • Also, use few choices of words and create simple problems that only candidates who are qualified to solve.
  • Deliver advertisements to the group; it can be selective to a particular area or business. 
  • The numbers are low but the quality is better, it can help in saving time ruling out the unqualified candidates. 
  • You can also create a custom job board; this can target the job posting and attract talent.
  • Even though it takes time, it is just your investment that can help in the long run. 

Evaluate Your Time Management Plans And Strategy 

Routinely check your strategy and evaluate the time management, it can help you in checking if you are getting benefit from it or not. 

And with daily check, you find the loopholes and find the areas where you can develop or be better. 

Keep it updated as everything changes and you need to be upgraded while keeping time management on its track. 

time management strategies for recruiters

Plan Your Day And Make Sure You Are Sticking With It 

Well, it takes little time when it comes to planning but a whole new level of dedication to actually follow it. So make sure you stick with the plan. 

Write down the tasks,  interview reviews, appointments, and keep track while using it on a smartphone, calendar, or email. 

It’s easy to get distracted as you are in the middle of distractions. It can be making calls or sending emails, taking more time than you might have expected. 

So don’t let it affect your productivity. Block out the time slot for making calls and make sure you are sticking with it. 

Do the same when it comes to email, don’t start doing things before their time. 

It gets difficult to eliminate the distraction but make sure you are getting the job done, focus on sticking with the plan. 

When you do this , it helps you in getting overwhelmed or becoming too busy. 

Do Set Your Everyday Goals 

When you are a recruiter, it’s important that you set the goals.  It can help you in staying on what you decide to do and the result you want to have. 

For example,  if you need to make two important reports in the week, consider using your half or the one and rest for the next one. 

Here it’s important to know the expectation and what actually can be done. Don’t overestimate yourself and time. So if you think that it takes you at least a week to get your report done, it’s better to ask for more time. 

Limit The Use Of Your Internet 

If you are checking emails or surfing your social media, it might end up losing yourself over something interesting which is totally unrelated. 

It’s not productive so make sure you are limiting the time for how much time you are going to spend on the internet. 

Schedule what’s important, it can be email or message, or social media. 

Start with giving yourself thirty minutes to an hour only for the session. Limit the time and tasks to stop yourself from doing mindless surfing on the internet. 

Limit Your Work Where It Belongs 

When you work every day and all day, it can be difficult to handle all the pressure and stress. 

This can end up losing the mind and ruining the balance between work and home. 

So don’t bring your work home, let it complete where it should be. 

Set the hours that offer you the close door policy and when the door is closed, no one should disturb or interrupt you. 

This gives you a calm and quiet time for prioritizing. You can get more work done so you don’t have to take it to your home. 

Learn To Do The Right Way Of Prioritizing 

Working with the feeling of overwhelm can make your productivity suffer. Also, it affects the quality. 

So don’t follow the hurry-hurry method, it’s not going to do any good and just make you feel stressed. 

When you are stressed,  it increases the feeling of being overwhelmed and you feel like there is no light in the tunnel. It makes you unmotivated and less productive. 

Well, to understand why it happens and how to handle it, here is what to do : 

  • When you get these feelings, your subconscious mind feels like your efforts will be wasted as nothing is going to be accomplished. 
  • Instead of this, you should stop and take a moment and see the smaller picture. 
  • When you are in a peaceful environment, give time to think and prioritize the tasks that are very important to the least ones. 
  • Make sure you get the most important work done at least. 
  • It helps in making you more efficient and productive instead of feeling overwhelmed. 

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