Efficiency and time management skills are the main requirements for any job. As a recruiter, you are constantly up against time as your plate is full of tasks, especially during the hiring season. Here are a few time management techniques to help you get through your hectic work schedule:
1. Make the Best Use of Technology
A LinkedIn study found that 46% of the hiring managers thought that finding the right candidate for the job was the most time-consuming part of the extensive process of hiring.
You can take the help of technology to automate mechanical parts of the recruitment process and conserve your time for more critical aspects of your hiring process.
Here’s how technology can help you save time:
1. Augmented Writing for Wording the Perfect Job Posting: Your dream candidate is just the perfect job posting away. If your job posting is worded carefully, it will attract the right candidate. Augmented writing can be your guide to word the perfect job description to engage the right candidate, using language that reflects your organization’s values and cultures.
2. Artificial Intelligence as a Tool for Candidate Sourcing: You can use big data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to aggregate resumes from job portals across the internet and source candidates that are perfect for your organization. AI-driven software applications can help in the initial sourcing and shortlisting of candidates. This will save you time and effort on manually going through hundreds of resumes and shortlisting the onesyou like.
3. Software Can Help You Track the Recruitment Process: An applicant tracking software (ATS) can help you save time by automating the initial part of the recruitment process through a defined workflow. An ATS will help save your time by collecting data in an organized manner, making it easy for you to access. The ATS allows you to review applications, send automated messages to applicants, and schedule interviews accordingly.
2. Work Smarter with These Time Management Tips
As a recruiter, you are constantly grasping on the straws of time when it’s hiring season. Making use of a few recruiting techniques like this will help you cut out a lot of mechanical work, and fast track the hiring process to build a high performing team:
1. Score Candidate Profiles to Fasttrack Shortlisting: Skim through a candidate’s resume, read their social media profile, go through their work experience, and give them a score based on how they fit into the job profile. This will help you compare similarly qualified candidates.
2. Create a Target Candidate Profile Before You Start the Interview Process: Have a definitive plan in play for choosing candidates. Create a checklist of what you expect from a perfect candidate: skill-set, work experience, motivational factors, and personality traits. You will save time by deciding about the candidate quickly when you have this readymade checklist. You will also know what you want to prioritize in the hiring process.
3. Make Sure You Keep Track of Emails: Answering emails is the most aggressive part of a recruiter’s job. There are too many emails coming in, and it can be overwhelming — emails from prospective candidates, inter-departments, and from other sources. You can tackle this problem by dedicating a time slot for answering these emails everyday so that they don’t pile up. This is a better way of dealing with emails rather than answering every email notification the moment you receive it. You can also keep a few email templates ready in case you need to send a few quick emails out for interviewing candidates or sending rejection letters.
3. Try These Time-Tested Time Management Techniques
The amount of work on your plate during the recruiting season can get overwhelming, and that is why you should try these time management techniques when you are in a crunch for time:
1. Kanban: Kanban is the Japanese word for ‘signpost.’ This technique was first used in the 1950s in Toyota to help speed-up production.
A kanban board divides the designated task into a number of stages, like ‘to-do,’ ‘doing’ or ‘done.’ When a task is undertaken, it can be moved to the ‘doing’ column, and when completed, it can move to ‘done.’
You can use Kanban to designate different stages of the hiring process such as planning, structuring, screening and evaluating candidates, etc. The first column can have candidates shortlisted for the initial interview, second for those who made it through, and the final column for the few who have been shortlisted for the job.
2. Eat the Frog Technique: This time management technique will help you prioritize which task is the most important one of all (aka the frog) and tackle it first (or eat it.) You can start your day by labeling the most important and urgent task of the day and then moving on to the next one with a descending level of priority. This will help you streamline your workday and dedicate more time and effort to things that need your attention.
3. The Eisenhower Technique: Now the question is, how do you access the level of priority to each task? Named after the US President, Dwight D Eisenhower, this time-saver can help you understand the urgency of tasks and complete them accordingly by dividing tasks into this matrix:
Tasks are divided into a matrix of important, unimportant, urgent, and not urgent categories.
- Urgent, important tasks are executed immediately.
- Unimportant, urgent tasks can be delegated.
- Important, urgent tasks can be done later.
- Unimportant, not urgent tasks can be dropped.
4. Timeboxing Technique: This technique requires you to divide your work into pre-set time boxes at the beginning of the day, with a short break period. The idea is that when your tasks have a deadline, you’ll be able to complete them faster without procrastination and multitasking.
Hiring the right candidates to propel your organization in the path of success can be a very stressful and time-consuming job. The above-listed tricks, tips, and techniques will help you do a lot in less time to make your job a little less stressful.
