Mastering Time Management with Allicia Birch

Before we dive into this week’s edition, I wanted to share a couple of bits with you.

For those of you based in and around London, we have our very first Recruitment Growth Event by Hector this Thursday at Mindspace Shoreditch.

If you want to spend an evening learning from some of the best recruiters in the industry so you can leave inspired and better equipped to smash your targets, then this event is for you - we have just 10 tickets left.

You can use the coupon code ‘Podcast’ to grab the last few tickets at a discounted price here.

We also launched our first Hector Masterclass E-Book on the Job-to-Fill Ratio metric at the beginning of the month.

We have collaborated with four of our mentors from Hector to uncover…

• Why it should be your 'North Star' metric for 2024.

• What a great job-to-fill ratio looks like.

• The root cause of a poor job-to-fill ratio.

• 5 practical steps you can use tomorrow to improve your job-to-fill ratio.

If you want practical strategies to improve your job-to-fill ratio, then check it out here.

To get us started, why is mastering time management in Recruitment so important and often overlooked?

People see recruitment as quite a reactive industry, a new job comes up, and you react to it. 

However, when that happens you can end up doing too many things at once and end up getting nothing done, so it's important to manage your time.

I love using tools like a day plan because at the end of the day, at least you can go… ‘I’ve set out my day plan that I've gotten things done that I've set out to do', rather than sitting there, like, “I've had a really busy day, but not achieved anything that I needed to get done; as it’s all been reactive.” 

Where do recruiters typically go wrong when it comes to time management & productivity?

I think Recruiters can often be too vague in their approach. 

They might set a target of achieving 7 leads but don't specify where the leads come from.

They can lack the ability to set themselves clear and concise targets that they can stick to.

They can also get bogged down in sticking to one task for too long when they should instead be moving on to the next task at hand I have always sworn by time blocking and sticking to that religiously.

What core elements make up building the perfect day plan in recruitment?

Day plans are non-negotiable, and if you want to be a top performer, you should always make them.

Splitting up your day by time blocking is key, but you have to be strict with yourself and make sure when the time is up, you move on to the next area of focus.

I have seen a lot of people get too bogged down on one task and fail to move on because they're either not getting anywhere on it or it's going really well, and they'll stay on that all day. 

Instead, what I like to do is set aside a time for a task such as two hour slot to focus on resourcing, if after two hours, I've not found anyone I move on…if I have found people great. 

People often delay tasks for too long, and they will ultimately not achieve what they set out to do.

What important metrics do you track & why?

So, I aim for one offer a week.

Working backwards from that, I am aiming for 6 interviews per week, which comes from sending between 12 and 18 CVs per week.

You need to know your success metrics? If you don’t - make this your first actionable task from this newsletter.

What systems do you have in place to ensure you have way more productive days than non-productive days?

I'm an Excel girl, so everything's on an Excel spreadsheet.

I do my market mapping on an Excel spreadsheet, and it has tabs that categorise the clients by their level of involvement with us. 

So the categories are “not contacted”, “engaged”, “engaged, but don't ever want to hear from me again” (but they'll hear from me the week later), or it’ll be “terms signed”.

For me, I use that system to tackle what I've done and what I'm not doing and I’ll use a colour coding system of red, orange, green. 

Currently, there's a lot of red in my market map as I'm building a new market, but the red is slowly turning green, and using that helps me track whether or not I’m putting enough out there.

Am I doing enough to engage with these people, etc.

What planning & time management habits do you have that have massively impacted your productivity?

I make my daily plan every night and stick to it; it’s non-negotiable.

I have a priority task, which is the main important task of the day that I have to do, such as getting over a bunch of CVs for a retained role I am working, and then I've got secondary tasks such as qualifying a new job that I have taken on.

I normally do one core task, and three secondary tasks, and the other bits are just admin tasks I need to do. That's how I prioritise my day.

If I’m someone who feels like they’re not very good with time management, where is the perfect place to start? What one step should I take?

I would say the perfect place to start on that is just start with a day plan. 

It's really simple. Just test out the day plan, don't necessarily set yourself targets for this day plan, just make sure you can stick to a time constraint.

The hardest thing is being able to pull yourself away from a task, so I often get my team to set alarms for each time block.

When the alarm goes off after two hours, I make them move on to the next task, which helps them be accountable.

Download your time management templates

Allicias Perfect Day Plan

Market Mapping Template

Lead Management System Template

Interactive Goal-Setting Template

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

#1: Do you listen to my podcast? I release a weekly episode with either a top-performing recruiter or recruitment entrepreneur to find out how they achieved their success so you can learn directly from their journey Check out my latest episode and subscribe to the show.

#3: Promote your brand to over 4,050 recruitment professionals by sponsoring this newsletter (bookings available from May 2024).

#3: Want to learn how you can leverage our all-in-one training platform to take on the heavy lifting of upskilling your team whilst you spend more time working on the business? >>>> Book A Meeting With Me Here