Time to Reflect

Let’s get into this week’s edition and keep reading until the end to get your hands on our Free ‘Recruitment Consultant End Of Year Review Worksheet’ 👊 

How are we nearly at the end of 2024.

Even writing this, I’m looking at the date in the top right-hand corner of my screen, and I literally cannot believe it.

It’s been a YEAR, that is for sure.

Some highs, some lows, and plenty of learnings.

For long-term subscribers, you’ll know that at this time of year, we love to give you the opportunity to reflect, and really use this time as ‘food for thought’ to get yourself set up well for 2025. 

Our penultimate newsletter today will give you just that.

For new subscribers, firstly, thanks for coming on the journey with us and engaging with our content this year! 

We’ve welcomed many new faces, and I’m hoping this edition is useful to you.

How to effectively reflect and plan for 2025

Step 1: Where did you excel?

It’s important to start off strong and remember what went well for you this year and where you excelled. 

Even if you had a rough year this year, you must look at the positives to keep honing on them in 2025.

This could be your work ethic, business development, or candidate relationships. 

It could even be your approach to admin.

Write down where you excelled and what you think you did to make that possible. 

Write out three ways that you can continue to build on this and set it as a goal.

For example:

I excelled in Business Development this year as I brought on a new client every single month and signed terms of 22%. 

I achieved this because I was relentless with my Business Development goals and stuck to 2 hours of BD per day. 

To maintain this and potentially excel in 2025, I want to stick to my goal of 2 hours per day of BD, and sign 5 clients in 2025 at 23-24% terms.

Remember what we said in our last edition - focus on a 1% increment, so your goals don’t feel unattainable. 

OR

I excelled in my desk management this year. 

My database usage was incredible, and it enabled me to run my desk in an organised and efficient manner. 

To maintain this, and excel in 2025, I’m going to look at tools that can help me optimise what I already have in place so I can create more room for other things such as BD and client meetings.

Step 2: What went wrong?

Now, some people might disagree with this and say this is putting a ‘negative spin’ on things, but every so often you need to be harsh and honest with yourself.

What went wrong this year? Did you miss out on a placement? Did you have a few slip-ups where you were late to calls or meetings? Call yourself out and write down everything that went wrong.

If your list exceeds 5 things (and don’t beat yourself up if it does) prioritise the top 3 things and write out a solution that you will implement in 2025 to rectify what went wrong.

Step 3: Areas for improvement

Now, look at three key areas that you want to improve. 

A lot of people pick business development, but try to look at other activities/habits that need improvement outside of this. 

I’m a big believer that all of your activity impacts your business development. If you’re bad at time management or you get distracted, failing to address this and just wanting to improve on business development is putting a plaster over a much bigger issue.

If you address the smaller areas for improvement first, it will be easier for you to tackle the bigger issues, as they all have a knock-on effect on each other.

Step 4: Review your KPIs 

Are they hard enough?

Are they realistic?

Did you hit any of them in the last quarter?

KPIs aren’t there to be a black cloud constantly following you around the office or at home. 

They’re there to motivate, inspire, and keep you on track. 

Most recruitment agencies nowadays use KPIs in a modern, innovative way. 

They are no longer used as forms of punishment and instead, are there to nurture.

But, you also need to give yourself a bit of a reality check if your KPIs aren’t aligned with your goals for 2025.

Look at things like interviews booked, client meetings, roles filled, interview stats, and even granular things such as phone times or new clients/candidates added to the database.

Look at the things that went wrong this year and how you can improve these using specific KPIs as the driving force.

Step 5: Log off for Christmas…please

It’s time to close LinkedIn. 

Use this time to rest and recharge. 2024 has been tough for a lot of recruitment businesses, and we love to work hard, but we also need to give ourselves a break and actually switch off before 2025.

Failure to look after your mental and physical well-being during this time is NOT going to set you up well for a good Q1.

So log out of LinkedIn. Put your out-of-office on and actually stick to it.

Enjoy a drink (and remember, it doesn’t have to be alcoholic).

Use Our End Of Year Review Worksheet To Figure Out Where You Need To Level Up Next Year 🚀 

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.

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