How Successful Recruiters Set Goals

It’s that time of year again when we all start to reflect on our achievements over the past 12 months. This could be both on a professional and a personal level; hint they both impact on each other by the way. As a rec to rec company we are speaking to many ambitious recruitment consultants who are already thinking about next year and exactly how much they want to bill or where they want to work. Hint if you are looking for a new recruitment role we can probably help.

All well and good; though what about you? What do you need to do to ensure the goals you set have a sporting chance of being achieved and will make on impact on you and the results you want.

1. Set goals that matter

A goal should ideally be something that will take you forward in your career and will impact on your ‘bottom’ line in some way. Logical; yet not everyone set goals that matter. Setting a goal to be at your desk at 8am every day is a goal of sorts, yet pretty unspecific. Much better to consider a process that guarantees success that I am going to talk about next.

2. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals

S.M.A.R.T. is a well know acronym that stands for; specific, measurable, achievable, related and time sensitive. In fact this way of goal setting is generally recognised as among the most valid and useful motivational tools in business today. Why? Because it improves performance. Have a look at Dr Edwin Locke’s and Dr Gary Latham’s research to find out more. Theory and evidence is all well and good so how can you make this practically work for you as a recruiter.

3. Big goals and small goals

The easiest way to achieve goals is to break them down into big and small goals. The simplest way I have found it to start with the end in mind. In other works have your big goal and then break that down into smaller goals and actions that will ensure your big goal gets achieved.

Imagine then that you want to make more placements next year compared to this; hint that would be a good goal to set! First let’s get specific- how big do you want the increase to be and is it achievable given the time and resources you have. Setting a goal to double or treble your placements is all well and good though are you likely to achieve it in the time available to you?

To make the maths easier let’s assume you make 14 placements a year and a stretch goal for you would be to increase that to 21. In others words an increase of nearly 50%. If that is going to happen you would need to have other smaller goals in place.

First steps would be a brain storm on what would need to take place to generate the extra placements and candidates. You might need to bring in more clients and candidates. Knowing your current stats here will be a huge help. Once you know some of this data you can then break it down into monthly mini goals and actions that you know will deliver what you want.

For instance if your current stats tell you  that  for every 20 calls you make you can get an appointment to see a new client and that you convert half of these, who then give you a minimum of one placement, it is easy to work back and set a goal. Stay with me here so 40 calls will equal one client for you with one placement. Assuming you can always fill a placement we now know that you need to make 40 x7 calls to get your 7 additional placements. In other words 280 additional calls so that could be a specific smaller goal to set. Break that down over ten months and you will get a sense of how the really big billers make it look so easy. They know there numbers and take consistent action.

It’s all down to a focus on the actions that make goals a reality. Ready to get going?

Till next time,

Cheryl Wing