{"id":5729,"date":"2017-11-21T07:10:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T15:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recruitloop.wpengine.com\/?p=5729"},"modified":"2018-10-15T18:14:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T01:14:29","slug":"recruiter-tips-how-to-stay-focused-during-the-holiday-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/recruiter-tips-how-to-stay-focused-during-the-holiday-season\/","title":{"rendered":"How Recruiters Can Stay Focused During The Holiday Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note:<\/b>\u00a0This post is by\u00a0Paul Slezak, Cofounder and CEO of\u00a0RecruitLoop<\/a>\u00a0– the World’s largest marketplace of expert\u00a0Recruiters\u00a0and\u00a0Sourcers\u00a0available on-demand.<\/i><\/p>\n

There are ads on TV featuring turkeys spinning dreidels; carols are piping through the shopping malls; people are wearing those crazy reindeer antlers in the streets; it\u2019s already snowing in parts of the USA while temperatures are starting to soar across Australia \u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s beginning to look a lot like Christmas \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week I even went to my first Christmas party for 2017. Seriously \u2026 In the middle of November!<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already started receiving emails that are signed off \u201cAll the best for the festive season<\/em>\u201d, \u201cSee you in the new year<\/em>\u201d, \u201cHappy Holidays<\/em>\u201d, and \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d<\/em>!<\/p>\n

Putting aside the fact that I don\u2019t actually celebrate Christmas, I\u2019m sure I have surprised a few clients in the last few weeks by sending an email straight back in response to their jovial holiday sign-off.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s make sure we catch up before the end of the year. We\u2019ve still got about 6 weeks to go. I\u2019m working until Friday December 15th. When\u2019s good for you<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

And guess what? I\u2019ve already been able to lock in a few coffees, lunches, or general catch-ups!<\/p>\n

I can assure you I\u2019m no \u2018Scrooge\u2019, but I have always felt that from a recruiter\u2019s perspective anyway, having a flat or ghostly quiet Holiday Season can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It\u2019s a mindset thing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only \u201cdead out there<\/em>\u201d (as I\u2019ve already heard a lot of people tell me) if you allow it to be.<\/p>\n

Here are a few tips to help you stay focused, keep busy, and believe it or not perhaps even make a placement or two in the last few weeks of the year.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u2018Twas the night before Christmas<\/em> \u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I can remember many<\/em> years ago I received a call from candidate on the 23rd of December. The company she had been working for had unfortunately had to close down and along with all her colleagues, she had just been made redundant.<\/p>\n

Talk about shocking timing …<\/p>\n

Abigail had only been working there for about six\u00a0months so she didn\u2019t really receive much of a payout.<\/p>\n

She was jobless. She was a single Mum with two\u00a0kids. She\u2019d seen my ad in one of those weekly magazines that got handed out at train stations back then and she\u2019d given me a call desperate for help.<\/p>\n

I asked her to come in first thing the following\u00a0morning for an interview. She was a really good candidate.<\/p>\n

I had no idea which (if any!) of my clients would be working on Christmas Eve so I just started calling them all.<\/p>\n

It turned out that quite a few of them were<\/em> working; two of them asked me to send (fax!) her CV through; one of them asked her to come in that afternoon and offered her a temp role starting on the 27th and if things went well the position would become permanent.<\/p>\n

Who says nobody hires in the Christmas week?<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas, Abigail!<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Get in front of as many clients as you can in the next few weeks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sure your clients might not have any actual job briefs for you to work on right now<\/em>. But do you know what their hiring plans are for next year?<\/p>\n

Call<\/em> your clients and make a time to see them ideally in the next couple of weeks. Be up front and tell them you want to catch up to talk about their growth plans for 2018 because you want to be top of mind and that you\u2019re ready to help out.<\/p>\n

Just because your clients might not be busy physically recruiting at the moment, they\u2019ve still got businesses or teams to run. They\u2019re still going to work. And they\u2019ve all got to eat and most will probably need a coffee at least once a day in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

So pick up the phone<\/em> and book in a time to catch up.<\/p>\n

If for whatever reason they are super busy, or they are taking time off, then arrange\u00a0a meeting with them in early January.<\/p>\n

Some people are afraid to suggest a meeting for \u2018next yea<\/em>r\u2019 \u2026 like it\u2019s some far away mysterious place! January the 1st is just another date on the calendar. So bite the bullet and don\u2019t be afraid to be their first official appointment for 2018.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Reconnect with your candidates<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Anyone who has ever worked with me knows that I really dislike the phrase \u201ctouching base\u201d.<\/p>\n

But this time of the year really is the perfect opportunity to reconnect with all those candidates you haven\u2019t spoken to in a while.<\/p>\n

How many really strong candidates have you interviewed this year?\u00a0How many of those did you actually place?<\/p>\n

So what happened to the rest of them?\u00a0Give them a call and find out how they are, what they\u2019ve been up to, and what their goals are for the year ahead. If you don\u2019t call them, it\u2019s pretty unlikely that they\u2019re going to call you to share their career plans for 2018.<\/p>\n

You never know what you\u2019ll find out. Sure some will be very happy in the job (you didn\u2019t get them); some might ask you to keep them posted on any suitable opportunities that arise; gosh a few might even tell you that they\u2019re just hanging around for their end of year bonus after which they want to get the hell out.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a perfect pre-Christmas reverse marketing opportunity for you right there!<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got nothing to lose.<\/p>\n

If Santa can make his list (and check it twice!), you can make a list of 50 candidates and call 10 of them each week between now and Christmas.<\/p>\n

You might even find out who\u2019s been naughty and who\u2019s been nice! … Sorry I couldn\u2019t resist!<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Go and visit all your temps<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While this might seem pretty damn obvious, believe it or not there are many temp recruiters out there who don\u2019t go and visit all their temps at this time of the year.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not just talking about dropping off a chocolate Santa, Christmas pudding or some other mass produced gift.<\/p>\n

This is also the perfect time to sit down with them and find out what\u2019s going on in the business. Your temps are your spies on the ground on site at your clients. Trust me they\u2019re not going to call you to tell you there are temps working with them from other agencies, what new accounts are being won, or who has recently handed in their resignation. But if you ask that\u2019s an entirely different ball game.<\/p>\n

Of course if your client sees you out visiting your temps, it puts you top of mind with them too (again I hope I\u2019m stating the obvious here).<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0It\u2019s time to get a bit personal<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Years ago I would go out and visit clients in December and it would be\u00a0like walking into a Hallmark factory. There would be Christmas cards everywhere \u2026 on their desks, pinned on boards, stuck on windows, hung up across the office.<\/p>\n

Today it\u2019s all about the e-card \u2026 maybe a dancing Santa with your face embedded?<\/p>\n

As a recipient of lots of these, I know they\u2019re funny but they just get deleted and many end up in spam anyway.<\/p>\n

Your clients have potentially paid thousands<\/em> of dollars for your candidates and you\u2019ve probably received some very nice bonuses in the last 12 months. So don\u2019t you think a nice, personally hand written card \u201cWishing you and your family all the best for 2018<\/em>\u201d might be nice?<\/p>\n

So if you really think it\u2019s dead out there, start writing!<\/p>\n

If your card is sitting on their desk, who do you think is going to be top of mind as 2018 rolls around?<\/p>\n

Working as a recruiter in an agency environment in the lead up to Christmas can actually become quite stressful \u2013 especially if your manager is in the office too. The phones typically aren\u2019t ringing off the hook; there aren\u2019t too many fees being put up on the board; so the question often becomes \u201cSo what\u2019s Paul actually doing here? Am I paying him to sit on Facebook all day?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

After all there\u2019s only so many times you can walk around the office holding a clip board, looking<\/em> busy by grabbing stuff off the printer, or being so fast to answer the phone when it rings that people might start thinking you\u2019re in training to appear on Jeopardy!<\/em><\/p>\n

Trust me, it feels good to be genuinely busy while most other recruiters will have taken their foot off the accelerator at this time of the year.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be going into 2018 ahead of the pack.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s a reason to sign off your emails \u201cHappy Holidays<\/em>\u201d!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always believed that from a recruiter\u2019s perspective anyway, having a flat or ghostly quiet Holiday Season can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It\u2019s a mindset thing. Remember \u2026 it\u2019s only \u201cdead out there\u201d if you allow it to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,66,74],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nRecruiter Tips: How To Stay Focused During The Holiday Season<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Having a flat or quiet Holiday Season can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It\u2019s a mindset thing. 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