Way back in the distant past, November 26, 2006 to be exact, I blogged here about requisition load for full-cycle corporate recruiters. I looked at some of the various factors that influence the load that a corporate recruiter can work. Today I find that I actually have more requisitions on my desk to work than I can really handle. What follows are some thoughts on how to deal with the situation. Your thoughts will be appreciated and possibly implemented!
So what's on my desk today?
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1 Administrative
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3 Legal
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17 Engineering
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10 Finance
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3 Human Resources
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3 Information Systems
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5 Operations
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2 Sales
That's 44 requisitions with very few duplicates, located on two sides of the U.S., in at least 8 different disciplines. Maybe you could handle that and still have time to spare, but I can't so I've had to come up with ways to continue to be effective rather throwing in the towel.
1) What there is to do today is what there is to do today. What I do today is what there was to do today. Sounds weird doesn't it? But it's clear that I am not going to do more today than I actually do today. Now I may wish that I could do more but that's a pipe dream. When the day ends I'll have done what I did and nothing more.
2) Who's screaming the loudest? It works best to return calls and get to work on the tasks for the hiring managers who scream the loudest. You know the types: those who call multiple times each day to see what you've done since the last time they called. They are not going away! Find some resumes. Send them and move on. Maybe you'll have a few hours to work on something else before the next call?
3) Work the funnel. Most experienced recruiters know the funnel analogy. The resumes flow into the funnel and the placements flow out. When you're overloaded and you just don't know what to do first, just work whatever is closest to flowing out of the funnel. So you'd clearly extend an offer if you were ready to do that before you'd call a reference on another candidate or source candidates for another requisition.
4) Give some work away. What's on your desk that you can give to others? Ask you manger to reassign some reqs. See if you can get assistance with other tasks. Can someone else check some references for you? Perhaps someone else can screen some resumes? You get the picture?
5) Update your managers. You may have done nothing for a particular manager but hiding from them only creates more work and creates an unhappy customer. What follows may actually be my favorite thing to do: preferably call, if you can't do that then email, and let your manager know that you know their req is important and that you'd like to give them an update. The update may be that you have time scheduled to screen some resumes in the next few days. Make sure you really do have it scheduled and they'll appreciate the update and will look forward to resumes in a few days.
6) Schedule everything. If you're running from one fire to another and getting nothing much done then you probably have a scheduling problem. Schedule everything you have to do. Be realistic about how long things take to do. Schedule catch up gaps. For example, where I consult, we conduct debrief meetings following every interview with the entire interview team. Meetings are routinely scheduled to last 30 minutes which is fine for most groups but one of my groups always takes longer than that. I block the following 30 minutes for all their debriefs so I won't get behind.
7) Schedule some more. Didn't believe me in point 6 above? Schedule everything, and I do mean everything. If it isn't on your schedule then it isn't getting done.
8) Set realistic expectations. This is often touted as a great thing to do. Make promises that you can keep. Decline requests that you are able to decline. Keep your lines of communication open. Let people know that they may not receive the same high level of service from you that they are used to for a period of time due to your increased work load.
9) Eliminate the non-essential. When things really get out of control you're just going to have to not do some things. Are there meetings that you can decline? Are there things that you can move to a list of things that will be good to do later but are not important enough to be on your schedule and therefore will not get done now or anytime soon?
10) Run screaming from the building! I'm not really serious about this but you may just need to take a break or risk total burnout. I have to force myself to heed this advice because I'm a get it all done when it is supposed to be done personality. I can usually do that but not always and my default way of dealing with too much to do is to just work harder and longer. That works for a short while but not for long. Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses. The work will still be there when you come back.
So what do you think of this list? Any other practices that you use when you have too much to do?
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