The perfect day plan

The perfect day plan – does it exist?

I’ve had hundreds of recruiters on the podcast talking about day plans – what works, what doesn’t, what order you should do things in and how often you should do it.

I’ve deduced two things from talking about day plans in depth for the past 5+ years:

#1 Your day plan must be personalised to you 

#2 Your day plan must be achievable and satisfying

So, what does this mean?

What works for someone else isn’t going to automatically work for you.

Although most day plans follow a similar structure (which I’ll be sharing later on in this edition), they are all adapted to the recruiter: their seniority, whether they’re a manager, as well as the market they’re in.

Creating a day plan that is impossible to follow or even complete is going to cause you to feel dissatisfied, and you’ll also stop following it after a while.

A great book that reinforces this is Atomic Habits – a book a lot of you will be familiar with.

The book is broken down into 6 key chapters: The fundamentals, make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying, and advanced tactics.

The “make it satisfying” section can be applied to day plans effectively.

“How to turn instant gratification to your advantage” – the vital thing in getting a habit to stick is to feel successful – even if it’s in a small way.

The feeling of success is a signal that your habit paid off and that the work was worth the effort. [Atomic Habits]

So, if we look at this in the context of day plans – you want to ensure that you’re going to get instant gratification so you will be motivated to stick to the plan as well as exceed what you want to achieve on a daily basis.

That’s the whole point of creating good habits that will stick – if you want some more inspiration, I strongly suggest you pick up Atomic Habits to get the full picture!

Some example day plans you can take and adapt:

The 360 Recruiter Day Plan

8:00am:
Arrive, do admin, answer any emails, review your BD call list for the morning and put a post together ready to share on Linkedin.

9:00am to 11:00am:
Focused calling session and only calling – no BD admin done in this time slot.

11:00am to 11:45am:
BD Admin time – conduct your follow up emails, CRM notes and any other admin required from your calling session.

11:45am to 12:30pm: 
Answer any emails.

12:30pm to 13:30pm:
Lunch- Make sure you take it.

13:30pm to 15:30pm:
Candidate focused session, headhunting for your A jobs, speaking to your networking to generate referrals, Linkedin inmails and all things sourcing.

**Top Tip – Don’t have your blinkers on in this time, every conversation can be a BD conversation, use your candidate time to generate leads and gather information to set up targetted BD**

15:30pm to 16:15pm:
Answer any emails and candidate admin time to ensure you do any follow-up emails from your headhunting calls.

16:15 pm to 17:15pm:
Market mapping – What new companies did you hear about today? What companies have recently achieved funding? What new companies should be on your dream client list? What companies are hiring a lot currently?

**Top Tip – Every top performing recruiter dies by market mapping, if you don’t have somewhere to easily organise and deposit the above market information you need to change this**

17:15pm to 18:00pm:
Engage with your network on Linkedin, reflect on the day. What went well today? What didn’t go so well? Plan the following day and leave the office once you know what your non-negotiables are for the following day.

The Billing Manager Day Plan 

8:00am:
Arrive, get ready for your daily stand up with the team and review your non-negotiables for the day.

8:30am:
Conduct team stand-up, and get the team set up for the day. What are the 1-3 non-negotiables they are all going to commit to actioning today?

8:30 am to 11:00am:
You’re focused time for BD; you have communicated to the team that unless something is urgent wait until post 11 am to get any help.

11:00 am to 12:30 pm:
Reactive support to any situations the team share with you, crack on with your admin and answer any emails.

12:30pm to 13:30pm:
Lunch- Make sure you take it.

13:30pm to 15:30pm:
Existing client work, getting an update from the team on certain job briefs, offer any coaching for the team on current recruitment processes and review pipeline to recognise any red flags.

15:30pm to 16:30pm:

Listen back to calls from your team, uncover any areas they can improve, offer coaching on how to better manage certain call situations and offer any other useful feedback to help your team improve.

16:30pm to 17:00pm: 

Recap with the team on how they got on today, key learnings? How did they get on with their non-negotiables?

17:00pm to 18:00pm:

Reflect on the day, map out important non-negotiables for the following day and tie up any important admin/actions.

The Rookie Recruiter Day plan

8:00am to 8:30am:
Arrive, do admin, answer any emails, review your BD call list for the morning and read industry news.

9:00am to 11:00am:
Focused calling session and only calling – no Candidate admin done in this time slot.

11:00am to 11:45am:
Candidate Admin time – conduct your follow up emails, CRM notes and any other admin required from your calling session.

11:45am to 12:30pm: 
Answer any emails.

12:30pm to 13:30pm:
Lunch- Make sure you take it.

13:30pm to 15:30pm:
Another candidate focused session, headhunting for your A jobs, speaking to your networking to generate referrals, Linkedin inmails and all things sourcing.

15:30pm to 16:30pm:
Do anything that relates to helping you improve, listen back to your calls, bug the top biller with questions about whats working for them, ask your manager for feedback on your calls or inmails you have written.

16:30pm to 17:00pm: 

Reflect on the day, what went well, what did you learn, what challenges did you run into?

17:00pm to 18:00pm:
Plan the following day, what jobs are you going to work on, what leads are you going to action and most importantly choose what Recruitment Mentors Podcast you should listen to on the way home 😉

These are some rough ideas for day plans, but they can give you an idea of timings and what can work for you.

The idea is to have some structure to your day but also accept that things in recruitment change all the time – so there will be times that your day plan will change around.

Something to be conscious of is how long things take.

How much success do you get from doing 2 hours of solid BD?

Equally, do you take longer than others to do email and admin?

Figuring out your timings will enable you to have more control over your day but also make a day plan that works well for you.

But Hector… how can I become better at time management?

It’s time to develop some self-awareness (and honesty) on how long things take you.

Not only will this enable you to create a stellar day plan, but it also means that you’ll be able to follow it and have more control of your desk.

Something we’ve promoted a lot on this newsletter is using the Pomodoro technique.

Having a physical timer (either on your phone or installed on your laptop/computer) will enable you to focus more but also see how long tasks take you.

Whether that’s BD or your emails, you’ll start to get a flavour of how your brain works.

You also want to see which times of day you’re the most productive

If you’re a morning person – put your hardest tasks at the beginning of your day plan and give yourself the “easier” tasks after lunch.

If you’re an evening worker – how can you adjust your day plan to accommodate this?

Again, there shouldn’t be a one size fits all approach to day plans (or recruitment) and you have to find what works best for you!

We’ve covered a lot so I’m going to leave you with two of the most common time management habits high performers have continued to share with me.

I would highly recommend you implement these into your day-to-day:

#1 – Plan your to-do list the day before, before you leave the office, and plan for the following day.

#2 – Make time to review what you’re getting for your inputs: weekly, monthly, whatever works for you. Make sure you make time to reflect on what’s working so you can make sure you have time to do the things that have the biggest impact!