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Feb 15, 2017
This article is part of a series called Editor's Pick.

Bad habits are unavoidable, quick to form, and slowly creep into our lives without warning. Whether you’re drinking too much coffee in the morning, biting your nails, or spamming candidates, bad habits come in all shapes, sizes, and industries. It seems like just yesterday we were toasting to the New Year and making resolutions. While most people make resolutions to lose weight, work out more, or eat healthily, others make professional resolutions and goals. Even though January has already ended, it’s not too late to stop bad habits dead in their tracks and make it a resolution to create better habits in your profession.

As the talent pool shrinks and the number of roles needed to be filled significantly increases, the demand to fill jobs will be greater than ever in 2017. What this means, is that recruiters and sourcers are going to be asked to perform quicker and without error. Bad habits will need to be squashed before companies get into full swing of their 2017 recruiting season. In every profession, there are bad habits that plague every type of job up to the chief executive of a company. For sourcers that have been in the profession for years on years, bad habits form, and you know they’re there. We’ve come up with a list of bad habits that sourcers can stop tomorrow to improve results, candidate experience, and grow professionally at the same time.

 

Not staying organized.

According to a recent study by the Society for Human Resources Management, the mean number of requisitions per recruiter (or HR FTE) is 40. The median number of requisitions per recruiter (or HR FTE) is 20. Government organizations are more likely than privately owned for-profit organizations to have a higher average number of requisitions per recruiters. You’re busy. Not staying organized will make simple tasks feel daunting. Declutter your desk and look for ways to stay organized whether it be a simple to-do list or building out processes that help streamline things across a variety of teams. Your organization is key to staying productive.

 

Taking everything at face value and not being a detective.

The job of a recruiter, or sourcer, is to dig deep and truly understand a candidate before passing them onto the next step in the process. Engaging with a candidate prematurely without doing extensive research will waste time, money, and energy that recruiters simply don’t have. Setting time limits to finding candidate information will help protect time and make smart decisions with the important things on your list.

 

Using technology for the sake of using technology.
Using technology for the sake of using technology is a bad habit in itself. While technology is created to inherently make our lives easier, using it for the purpose of using it will end up creating more hassle than it’s worth. Understanding where you need technology and where you can do without will help make you not only more organized but will make your life easier in the long run. Before signing up for new tech, ask yourself, do I need this? Will it make my job easier? Or just clutter up a process that doesn’t need to be touched?

 

Not identifying your best source of hire per job & company.

Source of hire is one of the most important metrics when it comes to the job. Understanding where the best candidates come from and how to get the most bang for your buck will help save countless hours and stress when sourcing for specific job requisitions. Each company is different and what works for one may be different for another even if the job requisition is identical. If you don’t already know this information as it relates to various requisitions, learn them and make your job much easier in 2017.

 

Always follow-up

It’s sad to say that this is still a bad habit by a lot of recruiters. If you’re engaging with a candidate and forget to follow-up, respond to an email promptly, or just forget completely you’re doing your part in destroying the candidate experience of whatever company you’re working for. There are plenty of email applications out there, plugins, reminder services, etc., that prevent a recruiter from missing a follow-up email. Create a process that works for you and stick with it. Sending a follow-up email or responding to a potential candidate can be simple. Don’t over analyze the process or make it grander than it has to be.

 

Bad habits aren’t crushed overnight. To get rid of these habits in 2017, the number one step is to make a conscious effort to stop. Without this first effort, people historically fall back into the bad habits time after time. It’s important to self-reflect and see which bad habits you are guilty of — they might be all of these or none, but don’t kid you if you find yourself flawless. Each and every person has some bad habits that eventually snowball out of control and get the best of them. Make it an effort in 2017 to pick one bad habit a month and work on it till it’s not longer a habit.

 

 

This article is part of a series called Editor's Pick.
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