Did you know today is officially Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day??
That’s right: not following through on New Year’s resolutions is such a common thing that there’s a whole day to celebrate the general population’s collective failures.
Despite the sad fact that most resolutions are non-starters, overall, resolution-makers start out with a good intent, to make a positive change in their life to better themselves or others. However, there’s one subset of resolution-makers who have made an infamous name for themselves, and that is people who make a resolution to work out more. They’ve become notorious for clogging up gym equipment during the first month (or 17 days) of the New Year before disappearing until the next January 1st comes along.
If there’s one person you don’t want to be like, it’s a New Year Gym Goer.
As a recruiter, it can be easy to get in a trap of setting resolutions for yourself during the New Year. Making more calls per week than you did last year, hitting a higher commission tier, building up your network, finally tapping into social media to help with your recruiting efforts—the list goes on.
The only problem is, the chances of recruiters outsmarting gym goers and managing to take their resolutions much further than January 17th are next to none. So what’s a recruiter who really does want to make a professional change to do? Follow the SMART, 3-2-1 (and no, SMART isn’t in all caps because it’s very important to be smart). In case you aren’t up on your goal setting lingo, here’s what these two things mean:
- You should make your goals…
- Specific (you can clearly and concisely lay out the goal)
- Measurable (you can quantify where you’re at in terms of reaching your goal)
- Attainable (it’s something that can feasibly be done)
- Relevant (it’s a goal that moves you in the right direction)
- Time-bound (you have a start and end date)
- Outline how to reach your goals by writing down:
- 3 things you have to do to reach the goal
- 2 things you can’t do if you want to reach your goal
- 1 person to hold you accountable
Here’s how what an example of these methods would look like for a recruiter’s goal:
- Goal: to make 20 more calls per week than last year’s weekly average.
- This specifically lays out what you want to reach, it is numbers-based so you can measure it, it’s a number that isn’t so far outside of what you’re already doing that you can’t attain it, it’s relevant to you because it will make you better as a recruiter, and you have set a time to the goal.
- Outline 3 things you should do if you want to reach 20 extra phone calls per week, such as:
- Look at how many calls you’ve made during the week at the midway point (i.e. Wednesday) – if you haven’t hit your +20 goal, budget time into the last half of your week to make up the calls you haven’t.
- Read one article a week on cold calling tips so the task gets easier and your results get better.
- At the beginning of each week, line up a schedule of calls you want to make to make the process smoother and more integrated into your week.
- Outline 2 things you shouldn’t do if you want to reach 20 extra phone calls per week, such as:
- Put making calls off to the very end of your day. This is a surefire way to let something else come up that prevents you from making your calls.
- Run out of resumes. Sourcing is a non-stop game and you should always have enough contacts to reach out to where you can add 20 calls to your week.
- Find the person who will help hold you accountable—maybe it’s your coach, your deskmate or even your significant other at home. Either way, it’s someone who will check in with you and see how your phone calls for the week are going.
This is just one example of how to use the SMART and 3-2-1 methods when trying to set goals during the New Year. Now that we’ve made it to Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions Day, actually do ditch your resolutions and start looking at goals instead.