Host 20 meetings, record everything and report to your boss, find 10 developers for a brand-new project, help newcomers find their place in the office…sounds like a lot, but it’s an ordinary working day for the modern recruiter. So, how to find time for all of that? Thankfully, nowadays, there are lots of automation tools to plan, optimize and ease your workflow. And for such busy bees as we, recruiters, they can come in handy. In this article, we’ll share 6 planning tools for recruiters and show how you can save time and energy while completing as many tasks as they usually do and even more.
Recruitment productivity hacks
Let’s start with a few useful time-management tips. Time management, in general, is a priority skill for a recruiter, so every one of them tries to find their own groove to follow. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for better productivity, however, these little hacks could save you the day.
Understand your workflow
First, study your entire working process. Try to understand the dynamic of your workflow and its separate parts.
- What tasks can be divided into smaller ones?
- What is the best order to complete them?
- What do you personally feel comfortable doing?
- What causes problems or delays?
Answers to all of these questions will help you see the aspects of your time management that require more of your attention and some kind of improvement.
Embrace prioritization
The best way to never feel anxious about deadlines is to prioritize tasks. When you know that some things can wait and that now you’re doing exactly what you need to, your work becomes much more productive and enjoyable. A pretty popular technique is to use a Prioritization Matrix, where you divide all your to-dos into Urgent-Important, Urgent-Not Important, Not Urgent-Important, and Not Urgent-Not Important. Thus, you will see which tasks can be delegated, delayed, or removed.
Don’t forget about your metrics
KPIs are not just about having control over team performance, but also a wonderful way for a person to set goals and monitor their personal productivity. When the objectives are clear, and the path to achieve them has milestones, it’s going to take a lot lesser time and effort for your initial results.
Also read: 7 Best HR Communities You Must Join in 2023
Top 7 Planning Tools for Recruiters to Boost Productivity
The digital world has offered recruiters thousands of options to improve their work performance, and the choice is pretty hard. But sure enough, it only expands the capabilities and guarantees that there is a tool for each and everyone, for whatever requirements and objectives they need to accomplish. So, here are six planning tools for recruiters to choose from.
1. Sortd
Sortd is just a godsend for those of you who hate digging into your inbox and filtering what is important and what is not. Especially when many tasks and meetings are often arranged via email. Sortd won’t help you just sort mails out, but also manage tasks while surfing through Gmail and contacting all possible employees or your team members. It’s like having everything you need to communicate with people and plan your day in just one app. So, how does it work? You create boards, which are categories for your inbox. For example, you can categorize them by department (Marketing, Human resources, Project Management), or by projects. By adding your team members to each category, you can not only sort emails for yourself but also automatically send them to your colleagues. You don’t have to take the extra step of forwarding messages anymore.
2. Smartsheet
This one is an entire project management platform. Teams often use Smartsheet to collaborate. However, it can be helpful for personal use as well. Dashboards, reports, and integrations with various applications, including Slack, Gmail, Zapier, DocuSign, Google Calendars, and Google Forms will definitely make recruiters’ lives easier. In addition, Smartsheet offers tools to automate repetitive tasks, like scheduling calls, replying to emails, and even publishing social media posts. So, if you’re a pretty active social media user (which is very likely, since we’re talking about recruiters), the platform gives everything required for better performance.
3. Trello
There is probably no person in the world who has never heard about Trello. It’s also a project management tool. It has a simpler and more user-friendly interface than Smartsheet and offers a popular Kanban technique to plan your working hours. Again, it’s mostly used for team collaboration, but having all your tasks’ progress visually presented can greatly improve productivity.
Also read: Effective Workplace Communication Tips for Remote Teams
4. Calendly
Calendly is the best friend of all business people who are constantly tied up with meetings. Here you don’t have to do much: just set your working hours, send the link to your Calendly to anyone you need to schedule a meeting with, and let them choose the most convenient time from the available slots. As easy as pie. And the best thing about it is that you don’t have to create events separately in your Google calendar or modify your Calendly every time there is a holiday or another event. The tool will synchronize with your calendar and automatically exchange all the data.
5. Toggl
Toggl is a pretty universal platform. There are three main products it offers: TogglTrack, TogglPlan, and TogglHire. Let’s talk about each of them a little. The first one is TogglTrack. If you’ve ever felt like you haven’t done anything or spent hours for nothing, it will help you think otherwise. TogglTrack is a tool to track everything you do or even your team does. Just press the button next to your task to start tracking, and press stop whenever it’s completed. Then, you can get a comprehensive overview of your workflow and analyze it later. It will make you feel productive and get insights about what in your daily routine is the most time-consuming. ToggPlan, in turn, is a project management tool where you can plan your day, create projects and collaborate with your team on them. With its help, you can stop worrying about deadlines or miscommunication between team members. And last, but not least, TogglHire. Here, you can compare the applicants using testing tools for any skill required right inside the platform. This feature helps you make more informed decisions and be sure about your candidates’ expertise.
6. Recruit CRM
And, of course, how not to mention a CRM specially created for recruiters. Here you will find an applicant tracking system, various integrations, reporting, invoice management, and even tools for easier sourcing and job posting. Moreover, recruiters can get all the required information about candidates right from LinkedIn. No more days spent on data entry. RecruitCRM, just like many other complex tools, has Kanban boards, mentioned above, integration with your email, Google Chrome extension, dashboard, and automated reports. You can also integrate RecruitCRM with Slack and Google Sheets, which makes communication and collaboration much easier.
7. Jotform Tables
Collecting and organizing data is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks for the modern recruiter. Without the right tool, everything can get quite messy and very hard to keep track of. Luckily, Jotform Tables offers an all-in-one workspace to collect, organize, and manage data. There are endless possibilities as to how you can utilize Jotform Tables as a recruiter. You can create custom online forms with Jotform to collect the responses you need from your applicants and auto-populate your tables with submission data. You can also import CSV or Excel files to work with your existing data or add new entries manually. It is also a very useful tool to keep your team on the same page. You can share your tables to easily collaborate with your colleagues by assigning entries to your teammates and tracking progress.
Planning tools for recruiters—which one is on your tech stack next?
We hope this article helps you take your productivity to a new level, and understand what technologies can be useful in your line of work. The six planning tools for recruiters we suggested, as mentioned before, are not the only options, however, they are worth trying. You can use them all, use a few, just one, or find other alternatives. Anyway, good luck, dear recruiters, and may your productivity rise to new heights!
