One of the most important skills for a sales recruitment consultant, and one of the very first things every recruitment consultant learns, is good time management. Time is money in every business, but none exemplifies it quite as well as sales recruitment.

Think about it: every second spent on a potential hire that’s not a good fit, or lost to any of the day’s many distractions, is time that could have been better allocated to a more promising candidate. And time a recruitment consultant spends with that qualified candidate is time invested in a placement that will pay off, for both the employer and the sales recruitment firm.

The importance of good time management and responsible scheduling may not break down so clearly in other industries, but it is not unique to sales recruitment. Whether you are an up-and-coming recruitment consultant, a college student, part-time sales clerk, self-employed entrepreneur, stay-at-home mom or big wig executive, you can always benefit from structuring your day to be more efficient and productive. Take a few tips from a successful sales recruitment consultant and make them fit to your end goals:

Make a plan every day. Write it down.

Sounds silly, and like a kind of “duh” tip, but I’ve seen more than one recruitment consultant miss something because they gave themselves too much credit and assumed they could “keep it all up here.” Nope. The exercise of writing down what you need to accomplish will help you remember in itself, and seeing it there will give you a map of what to do next.

Find an end goal. Work towards that by working backwards.

Figure out what your ultimate goal for the day or week is, and then work your way backwards and determine what you need to do to get there. A sales recruitment consultant may see placing a hire as the final goal, so the steps before are to make contacts, call candidates, set up meetings, etc. Apply this somewhat backwards thinking in order to effectively work your way forward.

Stick to your list. Set up a mini-reward system if you need to.

Use the list to stay on task. Break it into manageable chunks with mini-goals and corresponding mini-rewards. Tell yourself you need to return all your phone calls before lunch; this gives you something to work towards beside the ultimate end goal, with the added enticement of a break for lunch at the end. There’s also the motivating sense of accomplishment every time you get to cross something off.

These simple tips can really help structure your day and increase your productivity, no matter what your final goal is. What other time management strategies work for you? As a sales recruitment consultant firm, we’re always looking for ways to improve performance and we’d love to hear your input.

Sales recruiting is a unique profession because of the wide array of innate traits and learned skills required to be successful. It can be a difficult field to get into, and even more difficult to excel and last at, because of certain requirements that simply cannot be taught. This also makes it a very competitive field, which means you have a lot of options when choosing a sales management recruiter.

However, if you’re not used to working directly in the recruitment field in can be difficult to know what to look for when shopping around for different firms. Recruiting sales people can take time, and you don’t want a recruiter to rush a potential hire, but you don’t want to waste time either. When you start looking at upper level positions and need a sales management recruiter, the stakes are higher and the process can quickly become more complicated.

Recruiting sales people for entry or mid-level positions is different than recruiting for sales management; a recruiter looking for senior positions needs to put a lot more time and effort into finding the right candidate(s) because of the nature of the position. This is true in every industry; the higher up the position, the more skills and experience are required, which means fewer applicants meet the necessary requirements. It can also take more to entice an upper level executive or manager to consider leaving their comfort zone to move to a new company.

Because of the importance of a management position, and the differences between recruiting sales people and recruiting sales managers, you need to be especially careful when choosing a sales management recruiter. There are a few things you should look for when comparing sales management recruiter or firm:

Track Record

Overall, how are they at recruiting sales people and placing employees at all levels? This is a good first indicator of work ethic and will give you an idea of how the recruiter or firm will work for you.

Management Placement History

Do the employees that they find stick around? A good sales management recruiter should know how their recent placements are doing and hopefully has a proven record of how long previous placements lasted so you know what to expect.

Guarantee

Are you protected if the new hire doesn’t work out for some reason? Most agencies guarantee their placement for a certain amount of time in case the new hire doesn’t meet expectations.

These are just some basic guidelines to get you started, and they can be applied whether you are looking for someone to work on recruiting sales people or trying to find a sales management recruiter. Make sure you do your homework and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Happy hiring!

I’ve talked about using Facebook as a screening tool for interviews, but what about as a marketing tool? And why stop at Facebook? There is a wealth of new media available online, social media sites and communities designed specifically to bring people together. If you can master just a few of these you’ll have a significant advantage over your competition.

Whether you’re a big name recruiting firm, a small start-up or a single sales recruiter, you can always benefit from being more visible than your competitors. Even if you’re at the top and not feeling a direct threat, it would be nice to solidify that position and be seen as the coolest, most technologically savvy of the recruitment consultants.

Sites like Facebook and MySpace started as fun, fluffy personal networking sites, but they can be used for more serious purposes, especially Facebook. Set up sales recruiter profiles for all your recruitment consultants. Make sure there is enough information for someone to feel like they know them and have a good understanding of their qualifications, and make it clear how they can be reached. The main goal here is to seem approachable and likable.

LinkedIn is similar in nature to Facebook, but with a more professional focus. While a Facebook profile can, and should, highlight educational background and professional accomplishments, LinkedIn is the place to really make career information and credentials shine. Think of Facebook as more of a cover letter, LinkedIn as a résumé.

Twitter is a little more unique; as a microblogging site, there’s no real profile and not a lot of setup, so you can just jump in and “join the conversation” at any point. Search for people in your industry or field and just start talking. This can be a great way to network with other recruitment consultants, get your name out there and hear about who’s hiring and who’s looking to be hired.

You don’t have to be a sales recruiter or consultant to make this advice work for you. These social media sites are almost always free, so they’re great for marketing yourself as an individual as well. If you’re looking to impress a sales recruiter or potential employer, try out these and other social media sites to make sure good, quality, relevant information comes up when someone googles your name.