Do you want to be a great recruitment leader? A recruitment leader who is respected by their team and achieves what they set out to do? One way that you can become this kind of recruitment leader is by completing a six-month review. In this post, we are going to talk about why it’s important for recruitment leaders to complete an assessment of themselves every 6 months. We’ll discuss the benefits of doing so – like being able to see how well you’re performing in relation to your targets, and whether you need help with any areas – as well as some tips on how best to go about conducting your own self-assessment.

What is a 6-Month Review and Why is it Important for Recruitment Leaders?

A 6-month review is a process where, as a recruitment leader, you assess your performance in relation to the goals that were set out for yourself six months ago. As a recruitment leader, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of running things and forget to evaluate your own performance. But, without regular check-ins with yourself and your targets, you may end up falling behind or, even worse – not reaching them at all.

Therefore, a six-month review can be a useful tool because it gives you an opportunity to reassess where you are in the process of achieving your targets and offers insight into what needs work. It also allows you to identify areas that need improvement so that they can be addressed before too long.

To conduct your own 6-month review, here are some questions to ask:

• Are you struggling to meet your targets?
• Are you ahead of your targets?
• Do you have any new targets to add? 
• Is there anything that needs improvement in your routine or tools?

By asking yourself these questions and evaluating your performance, you can better identify what is working and what needs to change.

Are you Struggling to Meet Your Targets?

If you find that you are unable to hit your targets, then the best course of action is to figure out why.

One of the most common reasons why recruitment leaders aren’t meeting their targets is due to making too many cutbacks on their team to try and reduce costs. While this might have felt like a necessity at the time, by not having enough people on your team to do the jobs that need doing, you’re ending up doing more harm than good. 

Besides, if you’re trying to cut costs but then end up not meeting your targets, then what’s the point?

To remedy this, try assessing your team to identify where there are gaps or where targets aren’t being met. Once you know where the gaps are, then it’ll be easier to fill them with new hires to recoup those losses in the next 6 months.

Are You Ahead of Target?

If you’re ahead of your targets, then it’s important to review how that happened. Before the last six months, what did you do to get there?

One of the biggest mistakes that many recruitment leaders make is believing their organization is perfect because they’re on-target for their goals. The truth is there’s probably a lot you can improve about your external or internal company management if you stop to examine it more in-depth. 

For example, have you hit your targets because you went extremely lean over the last 6-months and forced everyone else on the team to do the job of two people? 

If this is the case then yes, you may have hit your targets, but at what cost? Forcing your team members to work in this way isn’t sustainable and is going to have a huge detrimental impact on your team’s mental health. If this sounds like your organization, then you should prioritize hiring new team members to avoid burnout.

But, what if you’re ahead of target and you didn’t make any extreme cuts? 

Again, it’s important not to be too complacent here and review the last 6-months thoroughly. Look at the targets you set and ask yourself whether these goals were right, or were they too low? If you set targets that are far too low, then you’re going to be hitting them without a problem, but it won’t be an accurate representation of how you’re performing as a recruitment leader, or how your team is performing. If they were too low, then take this review as an opportunity to reassess and set more accurate goals for you and your team.

Final Thoughts

When setting goals for yourself or your team, it can be difficult to know how high to set the bar. My advice is to give everyone ‘stretch goals’, but not to a level where there’s an immense amount of pressure that makes your team feel like they must do double the work to get ahead. At the end of the day, your people’s mental health should be a top priority. Want some advice? Feel free to book in for a call with me and I’d be happy to discuss.