It’s January and time to focus on your recruitment consultant training. The Christmas decorations are down, maybe for some of us our weight is up, and our motivation is generally higher than usual. This then often results in our thoughts turning to what is possible in 2013.

The first few weeks of any new year should be a bumper time for recruitment companies. More people than ever are looking for a career change at the start of a new year. This is when the best candidates start to surface. A quick look on the Google search engine and you will notice that the number of searches for recruitment companies and recruitment agencies double in relation to December.

The extended holiday break especially in the UK fuels people to evaluate their careers and what else might be on offer. As recruiters we all know that the high performers are in demand in any industry, recession or no recession. The challenge is finding them in the first place so that it is your recruitment agency and not someone else’s that places them. Are you and your team ready to make the most of this opportunity? Here is the most important area to focus on with your recruitment consultants to get the year off to an awesome start. Planning! To be accurate sales planning

Sales’ planning is something that needs to be taught to many recruitment consultants no matter how experienced they are. Having a focused plan with a list of key activities is often the difference between success and failure. In the present economy just ‘winging it’ does not work anymore. Make sure your consultants know what to include in a good plan. A corny saying I know and yet hitting the ground running in January will set the trajectory for any recruiter to hit their billings throughout the year. Here are some ideas that you can share with them. They may or may not have the skills to deliver on all of these and this is where your training for recruitment consultants comes in.

First off they need to plan their time around the activities that will give them the best results. For instance past candidates that they have knowledge of need to be contacted. This needs to be scheduled into a daily plan. Consistency is the key here. Any consultant that takes consistent action on this one activity alone will come up with the goods. January is an excellent time to pick up the phone and check where your candidates are at. As I mentioned earlier Christmas is quite a time of reflection for many people. Use this to your advantage. As part of sales planning teach your consultants to think of what they are going to do and importantly how they are going to do it. Each call to a prospective candidate should be thought through. What questions need to be asked? What is important to the candidate? What is their ideal job and with which employer? Do you have anything similar that might just persuade them to go for the interview?

Just taking time on planning this interaction with a candidate will significantly enhance the interaction and likely hood that they will want your recruitment company to place them and not somebody else’s.