By: Shari Dalton
Every single one of us in Healthcare Staffing, whether it be recruiter or account manager has suffered at the hands of a slump or rut. If you haven’t, you haven’t been doing the job long enough. Sometimes it can get downright nasty and last for a few weeks. The longer it lasts, the longer it takes to get out of.
We’ve outlined a few tricks to help you bust out of those slumps. Below is a list of our top 5 slump busting strategies:
- Have a schedule for your day. Make sure that there is time set aside for talking with prospects, talking with clients, social media outreach, and handling your day to day. Working without an outlined schedule can often leave us feeling very busy, but not necessarily productive. After a few weeks of this, with no production, you’ll be banging your head against the keyboard. It is also important to make time to schedule activities other than making phone calls. Try out social media, or create a newsletter for your customers.
- Just do it. When we are stuck in a rut, we are often focused on the negative, perhaps a previous bad experience. We let our feelings and emotions get the best of us. Accept it! Stop throwing a pity party, figure out what isn’t working, learn, and grow.
- Be intentional. Have a reason for doing the things that you do. Have a purpose. When you run queries to make calls for the day, what is your intention with that. When you are calling clients, what is your intention. As you put together a profile, what is your intention.
- Talk to someONE. Not the whole office. Have a go-to person to bounce ideas off of. Even in my 12th year as a recruiter, I had a go-to person. When I couldn’t wrap my head around a situation or needed some help thinking outside the box, I had a go-to. Be careful though, don’t let it turn into a venting session, unless you’re planning to problem solve.
- Help Someone Else. Helping someone else is the quickest way to change your mood. Volunteer, help out a neighbor, help a coworker who may be struggling as well. Helping others is good for the soul, mind and body!
Notice how I didn’t say “focus on the positive”? When you are in a slump or a rut, that is the very LAST think you want to hear. Sometimes you need to focus on the negative to uncover what isn’t working. You must be willing to learn new ways of doing your job and challenging yourself.
Change is never easy, but like they say, keep doing the same things, and you’ll get the same results!
