20 Years, 20 Lessons: Why Multitasking is Important for Leadership and How to Prioritise Tasks

How good are you at prioritising tasks? When you work in a fast-paced industry, such as recruitment, the ability to multitask becomes more than a nice-to-have skill. You cannot succeed in recruitment without exceptional multitasking skills. Anyone working in this industry will agree with me, I’m sure.

Juggling multiple responsibilities is a daily challenge for a recruitment company manager. If, like Nick and me, you enjoy liaising with clients and candidates, you’ll be especially busy keeping up with a recruitment consultant’s daily activities, all while managing team performance and planning and implementing your growth as part of your tasks as a manager.

The Importance of Multitasking in Leadership

Recruitment managers often communicate with multiple stakeholders: new and existing clients, candidates, suppliers, and internal team members. Effective multitasking ensures that no one is left behind, everyone is kept in the loop, avoiding delays, miscommunications and other issues.  

Sometimes, managers need to make quick decisions. Gathering, processing, and analysing information from multiple sources simultaneously leads to well-informed decisions.

A delayed hiring decision can lead to a candidate accepting a competitor’s offer. Meanwhile, another client might need to hire an IT contractor by the end of the week. Decisions are often time-sensitive in recruitment. You must manage your time effectively, balancing urgent tasks (e.g. candidate interviews) with the necessary strategic planning and client meetings.

Many people believe that multitasking is against productivity. However, I see no other option than to become a pro multitasker in recruitment. By following my advice below, however, you’ll increase your personal and team productivity, as you’ll be able to complete important tasks before their due date.

How to Multitask at Work Without Losing Productivity

1. Prioritise Tasks: What’s Urgent? And What’s Important?

Analyse the importance and urgency of your tasks to stay focused and avoid filling your calendar with tasks that aren’t urgent or important. Begin by identifying tasks based on their urgency and importance. Use tools like the Eisenhower Matrix to categorise tasks: urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important.

2. Set Clear, Achievable Goals

It’s important to define clear, achievable goals for each task to maintain focus and ensure that the quality of your work isn’t compromised. For instance, some people are unable to focus on a single task at a time when they try to get too much done. Studies show that others procrastinate because they want to get a number of tasks completed. They put much pressure on the results, which stops them from even starting. You need to be realistic about what you can and cannot achieve with your resources and timelines.

3. Use Technology to Manage Tasks Efficiently

Embrace tools such as project management software, calendar apps, and communication platforms to help you track progress and stay organised. For instance, AI technologies and automation tools allow us to reach more candidates and perfect candidate targeting, saving us loads of time. More time for building relationships with candidates and clients!

4. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate

Effective management involves knowing what (and when) to delegate. Assign tasks that do not require your direct involvement to other team members. This way, you can focus on more critical responsibilities, such as planning your strategy.

5. Schedule Time Blocks

When I need to complete a task on my list and notice I am procrastinating, I allocate specific time blocks to get it done. Sometimes, I even move away from my desk and use some alone time in a meeting room. A change of scenery can help when you have too many things to juggle and want to dedicate all your attention to a project.  

6. Avoid Distractions

How can you minimise distractions when the phone’s constantly ringing and the emails won’t stop coming? Some people use the Pomodoro technique to maintain concentration and take regular breaks. I’d suggest trying a few of these productivity techniques. What works for me might not work for you.

7. Stay Organised

How will you grab the right CV from a massive pile of papers when you need it if you don’t keep your stuff organised? A clutter-free environment reduces stress and saves time.

I know the theory. Still, I keep reminding myself not to let my workspace and digital files get disorganised. I’m sure you can relate!

8. Adapt and Reschedule

Be prepared to make changes (sometimes last minute) and adapt your schedule as needed. Agility and flexibility are essential when handling unexpected tasks without disrupting the workflow.

9. Continuous Learning

Invest in continuous learning and skill development for you and your team. Staying updated, paying attention to industry trends, and acquiring new skills will make you a better manager.

10. Take Care of Your Health

Physical and mental well-being directly impact productivity. Are you skipping your breaks? Replying to emails outside of work hours? Living on snacks and fast food? You won’t make the right decisions if you’re overtired or burnt out.

A Day in My Life as Adria Solutions’ Agency Director

As a recruitment manager, I might spend a big chunk of my day working with a top priority client looking to fill multiple IT positions quickly:

• Speaking to the hiring manager and the candidates to arrange candidate interviews at the beginning of the day
• Updating my client on the progress in the afternoon in the afternoon
• Offering advice to the candidates to help them prepare for their interviews in the afternoon
• Working on other roles with the same client

But also:

• Chasing feedback from another client
• Sourcing candidates for other clients or other roles
• Pre-screening candidates before I introduce them to my clients.
• Replying to emails and LinkedIn messages
• Picking up the phone to offer candidate feedback on a previous interview
• Attending strategic meetings with diverse teams
• Administrative tasks
• Post on social media and reply to comments and messages on LinkedIn
• Training new recruiters

In the meantime, my team will help me with candidate sourcing, data collection, marketing, and administrative tasks. Multitasking is a team effort!

As you can see, time management, self-organisation, communication and multitasking are all important skills for an effective leader in the recruitment industry. By prioritising tasks effectively and using smart multitasking strategies, you can increase productivity and team performance and reach your short and long term goals more efficiently.

Do you want to learn more? I’m always happy to hear from you. Contact me on LinkedIn for an informal chat, or fill out our contact form with your questions.