FROM MY DESK
The best recruiters and entrepreneurs I've ever met all share one habit.
They make the time to reflect, actually step back, and understand why they're winning and why they're losing. Not once a year. Regularly.
That's what this edition is about. Honing your craft. And one of the best ways to do that is by properly inspecting your own year so far, what's worked, what hasn't, and why.
Not the surface-level version, the real one.
I've given you every prompt you'd need to do a full deep dive into your desk, why it's working, what is, and where the opportunities are for the second half.
You've got everything you need to smash it out of the park in H2.
Make space to do this in your diary this week and enjoy it!
MONTHLY PLAYBOOK
Mid-Year High-Performance Recruitment Desk Review
This isn't a reflection exercise. It's a desk audit.
The same process top billers run at the midpoint of the year to check the truth against the plan, catch drift before it compounds, and go into H2 with a real number instead of a hope.
Give it a proper hour, away from your desk if you can manage it. Be honest rather than generous with yourself, the value of this is entirely in how truthful you are with the numbers and the questions below.
There's no scoring and no right answer. Just work through it in order, top to bottom.
The order matters, don't skip to the plan before you've done the audit.
By the end you'll have a full picture of where H1 actually went, and a reverse engineered plan for H2 with your non-negotiables attached to it.
Step 0: Your Half Year In Numbers
Before anything else, write these down. No commentary yet, just the facts.
Revenue
Total H1 billings:
Best month:
Worst month:
Average placement value / margin:
Average % terms agreed:
Perm / Contract / Temp split:
Client Strength
Clients with 2+ placements:
Clients with 5+ placements:
Revenue from existing clients (%):
Revenue from new clients (%):
Role and Pipeline Quality
Inbound roles / referrals:
Retained or engaged roles delivered:
High-probability roles (A-roles):
Roles you shouldn't have worked:
Average time-to-fill:
Performance Ratios
Job : Fill ratio:
CV : Interview ratio:
Interview : Placement ratio:
Total placements:
Active contractors (if applicable):
Step 1: Reflecting On H1
1.1 What did you set out to achieve by this point in the year, professionally and personally?
1.2 Did you exceed, hit, or fall short of your goals? Why? Think habits, mindset, consistency and activity levels, not just the outcome.
1.3 What's the single best week you had this year? What were you doing differently that week versus a normal week?
1.4 What's one deal you're proud of that had nothing to do with luck? Walk through how you actually won it.
1.5 What genuinely could have gone better? List specific behaviours, not vague frustrations.
1.6 What habits made you money this year? What habits cost you money?
1.7 What did you avoid doing this year that you know would have improved your results?
1.8 What's the conversation you've been avoiding having with a client or candidate?
Step 2: Desk Analysis
Client Metrics
Total clients worked with:
Total clients you placed with:
Top three revenue-generating clients:
Patterns and Insights
How did you acquire your top clients?
What do they have in common? Industry, size, hiring cadence, niche?
Who are your key relationships inside each: founder, internal TA, hiring manager?
How many of your top three clients have more than one point of contact for you? Where are you single-threaded and exposed?
Which client relationship, if it disappeared tomorrow, would hurt the most? What's your plan if it does?
Client ROI Review
For each major client, weigh time invested against revenue, role quality, and fill rate.
High value, low effort, keep and grow:
High effort, low value, fire or renegotiate:
Terms and Commercials
Average % terms:
Highest terms and why:
Lowest terms and why:
Clients To Reconsider For H2
List anyone who drains your time, disrespects process, or isn't commercially viable.
Step 3: Billings And Pipeline Diagnostics
Revenue Highlights
Biggest deal:
Average deal size vs last year:
Best performing quarter or month, and why:
Activity Breakdown (best month or quarter)
CVs sent:
Interviews booked:
Candidate meetings:
Client meetings:
Jobs added:
Candidates added:
Clients added:
Worst performing month or quarter, and why. Confidence, activity, market, pipeline, or personal factors.
What Fell Through
What was your biggest deal that fell through this year? What actually killed it, counter offer, timeline, comp gap, or cold feet?
How many placements fell off after start, through rebate, no show or early leaver? What's the pattern?
Role Analysis
Titles that generated the highest fees:
Titles that generated the most volume:
Titles with the lowest ROI:
Most frequently placed role:
Root Cause.
Why did you succeed when you succeeded, and why did you drop when you dropped?
Sort each answer into one of three buckets:
Preventable (you had the information and didn't act).
Complex (you did everything right and it happened anyway)
Intelligent (you've learned something you can apply next time).
Not every miss needs a new habit, some just need a note.
Biggest bottlenecks on your desk: market, process, activity, skill, discipline, or infrastructure?
Step 4: Time And Activity Audit
Roughly what percentage of your week goes to new business development, versus existing account delivery, versus admin?
What's the one activity you know moves the needle that you've been avoiding or deprioritising?
Are your current non-negotiables, calls, meetings, CVs sent, actually the ones producing your best fees, or are you optimising for busy?
Step 5: Behavioural And Skill Scorecard
Rate yourself 1 to 10 on each. Be brutally honest, high performers are.
BD outreach consistency.
Discovery calls.
Job qualification.
candidate control.
Objection handling.
Follow-up discipline.
Negotiation.
Time management.
Recovery after setbacks.
Using tools and automation well.
Personal brand presence.
Relationship building.
Market knowledge.
Reflect On:
Scores that surprised you most, and why?
Which one or two skills would change your earnings the most if you improved them before year-end?
Step 6: Market Context
What's changed in your market this year that's outside your control? How has it actually affected your numbers?
Has your average fee or terms moved with the market, or have you been slow to adjust?
Step 7: Your H2 Plan, Reverse Engineered
Revenue Target
H2 target:
Quarterly:
Monthly:
Weekly:
Example: £300K H2 target = £150K quarterly = £50K monthly = £12,500 weekly.
Placement Target
Average deal size:
Placements needed for H2:
Quarterly / Monthly / Weekly:
Activity Success Metrics (based on your best month or quarter)
CVs per placement:
Jobs needed weekly:
Client meetings weekly:
Candidate meetings weekly:
New clients or hiring managers added weekly:
Non-Negotiables For H2. List the behaviours you must execute weekly to hit target.
Pipeline and Focus
What's already in your pipeline for H2 that you're confident will land? What's the value of it?
Which two or three clients are you going to stop chasing in H2 because the ROI on your time isn't there?
What five to ten clients are you going to be laser focused on for the rest of the year?
Who is reviewing this plan with you, and when's your first check-in?
Check back against this monthly, not just once.
Ask three questions: am I on track with my timeline, am I doing what I said I would, and is the target still the right one?
Step 8: Pipeline Confidence Plan
Your dip protocol. When performance drops, what will you immediately do? Calls, meetings, accountability, a reset routine?
Your weekly pipeline minimum baseline. Minimum qualified jobs, minimum interviews, minimum meetings.
Who will you hold yourself accountable to?
Step 9: Your H2 Anti-Goals
What will you stop doing?
Examples: working low-fee roles, taking rubbish job briefs, saying yes to low-quality clients, avoiding difficult BD, hoping deals close instead of controlling them.
List yours.
Step 10: Recharge And Refocus
What achievement are you most proud of from H1?
What will you do to reward yourself before diving into H2?
What do you want more of in H2? What do you want less of?
Finish this sentence: "For the rest of this year, I commit to becoming the recruiter who..."
Save this newsletter edition. It's built to be run once a quarter, not once a year.
THIS WEEK ON THE POD
Brad Lewington, former CEO of Spencer Ogden, spent his first year building Generative across too many niches at once, chasing every deal, none of it compounding.
It was a mid-year gut check in summer 2025 that changed the trajectory.
He killed every "island" but one, went all in on a single ICP, and the business has now done more revenue in the last three months than the first fifteen combined.
If you want proof that a proper mid-year reset isn't a soft exercise, this episode is it.
Full conversation on the pod this week.
LEAVE WITH THIS
If nothing changed about how you worked between now and December, would you actually hit the number you want, or just hope you would?
Keep smashing it & honing your craft!
Hishem x
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