This isn’t a blog for underperformers.
This is for the recruiter who’s already good, or for the team manager that has good recruiters that they know can be great. The ones that are billing, trusted, respected. Consistent enough to be absolute weapons.
But it still feels like they’re leaving something on the table.
Not because they’re lazy.
Not because they don’t care.
But because some very normal, usually praised habits that help build good recruiters, may actually start to cap performance at higher levels.
Let’s go deeper.
1. Overthinking: When Experience Turns Into Friction
High performers earn the right to think more.
They’ve seen all the patterns. They’ve had big wins. They’ve been burnt. They know what can go right or wrong.
The issue is when this experience begins to turn into hesitation.
Psychologist Barry Schwartz calls this “the paradox of choice” – the more knowledge, options and considerations you have, the harder it becomes to act decisively.
In recruitment, this can show up as:
- Rewriting messages instead of sending them
- Second-guessing shortlists that are already strong
- Waiting for “one more signal” or “more information” before making the call
- Assuming the future actions of a client or candidate based on the patterns of others
Sometimes this is being thorough. Maybe you don’t have all the information you need (if so, just go get it), but often – you’re buffering against predicted discomfort. And if I’ve learnt anything from my nearly 20 years in recruitment it’s that fear & optimism have ONE thing in common – they’re both based on something that hasn’t happened yet.
And the recruitment market doesn’t reward hesitation. It rewards speed and clarity.
What to do instead
- Set a decision clock: if a task takes under 10 minutes to execute, don’t think about it for more than 2.
- Ask one question only: What’s the next best action? Not the perfect one.
- Default to sending, calling, or moving forward — the market gives better feedback than your head ever will.
2. Perfectionism: The “High-Standards” Trap
Perfectionism loves to dress up as professionalism.
“I don’t want to rush it.”
“I hold myself to a high bar.”
“I don’t cut corners.”
Here’s the problem.
Research by Brené Brown links perfectionism not to excellence, but to fear of judgement and failure. It’s not about doing great work. It’s about avoiding being wrong.
My Marketing & Creative Manager – Beth will tell you that this was her problem for the longest time. Fear of creating content that would flop, fear of putting things out there that weren’t perfect. But all the hesitation was doing was preventing anything actually being put out there. When she let go of the fear of something falling over and putting it out anyway, she was able to gather data on what worked and what didn’t – a far more accurate and reliable indicator.
In recruitment, perfectionism quietly costs you similar things:
- Momentum
- Volume
- Learning cycles & opportunities
Top billers don’t necessarily outperform others because they get it right more often.
They outperform because they get higher quantities of feedback from the market faster.
High standards should increase throughput, not slow it.
What to do instead
- Define minimum viable action for core tasks (shortlist, outreach, follow-up).
- Ship at 80%. Learn from the response. Adjust on the next rep.
- Measure speed to market, not just quality of output.
Your standards should accelerate flow, not restrict it.
3. Intensity Over Consistency: The Unsustainable High Performer Loop
Most strong recruiters know how to turn it on.
They can sprint.
They can smash a big week.
They can rescue a slow month.
But they live in cycles:
- Big push
- Mental fatigue
- Reactive clean-up
- Guilt
- Repeat
James Clear (Atomic Habits & one of my absolute faves) talks about how systems & habits outperform goals long-term. Intensity wins moments. Systems win careers.
Recruitment rewards:
- Repeatable actions
- Predictable energy
- Boring excellence
If your performance graph looks like peaks and crashes, that is telling you something.
That there’s a lack of rhythm. A lack of repeatable habits and systems that are causing your peaks and troughs. This is totally fixable through analysis of your patterns & habits.
Consistency is absolutely the real flex at the top end.
What to do instead
- Build non-negotiable daily actions (calls, outreach, candidate movement) and protect them ruthlessly.
- Cap your “hero days” – big pushes should be planned, not emotional.
- Design your week for repeatability, not adrenaline.
4. Motivation as Fuel (Instead of Habits and Structure)
This is the ceiling most high performers don’t realise they’ve hit.
When you feel good, you’re absolutely elite.
When you don’t, you drift (and we’ve all been there – the brain fog, the lack of focus or purpose).
Neuroscience backs this up. Motivation as a fuel is chemically volatile. It fluctuates based on sleep, stress, diet, environment, and emotional load. It’s unreliable by design.
Elite performers don’t not have low-motivation days.
They just remove decision-making from them when they occur.
Calendars over feelings.
Standards over moods.
Structure over hope.
In James Clear fashion…
You don’t rise to your best days.
You fall to your systems.
What to do instead
- Pre-load your calendar with revenue actions before anything else.
- Decide in advance what happens on low-energy days.
- Track adherence to process, not how inspired you felt.
The Hard Truth About Recruitment High Performers
These habits didn’t make you bad at recruitment. In fact, they probably helped make you good.
But the habits that get you to “good” can block the path to “great”.
At higher levels:
- Effort matters less
- Structure matters more
- Identity matters most
It’s kind of like taking a well-tuned road car into an F1 race – there’s nothing wrong with it, it drives just fine, it gets you from A>B, it’s just the wrong tool for the level you’re trying to achieve.
At that level, the difference isn’t talent, it’s setup.
Aero. Tyres. Data. Pit strategy.
Margins that don’t matter in lower categories suddenly decide everything.
So you don’t drive harder.
You don’t blame the car.
You change the setup.
In recruitment for high performance at the next level this looks like:
Better systems.
Cleaner standards.
Repeatable behaviour.
