We’re heading into the final quarter of 2026 (gosh, doesn’t that sound weird to say out loud.. where did the year go?)

Many recruiters struggle with how to finish the year strong, especially when the holiday season approaches.

And this is normally where recruiters go one of two ways.

They see Christmas getting closer and mentally start winding down.

Or they realise there are still some of the best recruiting months of the year sitting in front of them and get very bloody intentional about how they use them.

I’m firmly in camp two.

But there’s an important caveat.

You cannot sprint forever.

I love a sprint. Give me a 10 or 11-week period where we put our heads down, push hard and go after a target.

But eventually a sprint becomes a jog.

Then the quality drops.

Your energy goes.

You start doing more hours for less output.

So if you’ve had a massive Q3 and you’re reading this feeling absolutely depleted, my first piece of advice might sound slightly strange in an article about finishing the year strong:

Take a bloody break.

Seriously.

If you didn’t already book something over the school holidays, take five days off.

You don’t even need to go anywhere.

Have a staycation.

Sleep.

Eat well.

Laugh.

Touch some grass.

Put your feet in the sand.

Do something completely different that helps you properly switch off.

And DON’T spend five days doing chores while periodically checking your emails and calling it annual leave.

Nothing is going to burn.

Nothing is going to break.

Because October, November and December can be brilliant recruitment months.

By implementing some effective strategies now, you can truly finish the year strong.

And I’d much rather you come into them sharp, rested and ready to go than drag yourself through another three months at 60%.

Then, before you disappear, there are a few things I’d do.

1. Close, close, close.

Start with the deals already sitting in your pipeline.

What’s closest to the money?

What can move now?

What conversations haven’t happened yet?

Where could this deal fall over?

At ALRA we do something I call twilighting.

Basically, talk your deals through with someone else in their twilight hours.

“I’ve got this candidate here. This is where they’re at. This is what the client has said. This is what I know.”

Then let the other person poke holes in it.

• What are you missing?
• Have you properly qualified salary?
• Counteroffer?
• Notice period?
• Other interviews?
• Decision-makers?
• Who else needs to sign off?
• Is there something nobody is saying because it’s an awkward conversation?

Have the bloody conversation.

Time absolutely kills recruitment deals. We know this.

And the end of a quarter or school holiday period makes that even more dangerous because suddenly decision-makers disappear, interviews get pushed back and something that should have taken three days takes two weeks.

The longer a placement hangs around, the more opportunities there are for something to change.

So don’t leave avoidable loose ends hanging over a break.

Tighten the placement.

Get the signatures.

Get it closed.

2. Make your bed for Q4.

This is probably my favourite way to think about the end of a quarter.

Make your bed for the next one before you leave.

You don’t want to come back after a week off and spend another two weeks trying to remember what the hell you were doing.

You want to walk back in and know exactly where you’re marching.

So before you leave:

• Which jobs will still be live?
• Which clients are hiring?
• Which roles could you convert to retained?
• Which candidates do you need coming through?
• What advertising can go live?
• What emails can go out?
• What LinkedIn content can be working?
• What candidate marketing can you have in market?

Get your fishing nets out before you leave.

Then while you’re off touching grass and ignoring your inbox, you’ve still got things working for you.

Best-case scenario?

You come back rested with an inbox full of relevant candidates and conversations ready to go.

That’s a much better start to Q4 than:

Righto. What should I work on today?

Because if you don’t get moving until November, you’re leaving yourself bugger-all runway.

3. Clear the annoying sh*t off your desk.

Boring one.

Sorry.

Do it anyway.

Invoicing.

CRM updates.

Pipeline trackers.

Job lists.

Inbox.

Desktop.

Physical desk.

That horrible little to-do list you’ve been avoiding because every task takes seven minutes and none of them are remotely interesting.

Spend half a day and smash through it.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Done.

There is something bloody satisfying about walking away from your desk knowing there isn’t a giant pile of annoying admin waiting to smack you in the face when you get back.

Clear desk.

Clear mind.

Take the break.

Then come back ready to work.

4. Know what you’re actually chasing

Once you’re back, don’t just start running.

What does finishing 2026 strongly actually mean for you?

Another $100k in revenue?

Three new retained clients?

Five new hiring managers?

A certain number of placements?

Building a healthier pipeline for January?

There needs to be something you’re aiming at.

Then work backwards.

This is something I’ve become increasingly big on: understanding your own recruitment data.

If you need another $100k, what normally has to happen on your desk to produce $100k?

• How many placements?
• How many jobs?
• How many client meetings?
• How many proper BD conversations?
• How many call reps?

Your numbers are your numbers.

I’m much more interested in those than some generic KPI sheet telling every recruiter they need to make X calls.

Once you understand your own conversion data, a big end-of-year target becomes much less intimidating.

You’re not chasing $100k today.

You’re chasing the inputs that, historically, tend to create the outcome.

5. Don’t wait for motivation to arrive

Because some mornings it won’t.

Especially as Christmas gets closer.

You’ll get beautiful weather.

Long lunches start appearing.

Clients disappear.

Christmas parties kick off.

And there’ll be mornings where another hour of BD sounds about as appealing as licking the office carpet (and we all know sh*t has gone down on that carpet…)

Do it anyway – the recruitment stuff, not the carpet.

One of the strongest themes I heard this year when I interviewed some of Australia’s highest-billing recruiters for the Million Dollar Mindset Series was the importance of daily habits and consistency.

Not being insanely motivated every day.

Not discovering some secret sales technique.

Doing the things that work consistently.

If your habit is making your calls every morning, make the calls.

If it’s taking candidates to market, do it.

If Friday is pipeline follow-up day, follow up the pipeline.

Be careful with the little exceptions.

Because one missed day becomes two.

Two becomes a week.

And pretty quickly you’ve accidentally built a new habit of not doing the thing.

You don’t need every day to be your best day.

You just need enough good days stacked together.

6. Protect your energy through the final sprint

This year I spent a lot of time talking about sustainable high performance.

Partly through the Million Dollar Mindset podcast series.

Then across Australia through our RCSA LAUNCH: Mindset of a Million Dollar Biller sessions.

The same themes kept appearing:

Mindset.

Energy.

Resilience.

Daily habits.

Belief.

And I reckon energy becomes particularly important late in the year.

Recruitment is an energy game.

You’re talking to people.

Selling.

Negotiating.

Handling rejection.

Problem-solving.

Trying to sound enthusiastic about a job you’ve already explained 47 times.

If you’re completely cooked, people can hear it.

So pay attention to yourself.

Sleep properly.

Train.

Get outside.

Take an actual lunch break.

Eat properly.

I did a full health analysis this year and somehow, at 40 years old, needed someone to remind me how to eat lunch properly.

Eat slower.

Get away from the desk.

Go outside.

Apparently revolutionary stuff.

But high performance isn’t about seeing how long you can redline yourself.

It’s about being able to keep performing.

Sprint.

Recover.

Sprint again.

7. Get better at moving on when sh*t goes wrong

Because something will.

A candidate will pull out.

A client will change direction.

A job will disappear.

A placement you’ve mentally banked will fall over.

Recruitment.

The best recruiters I’ve worked with aren’t magically unaffected by this stuff.

They get pissed off too.

The difference is how quickly they move from reaction into problem-solving mode.

What can I control?

What’s my next move?

How do I keep momentum here?

That’s the switch.

Because sitting there replaying what happened doesn’t fix anything.

It just burns energy you could be using somewhere else.

Recruitment rewards people who keep moving.

8. Don’t confuse doing MORE with doing BETTER

This is another end-of-year trap.

You’re behind target.

So suddenly it’s:

MORE CALLS.

MORE EMAILS.

MORE HOURS.

MORE EVERYTHING.

Maybe.

But first I’d work out why you’re behind.

I had one of my own consultants hit a point where his market simply wasn’t producing.

The traditional recruitment response would have been to ramp up the KPIs.

Instead, we took the KPI pressure off and looked at the actual problem.

We repositioned the desk.

His previous billing year was around $300k and he moved towards a $600k year.

Another consultant narrowed his market focus and started winning significantly more retained work.

Sometimes the answer isn’t more activity.

It’s better activity.

Diagnose before you prescribe.

9. Don’t mentally clock off because Christmas decorations appear

Every year you’ll hear it.

“No one hires in December.”

“Everyone’s checked out.”

“There’s no point doing BD now.”

I. Call. Bullshit.

Yes, some people disappear.

Some hiring gets pushed into the new year.

But people don’t stop resigning because Mariah Carey starts playing at Woolies.

Businesses still have problems.

Hiring managers still need people.

And even when the hire isn’t happening today, the conversation can still matter.

January is coming.

Budgets reset.

People resign over the break.

New hiring plans kick in.

The relationship you strengthen in November could become the job you pick up in January.

Stay in the market.

10. Make your bed for January too

Exactly the same principle as preparing for Q4.

Don’t create a January problem you could have solved before Christmas.

• Who do you want to speak to when you return?
• Which clients have hiring plans?
• Which candidates are likely to move?
• Which relationships have gone quiet?
• What meetings could already be booked?
• What conversations can you start now?

I love properly switching off over Christmas.

But I don’t want to come back, open my laptop and start from zero.

I want things waiting for me.

Make January’s bed before you leave.

11. Review the year properly

Before you disappear, give yourself an hour.

Look at 2026.

Not just your final billing number.

• Where did your revenue actually come from?
• Which clients grew?
• Which disappeared?
• Which roles did you fill consistently?
• Where did you waste time?
• What BD actually produced something?
• Which habits helped?
• What kept falling over?
• What did you avoid because it made you uncomfortable?

And here’s one I really like:

What was different between your best months and your worst months?

Look at the data.

Look at what YOU were doing.

Your results leave breadcrumbs.

There’ll probably be a few answers sitting there that should shape how you approach 2027.

Finish the year. Then switch the f*ck off.

There might be ten weeks left when you read this.

Maybe six.

Maybe three.

Use whatever you’ve got.

Don’t waste half of it beating yourself up because you aren’t where you thought you’d be.

Work out where you are.

Work out what’s still realistically achievable.

Close what’s close.

Make your bed for what’s coming next.

Keep doing the boring things that work.

Protect your energy.

And keep moving when recruitment inevitably punches you in the face.

Then when you finally get to Christmas?

Switch the bloody phone off.

Take the break.

Touch some grass.

And we’ll go again in 2027.

And if you want to hear my full episode on this, CLICK HERE