What is the best time of the year to recruit?
That may seem a dumb question – you recruit whenever you have a need to, especially if the vacancy has been generated by someone leaving your organisation and you need to replace them as soon as possible.
But, particularly if your recruitment need is being driven by a medium or long term strategy, it can be possible to control when you hire. And the success of your recruitment process can, in part, depend on the time of year.
January is typically a good time – after a bit of time off to unwind, and maybe with some New Year’s resolutions in support, people are often open to the idea of changing roles so the response to adverts and direct approaches is relatively good. This carries on into the spring but things start to slow down as summer arrives and, once the school holidays start, it becomes harder to drive recruitment projects forward – whether its decision makers internally or the population of people you’re trying to appeal to, half of them seem to be absent at any given moment. However, once the schools return and everyone’s pushing on to year end with no bank holidays to distract them, autumn is another good period. Year after year, January to March and September to November have been my busiest times.
And then it’s Christmas, which comes with a recommendation from me: do not run leadership level recruitment projects over the festive break but either finish them before or postpone them to January. The risk otherwise is that you spend December gaining momentum, securing buy-in from stakeholders, building interest and generating excitement in the position only for it all to evaporate in a cloud of mince pies. Rebuilding it in January can prove harder than you think.
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