The month of December is usually a time when businesses begin to wind down for the holiday season. The focus shifts to completing end-of-year goals and finishing projects before annual leave — finding employees is not often top of the to-do list, with many hoping to begin fresh in January.
By hiring staff in December, you can limit competition and may be able to secure top talent who may otherwise have received multiple offers.
Hiring in December is so effective because many employees choose to make the transition into a new role in the New Year, after spending the Christmas break assessing their career plan.
Conducting your recruitment in December allows you to begin the dialogue before other employers have started looking to fill vacancies.
1. Identify your hiring needs
The first step in recruiting talent is to perform a skills gap analysis for your team, to look ahead to initiatives in the coming year, and to assess how much budget you have. This will help you identify whether you need a permanent or temporary employee and will reveal which skills and competencies they should have.
2. Contact a recruitment company
There are only 3 working weeks in which to conduct hiring in December, so it makes sense to maximise the time by working with a recruitment expert to help you speed things up. Not only do they have an efficient process for screening CVs and interviewing candidates, they also have access to a pool of quality candidates, some of which may not be on the market yet.
3. Onboard before the Christmas break
The best time for hiring is a period which allows for a comfortable transition from one role to the next. If you move fast, you can find and hire a candidate in time to onboard them before the holiday break. This gives them the opportunity to start get up to speed and understand the basics to that they can start at pace with everyone else in the team at the beginning of the New Year.
