December: The best month of the year to recruit

December is upon us and so we have started to hear people saying ‘I don't suppose there will be much recruitment going on before the New Year’ and ‘it is usually difficult recruiting in December isn't it?’.

However, we think December is a cracking month to be recruiting (or to be recruited) and there is a very simple reason for that... January is busy and highly competitive!

Find the time and beat the competition

During January you are busy planning for the year ahead and find that everyone else is too and it is not that easy to coordinate diaries of interviewers and interviewees. By contrast, in December diaries always tend to be a little less busy and interviewees can more easily disappear relatively unnoticed from current jobs to do some Christmas shopping/make an interview.

Everyone recruits in January which means that as a candidate you are up against ‘the world and its wife’ and as an employer you are slap bang in the middle of the war for talent (and forever waiting for your competitors to progress with their interviews so your candidates can ‘compare and contrast’). In December you can get the pick of the bunch and progress the recruitment process at your pace.

Filter out hollow candidates

On the morning of 1st January everyone wakes up, looks at themselves in the mirror and decides that this is the year to find something new, and certainly the time to get paid more. As a prospective employer can you be absolutely sure that the candidate sat in front of you is actually interested in the job that they are talking to you about, or are they just fishing for a counter offer?

On the contrary, in December you can be pretty certain that the candidate you ask in for interview at four o’clock in the afternoon of the last Wednesday before Christmas is damn interested in the job! And how impressive and passionate do you sound as a candidate if you ask for that sort of interview and opportunity?

So if you are planning to be recruiting soon, and are thinking about putting it off until January, stop and think about whether this is the most sensible thing to do or whether December could work better for you.

Wright Solutions have over fourteen years experience in the HR sector and work personally to provide high-calibre candidates for specialist roles in human resources and learning and development.

Please feel free to call us on 0121 222 5599 for an informal discussion or send us an email to info@wrightsolutionsltd.com.