Why December Isnt Such A Bad Time To Advertise A Job

Why December Isnt Such A Bad Time To Advertise A Job December is such a hectic time of year. Some people preparing for Christmas, others preparing for New Year and other celebrations, its hard to keep up. There has always been this myth about how people dont hire in December but we want to get this straight. Theres lots of reasons why December is a good time of year to advertise a vacancy, even if you have a position open in February, start planning now! Preparation Although you wont be necessary hiring someone in December, the overall hiring process can sometimes take longer than you expect. You may know that someone is getting ready to leave in January to start a new adventure or that you have a fresh new job opening that you want to prepare for. If you know you have a job opening coming up, its worth taking the time with your hiring process, this way you can ensure that you have the best candidate for the job. Some people leave their job advertisements until the very last minute we dont recommend this. The longer you have to advertise, the more detail you can put into your job advert, specifying exactly what you are looking for in a candidate. Its important to take in to consideration any booked holidays that the candidate may have. This may result in them not being available to work until January. Take into consideration how much notice they may have to provide.  Theres no use advertising on 2nd January for a position you are planning to fill  within a week! Annual Leave Lots of people book time off around Christmas to get organised, to spend time with family and some people just need to use their holidays up before the New Year. This makes it a perfect time to organise interviews with people, this way they dont need to try and get time off work, they can try to arrange it on the days they already have off. If you get in touch with someone who has a couple of weeks off over Christmas, this is the perfect opportunity to invite someone for a trial shift. Especially, as your staff may have time booked off themselves, you can give the candidate some of the work that needs doing and see how they settle in, how they manage with the workload and so on. Although you may be throwing them in at the deep end, this is a good way of getting to know candidates abilities. Christmas  Antics Christmas parties and other celebrations during December and January are great opportunities to get to know your colleagues. The new candidate may settle in better due to the happy Christmas atmosphere and get to know the team well. Hiring someone just after the Christmas party means that they missed out on the annual party and sometimes these only happen once a year. (We all know how annoying they are to plan!) Secret Santa is also a great opportunity to be involved in too. The newbie will be trying their best to get to know the people around them in order to know what to buy. All of these little festivities are a great way of encouraging bonding between colleagues. If you have a happy office and a happy team, Im sure this will show in the quality of work. Temp Work People often look for temporary work during the winter months. This is because these are usually the only roles available and its a quick and easy solution to escaping unemployment. Im sure lots of candidates would be happy to see that the role you are advertising is  a more secure opportunity. Perhaps you may be advertising a temp role anyway,  Decembers a perfect opportunity to hire. Some people are looking for temp work to get them through the costly month of December, others are back from University or elsewhere trying to gain experience or fill their time Advantages of the myth Due to the myth, people may postpone their job-hunting until after Christmas. This way, you will receive a smaller candidate pool, enabling you to properly analyse each application and hopefully meet with more candidates, enabling you to get a better judgement. If you have a smaller candidate pool that you are not necessarily happy with, this gives you chance to go back to previous candidates who you think might suit this particular role, or candidates that you said you would keep in mind for the future. Perhaps you were being really organised and you dont need to hire the candidate until mid February, at least you still have time  to advertise the role in January if worst comes to worst. If not, you can sit back and relax through the hectic month of December and the start to the new year knowing that you have filled your upcoming vacancy and you are positive that the candidate you have chosen is perfect for the role. If you have an internal recruiter or you hire someone elsewhere, the myth can mean that recruiters have a lot more spare time to focus on your role and therefore, they can take their time to source amazing candidates. Whether you have decided to start advertising or you are leaving it until January, Good Luck! Heres a little bit of advice on The Advantages of Using  A Niche Job Board.