Why Heighten Your Hiring Efforts During the Holidays

While the end of the year is when almost everyone–including recruiters– slows down, you can still look to the holidays as a time to boost the way you hire

Temperatures are dipping slightly. Many retail shops are offering discounts. In the office, colleagues are increasingly going on vacation. There’s the frequent dialogue between executives about what’s left of this year’s company budget and talk of funding and planning for the next.  It’s unmistakable. The holiday season is indeed here.

It’s that time to say thanks, spread joy… and boost the company’s hiring efforts.

Let’s face it, the end of the year presents several different hiring challenges. For some, this is the time when they begin seeing the most attrition, as some employees decide to resign to be able to work elsewhere as the new year begins. For others, this is when they are least successful hiring, as the candidates they want are sometimes not keen on jumping into a new job, often due to the unlikelihood they can take time off to spend with family if they do.

Whichever the reason for the slowdown in hiring, it doesn’t mean it’s also the time to coast until the new year. On the contrary, the holidays are actually the ideal time to enhance your hiring. Not sure why? The following are some reasons (and ways) worth considering.

Job candidates have a little more free time

Indeed the holiday season is a period when many professionals are taking time off, be it as planned vacations or just spending leave credits that are set to expire at the end of the year. Either way, they have more free time, some of which is spent online to see your company’s job ads, social media posts, and other forms of employer branding.

The free time professionals have, especially at the end of the year, is also when many of them tend to ponder their future. This makes them not only more receptive to new career opportunities but also more willing to go to job interviews– easily in your company if you reach out to them even if it’s the holidays.

Your hiring managers and executives may also be a little freer too

For some companies, the holiday season also usually means reduced workloads, with hiring managers and executives being no exception. In most organizations, there are lesser scheduled meetings, out-of-office tasks, or professional conferences to attend. As a result, hiring managers are generally in the office with little reason to not be available to review candidate resumes and to interview.

If this is the case in your company, take this as an opportunity to zero in on the candidates you like, going as far as providing them job offers–which your hiring managers and/or executives are more available to quickly sign off on– even before the year ends.

Job candidates will be online a lot

As previously mentioned, most professionals find themselves with some semblance of free time during the holidays. And as it is “the season”, some of this is spent contacting friends, online shopping, and posting pictures and sending greetings. If using the time to also reassess their career paths, they also likely updating their professional profiles or outright looking for work.

This makes the holidays an opportune time to ramp up on your company’s online presence and invest in employer branding or, at least, be more engaging in social media. Make sure your prospective employees know who you are and how great it is to work with you–perhaps, since it is the holidays, highlighting the company’s related events and initiatives.

They’ll also be on mobile a little more

Mobile has always been an effective hiring tool and during the “slack period” common to the holidays, candidates become more likely to answer as they are also expecting to be contacted by friends and family during the season. So while you or your company don’t commonly do cold calls to reach prospective job candidates, the last month and a half may prove to be an effective time to consider doing so.

Not only are they more likely to answer, but most will also have a little more time to spare for a discussion as they wait in line at the cashier as they shop for gifts, are the midst of their commute between holiday events, or at home spending the aforementioned leave credits that they don’t want to just expire.

You have a little less recruitment competition to deal with

By December, most company budgets are on their last legs, and that includes those of HR and recruitment departments. For those who’ve planned poorly, this often means little to no recruitment at year-end, giving you your prospective candidates’ full attention.

Compounding this is the already mentioned lull in the office that results in having fewer people coming in for the holidays, where recruiters choose not to do too much because “no one’s really around.” So being active now means encountering less of your competition, and being able to recruit and hire quicker and more smoothly.

Not everyone observes the holiday

While the Philippines is majorly Catholic, there remains a significant portion of the population who does not observe the holidays. These can range from people who have different religions or beliefs, to those who are in professions that don’t quite accommodate the season (e.g. BPO employees, doctors, or those in emergency services).

With that said, it is business as usual for many of them, and while the rest of the population is busy with the holidays, it is they who you can also reach out to discuss new opportunities with. If they are truly not taking part in the season, they likely won’t mind speaking with you on the phone of coming in for an interview, even amidst the holiday rush.

It’s an ideal time to plan and to improve your hiring process

Even if you decide not to heighten your hiring efforts at the end of the year, the slowdown that comes with the holidays is still an ideal time to work on your recruitment processes and strategies.  With a year’s worth of hiring results and other metrics, you can also reassess the systems you use.

In particular, you should focus your planning on taking advantage of mobile, and consider using comprehensive platforms like Kalibrr, to streamline your hiring process– not only in terms of being able to reach more qualified candidates, but also effectively correspond with them throughout the process and keep record of all your applicants and successful hires.

Need help with recruitment? Sign up for Kalibrr and start hiring better today! 

Kalibrr is a technology company that aims to transform how candidates find jobs and how companies hire talent. Placing the candidate experience at the center of everything it does, the company continues to attract the best talent from all over, with over 2.7 million professionals and counting. Kalibrr ultimately connects these talents to companies in search of their next generation of leaders.

The only end-to-end recruitment solutions provider in Southeast Asia, Kalibrr is headquartered in Makati, Philippines, with offices in San Francisco, California, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Established in 2012, it has served over 18,000 clients and is backed by some of the world’s most powerful start-up incubators and venture capitalists. These include Y Combinator, Omidyar Network, Patamar Capital, Wavemaker Partners, and Kickstart Ventures.

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