This presents an opportune time for hiring managers’ to make the most of the New Year job market, but how exactly do you capitalise on this peak time?
Here’s some tried and tested tips for New Year recruiting.
Reach out to your Network
Reach out to people in your network and nurture your relationships. Sending a “New Year” greetings is an easy way to start a conversation. Re-connect with former colleagues, contractors, candidates and prospects in your talent pipeline via email, social media or organise a coffee catch up. Independent contractors are often looking for new engagements in January and early February. Seize this limited window of opportunity to open conversations with potential candidates before they become focused on new projects or committed to new contracts.
Hone your Job Descriptions
A prime requirement is to have, not just adequate job descriptions for your recruitment campaign, but excellent, detailed and well written job descriptions that clearly define your needs, the role and the qualities of the people required. This enables you to make objective selection decisions, rather than having to continually rely on ‘gut feelings’.
Revisit your Job Postings
The new year is a perfect opportunity to revisit your job postings and their effectiveness. Language is key for attracting candidates, while following SEO best practices is crucial for reaching candidates. Evaluate, or re-evaluate the way you are reaching the target market audience.
Push Social Media
If you’re hiring, it’s essential to push your social media content. With the new year, social media news feeds will be buzzing about resolutions and #goals – don’t miss out on the opportunity to use hashtags in your favour and target the audience you’re after. While you’re at it, take a look at your competitors’ activities. Are they recruiting at the same time in a big way? This needn’t be a bad thing as your brand may piggy back on their efforts, but it may not be a good thing either. You need to make sure you are at least aware of what your rivals are doing and plan accordingly.
Don’t forget the Candidate Experience
As with any recruitment campaign, you need to spend a bit of time planning what steps you’ll take to get the right person for the job. If you’re plan is to conduct a phone interview, face to face interview, psychometric testing and reference checking as part of your process, manage candidate expectations early on and communicate your time frames clearly. Send the message that you value each candidates time and effort.