The decorations are up, the office parties are looming, and for many organisations that means one thing: tasks and to-do lists are being delayed for January 2025. If you’re putting a pin in hiring plans until the New Year, you’re not alone. We get it – it’s a busy time, and between the Christmas festivities and your team’s annual leave it can be difficult to get a response to an email, let alone schedule a face-to-face interview with multiple hiring managers! So, we thought we’d share a few tips with our clients, 9 actions to be precise, that if you can do this month, we guarantee it will remove multiple hiring headaches in the New Year!
Map out known hiring plans for 2025
Without a crystal ball it’s impossible to know the exact hiring requirements you have ahead for 2025, however you should be able to map out known growth plans based upon upcoming projects / business objectives. Consider when you plan to onboard this talent, look at your average time to fill a role, and consider the average notice periods attached for candidates (1-3 months for a permanent employee). If you need permanent employees on board before April 2025, waiting to move on recruitment until January could leave you exposed, so our advice would be to at least advertise / reach out to a recruiter this month to get the ball rolling.
Nail down budgets and process
If you have a fixed recruitment budget for 2025 then you can factor this into your hiring strategy now. Look at your candidate sources from the past 12 months for different job functions, locations and departments. Which platforms / sources performed well, and which didn’t give you as good a return on investment? Use data to drive better hiring decisions in 2025! If you are planning on using a recruitment agency to help with the hard to fill role, consider what process you will need to follow to do so. Signing terms of business, completing supplier questionnaires and tendering for PSL’s can all be actioned in December, saving any delays next year.
Measure employee engagement
Hiring for growth can be a challenge, but if you are coupling this with hiring for replacing unhappy employees then your job will become a whole lot harder (and more expensive). Use this month to check-in with your people, gather feedback and measure engagement levels. If there are any areas of concern, you can start to implement positive changes before it’s too late.
Check the employee experience
Employee engagement surveys will naturally feed into the employee experience itself, so use this month as a time to check-in with yours alongside key stakeholders in the business. What changes did you implement in the past 12 months? How were these received? What do your people love about working for your company, what would they change if they could? You want to ensure you are delivering enough to retain your best people and attract future hires to come to work for you too.
Benchmark your salaries
Companies who do not offer transparent salaries, at market rate or above are at risk of losing key talent and failing to recruit the right people in 2025. If you only do one thing this month, we suggest you look at average salaries for your roles, so you can plan accordingly for recruitment and retention plans next year.
Update your employer brand footprint
Your employer brand footprint is essentially what perceptions a candidate will have of working for you. Elements like your careers page on your website, your social channels, your Glassdoor, employee advocacy content, company profiles on job boards etc. have the power to attract or repel talent. Check-in with all of yours and make sure information is up to date and working to promote all the positives of working for you!
Advertise your vacancies
Christmas can be a brilliant time to attract candidates, because many are off work and starting to think about life changes for the following year. We often see an increase in application rates from 27th December onwards, so if you wait to advertise until January then you could be missing out on talent to competitors who thought ahead. Combine clear candidate expectations (e.g. date for application response, interview timescales, start dates) with automation tools to ensure the candidate experience isn’t affected by any office closures over the Christmas period.
Interview candidates before the New Year
We know not everyone can do this; however, we have had great success for clients who are able to interview candidates in December. Firstly, the competition is way lower than interviewing in January – so your chances of a candidate accepting an offer shoot up massively this month. Secondly, candidates are way more available – especially if you can accommodate interviews over Zoom / MS Teams, and you can often move the process along a lot quicker than usual.
Reach out to a recruiter
If you want the ultimate solution to hiring headaches in 2025, then reach out to a recruiter (like Senitor) in December. Recruiters will be able to: Advise on talent pool activity for specific vacancies, advise on timescales for notice periods, provide salary insights, offer competitor package insights, share candidate motivations to move, and even start building a candidate pipeline for you ready for your return in January 2025. We’ll pop our details below in case you’re curious:
UK: 0800 980 9535 – info@senitor.com
Ireland: +353 1584 6866 – info@senitor.com
