At the time of writing it is the second week of November! Whether to hire or not for Christmas will depend on your industry.
If you are in retail or hospitality or looking for seasonal jobs, you’re not too late but you will need to get a move on to meet the Christmas deadline. Indeed recommends to job seekers looking for seasonal work to ideally start looking in September/October.
This will give you more time to hire the right people and induct and train them ready for the Christmas rush but you can continue and fill in last minute roles, particularly for seasonal temp roles that people can do around their main jobs.
If you are looking at corporate or skilled roles then really you have missed the chance to get them in before Christmas. If you take the timescale of placing an advert, shortlisting and interviewing takin up to 4 weeks and then your new employee having a minimum 1-month notice period, you are going to be looking at a January start date. So, if you want to get someone secured ready to start in the new year then there is no need to delay advertising. Your ideal candidate may be scrolling the job boards in the Christmas break looking for a fresh start in the new year.
What to do if you are hiring for Christmas?
Keep your process simple, you are likely to be juggling the hiring process alongside other seasonal priorities so have a streamlined application, shortlisting and interview set up that allows you to communicate with applicants easily and make decisions.
Be clear about what you want. Save time wasting on people applying because they thought the job was different, the hours don’t suit them or the location was wrong. If you need someone to start right away – say that in your advert! You may need to pay slightly more to attract talent now or to entice people to work unsocial hours over the festive period.
If you want support hiring now for Christmas Slice are still here! We can get the job ad out for you and screen candidates, saving you time to only see those who meet the criteria.