A Recruit-Mas Story
by Momina Hanan, Consultant
With the festive period soon approaching, what better time could it be to learn a seasonal lesson? With this being my 3rd Christmas in the industry, there are a number of lessons which I will not only personally carry through to 2024 but a word of warning to all my clients, you might never hear the end of…
Process foresight
‘Time is the most valuable thing a person can spend’ seems apt for this time of year, but I didn’t realise just how applicable it would be to recruitment. Where potential December disappointments can be avoided, is by planning processes backwards. Beginning with the last office day, allowing a week for contracts and resignations, having a potential 2-3 days for an offer to be presented after a final stage, all the way through to the start point of a briefing. Sort of like an advent calendar but with fewer chocolates and more emails? Understanding where we, from all three avenues, have time and where we do not is crucial and will lead to a concise process, leading to much merriment all around.
Timing of an offer
Presenting an offer is arguably the most exciting part of a recruitment process both from the candidates and our point of view, and the power of a well-timed offer really cannot be argued against. So when we as an office have had 3 different clients in the space of one week say to us, “if they aren’t still excited by us over Christmas, then they aren’t right for us”, I take a very deep breath. Flip the situation: you have just been offered an incredible job opportunity after a 2-3 week process, sometimes even longer. The compensation is exactly what you asked for or above, the benefits package is compelling and the culture of the company is one you can see yourself growing into. In the alternative scenario, it’s a weekday night and you toast ‘well done’ to completing a process. Before you know it, it’s the weekend and you’ve kept your phone on loud all week. Okay, it’s Monday morning and still no news… and then it’s the week before Christmas…now it’s the gap between Christmas and New Year...suddenly it’s the second week of January 2024…hmm. Would you be jumping to sign a contract by that point? Keeping both momentum and candidates keen doesn’t end when the interviews do and it’s more important than ever that companies are seen as decisive and engaged, as not only does it feed into the talent market, but starts a new professional relationship off on the best foot.
Be patient
We had 3 working weeks of December this year and that’s not allowing for annual leave being taken the week before Christmas. This is an open apology to my November and December clients for my relentless timeline framing. However, something I have learnt from this year is that we all have less control than we thought and that comes from both the client and candidate side, with us as headhunters sat in the middle. December is one of the most inflexible months for diaries, and whilst one side might be flexing more than the other, giving and receiving complete clarity in terms of the last working days and availability of team members as an example makes all the difference in managing expectations and having control over a process.
Candidate market remains active, clients…?
The festive break is a well-deserved slice of time off, and I will be the last person to play Ebenezer, but it is interesting to see the difference in approaches between candidates and clients. Working days are wrapping up from mid-December whereas most candidates are happy to continue conversations until the last working day. This does make sense in terms of the difficulty in organising multiple employees vs one candidate, but this is where process foresight (see above) becomes incredibly important. It also means that, as per my second point, understanding that timelines, even when they are in the same process, will be of different lengths and gaps in communication will seem longer and more drawn out to one party compared to the other. Questioning if we can have more virtual calls at the start of the process and informal meets, allowing for erratic diaries or people not being in the city is an adjustment that can be made to prevent a 3-week gap in a process.
MadlinHanna Consulting is a recruitment consultancy specialising in public affairs, corporate communications and financial PR. Contact us in London on +44 (0) 20 8088 4102 or in Brussels on +32 (0) 2 586 38 98 for more information or a confidential conversation about these services and more.