The Metiss Group's Blog

Many people still make New Year’s Resolutions and begin the new year with much energy and excitement around them.  If you don’t believe this, just try to get on a treadmill at 6:00 pm in any gym from January through about March; they are all occupied by well-intentioned, at least temporarily dedicated people.

One very common resolution is to get a “better” job, or find a boss who appreciates his direct reports, improve home life by finding a job with more reasonable hours, etc.  All of this means great opportunity for you if you plan on doing any hiring in the first quarter of the year.  The reason it impacts you is because otherwise passive candidates are looking for new opportunities even if they have yet to update their resumes.

Historically we advised clients to take advantage of this phenomenon by running advertisements in the first Sunday paper following New Year’s Day.  While the newspapers may no longer be the hot spot for job searching, the logic still applies.  The difference is now you can take advantage of the whole week or two after New Year’s Day, by posting open positions on appropriate internet sites or tapping your network for referrals.

Just remember, after providing a title and maybe one sentence about hard skills required in the role, spend most of your advertisement describing the type of person you seek to fill the position.

Empower your hiring managers in trolling for talent by encouraging their participation in job posting the first week of the year.

This entry was posted on January 3, 2011 at 11:46 am and is filed under Leadership, Selection. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.