Traditionally, and most certainly back in my day, unless you were manning a temp desk Christmas was an utterly dead time and you started winding down mid month. I distinctly remember spending the last week taking 3 hour lunch breaks and wrapping presents at my desk – along with the rest of the team.
I think it’s true that Christmas is often a tricky time to be in the middle; matching up jobseekers with employers? However, with the advent of technology and the market in general there are some questions worth considering:
Are there now more jobseekers at this time of the year?
It’s still an employers market and as such active jobseekers really can’t risk missing out on any job opportunities
How do you approach finding the right people?
Without doubt the evolution of technology over the last 5 years has made this process easier and less time intensive. Yes you still need to source the right people for active roles – but ‘keeping your finger in the pie’ is possible with some carefully placed tweets and Facebook/LinkedIN updates.
How do you sift through the glut of seasonal CVs?
For temp controllers it’s sometimes a struggle to find that needle in a haystack but equally sometimes it’s tricky to actually fight through the mountain of seemingly good matches for a role. Decent CV parsing and a good CRM is the key here (I’m writing a blog post about that right now which should be live later this week).
Do you find any frustrations with not having decision makers around at Christmas?
As I say many many people do start their wind down mid month but we now have a multitude of ways to engage regardless of where your client is and what they are doing.
Rather handily Reed.co.uk have conducted a survey of over 1000 individuals asking them their thoughts on work over the Christmas period. The results do make for interesting reading:
- A third of people will be at their workplace during the Christmas period, with a further 10 per cent working from home.
- Whilst 46 per cent of workplaces are closed between Christmas and New Year 56 per cent of people will be checking their work emails on Christmas Day this year.
- The majority of people have checked their work email on Christmas Day.
- 77 per cent of people would work on Christmas Day if it secured them a new job.
So, whilst I’m not suggesting calling a jobseeker whilst they are enjoying their Turkey dinner it might not seem so out of place to properly research and then contact your target candidate in the days immediately before and after Christmas. You may just get in ahead of your competition and secure a nice placement going into that VERY quiet January (when it seems everyone is away skiing!!).
