By Derek Gracey
The benefits of interviewing during the holiday season
The holiday season can imply many things, including how insanely busy everyone gets as they try to wrap up projects, visit family and, in some cases, schedule interviews.
While interviewing may not be a huge priority for this time of the year, we believe there are some significant upsides that year-end interviews offer for candidates and hiring authorities alike.
Timing: While it might be hard to squeeze in interviews amidst the end-of-year push, the broader timeline might work in your favor.
| Candidate:
As a candidate, interviewing at the end of the year can have a lot of benefits. Timing is in your favor because it can take several weeks (or months) to get through an interview process. If you start now, you may be able to wrap things up and have a clean start with a new job at the start of the year. January is also the best time to go through onboarding training because people are refreshed and the company slate is clean. |
Hiring authority:
It can be equally challenging for leaders to schedule interviews during the last quarter of the year, but this timeline poses similar benefits for them as it does for candidates. Carving out a few hours to interview candidates now will help land the rockstar candidate to start at the beginning of the year. Plus, you’ll have an advantage over competitors who are hitting the snooze button on interviews until next year. |
Compensation: Since many companies base their operations on the calendar year, compensation implications tend to correlate with end-of-year / beginning-of-year timelines. Things like merit increases, promotions, annual bonuses and equity vesting are closer than you may realize.
| Candidate:
If you’re worried about leaving your year-end bonus on the table or waiting for that last equity grant to vest, interviewing at the end of the year might work in your favor. You should certainly check the details of your bonus payout and any equity vesting schedule, but many candidates are able to stick around for their bonus payouts at the beginning of the new year then start their new job shortly after. |
Hiring authority:
As a leader, this is perhaps the best time of the year to land top talent for the right price. Making a hire now might give you the opportunity to land your top candidate before they get a raise early next year, and you likely won’t have to worry about giving them an enormous signing bonus. With new-year goals on everyone’s minds, it’s also a great time to offer top talent the career path they’ve been waiting on. |
Flexibility: Another sneaky upside to consider when scheduling interviews for this time of the year is overall flexibility on both the candidate and client end of the equation.
| Candidate:
Although your schedule might be insanely busy, it can be surprisingly easy to sneak in a couple interview conversations during the holiday season because your current boss is also busy. With lots going on, fewer people will notice if you duck out early on a Friday for an interview. |
Hiring authority:
As a leader, this is also the time where you can be flexible with your schedule as you prioritize what needs to happen by year-end and what projects can wait until Q1. It might be easier for you and the team to carve out an hour to meet with a candidate when everyone is already in holiday mode. |
The takeaway:
There might not be such a thing as the perfect time to interview or make a hire, but the end-of-year crunch can have surprising benefits on both sides of the aisle. We encourage clients and candidates alike to maximize this time and ready yourselves to come out of the gates strong in the new year.
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