Why Now Is The Best Time To Recruit!

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by Rebecca Lister | 13th Dec 2024

Hiring can be a stressful time, especially within small businesses. Making sure you find suitable candidates with the right skills can be a daunting task. As your small business begins to grow, it is likely that you will need support to undertake the work required to avoid inefficiencies.

Taking on extra people can be a great way to ensure you are getting the help you need, whether that be with admin you no longer have time for or meeting the new demands of a growing business. Yet knowing how and when to hire good candidates can be confusing. Below we set out reasons why now is the perfect time to recruit!

Less Competition

Typically, December is a time of the year where companies look to wind down for the festive period. With targets and projects to complete before the end of the year, recruitment is often at the back of many employers’ minds.

With fewer employers on the lookout for new talent, December presents a great opportunity to start the recruitment journey to scoop up exceptional individuals on the lookout for new roles.

New Job, New Year

With the New Year approaching, many job seekers begin to think about switching careers. Whether this be due to New Years Resolutions, the January Blues or any other reasons, January is a busy period of hiring.

Reviewing recruitment strategies and advertising jobs just before this period is a great way to avoid the flood of businesses looking to hire in January, allowing you to stand out from the crowd.

Fresh Start In The New Year

The recruitment process can be long and take up lots of hiring managers or employer’s precious time. Job advertising, reviewing applicants resumes in the search for qualified candidates, first interviews, second interviews, preparing job offers all takes time.

This can be a struggle during busy periods where deadlines and projects make induction and training the last thing on anyone’s priority list. However, making sure new starters are properly inducted goes a long way to ensuring they feel comfortable within your business and gain a greater understanding of your organisation.

The quieter month of December presents the perfect opportunity for employers to ensure that induction and training of new employees has been undertaken correctly within a reasonable time frame.

With the typical winding down of business during the holiday season, employers can invest time into their new hires and ensure that come the new year, they are trained and ready to start working.

The Recent Budget

As part of the budget announced earlier this year, the government has taken measures to protect small businesses from the rise in employers’ national insurance (NI).

As Rachel Reeves has explained in the recent budget, by increasing employment allowance, the amount employers can claim back from their National Insurance bill, from £5,000 to £10,500, small businesses will be greatly supported.

This will mean around 865,000 employers will not have to pay any National Insurance on their employees next year and around 1 million will pay the same as they have in previous years or less.

Nonetheless, whether you are a small, medium or large business, recruitment decisions are going to be more important, now more so than ever.

Investing in the right people will help your business in the long run as your company grows, develops or maintains the right skills at the right time. While there are many benefits to hiring, it is crucial to ensure that you are upholding your obligations as an employer.

How Can We Help?

With the job market constantly evolving, understanding the optimal time to recruit is crucial for ensuring a quality of hire. Whether you are hiring for specialised roles or more general job positions, it is important to have a well-structured job requisition process in place.

Crafting detailed job descriptions and clearly outlining job requirements for specific job openings can greatly improve recruiting efficiency. By streamlining the interview process and focusing on key metrics like the number of days to fill a vacancy, employers can secure top talent in a short time while meeting the demands of a growing business.

Here at Eclipse HR, we are best positioned to help you navigate the entire hiring process from start to finish effectively. Whether helping with the recruitment process itself, crafting detailed job descriptions, being part of the interview process, or providing assistance with employment contracts and/or core employment policies, our expert HR consultants have years of experience.

We have successfully dealt with such matters across a wide variety of different sectors, ensuring our expertise is both extensive and adaptable. Additionally, we remain fully up to date on any forthcoming employment law changes, enabling us to provide timely advice and guidance that may affect your obligations and responsibilities as an employer.

Contact us today because now is the time to recruit! If you do require any support or guidance or wish to discuss any other employment related matter, feel free to get in touch.