Table of Contents

• Background Check: Our Partners at Adway
• Why is the Holiday Season the Right Time For Recruiting?
• 4 Factors That Are Impacting TA Right Now
• 6 Holiday Recruiting Hacks
• We Wish You a Merry Recruitment Season!

‘Tis the season to be…. recruiting passive candidates! 

That’s right. It’s the most wonderful time of year to reach your dream candidates right where they are. 

Forget the myths about recruiting season cooling off for the holidays. With the right recruitment marketing strategy and the power of social media job ads, you can get a head start on your New Year’s headcount while your competitors are left in the cold. 

And that doesn’t mean you can’t shut down and enjoy the holidays yourself. In fact, this article will show you exactly how you can reach passive candidates while you celebrate this season. 

Background Check: Our Partners at Adway

Adway is a fast-growing HR tech company with a unique proposition in the global TA market: to help recruiters attract relevant candidates through social media advertising. By plugging the social media attraction gap for SmartRecruiters, our audience of large enterprises has seen sky-high recruitment volumes. 

Since the summer of 2021, Adway and SmartRecruiters have forged a seamless integration that enables Adway to build social talent pools using AI and data to strategically attract desired candidates on social media channels like LinkedIn, Google, Instagram and Facebook. For our mutual enterprise clients, this means the ability to leverage their employer brands to attract their dream candidates. 

Our partnership with SmartRecruiters is a huge commercial benefit to SmartRecruiters’ employer branding investments and allows for faster, cheaper, unbiased candidate attraction. 

Now, let’s get back to why right now is the right time for recruiting… 

Why is the Holiday Season the Right Time For Recruiting?

The below recruitment marketing strategy we are laying out is a classic, tactical move to save some budget during the year by avoiding overspending in November. Between the boom in eCommerce and the buildup to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s a classic time for the advertising market to heat up. 

By the time we get to mid December, however, advertising activity is already declining, making it a cost-effective time to direct spend to social media job ads. 

So, why is the holiday season the top time for attracting the best candidates? Here are three key reasons: 

1. Less recruitment competition – Many recruiters burn themselves out during the high-volume hiring demands of November, so it’s a great time to strike when things quiet down in December. There’s less competition from other recruiters and more opportunities to grab high-quality candidates who would otherwise be left on the table. 

2. Candidates have increased availability – Since many candidates are slowing down for the holidays, they may have much more time on their hands to a) chat on the phone with recruiters about new jobs and b) scroll around on social media. In fact, social media traffic spikes a whopping 73 percent during the holidays!

3. Candidates are contemplating their next steps – The end of the year is a particularly introspective time for many candidates as they rethink what comes next on their career path. It’s more seamless to transition out of one role and into another as you approach a new year, making it an intuitive time to search for a job. 

4 Factors That Are Impacting TA Right Now

There are four factors as we come out of the global pandemic that make this year an even more crucial (and opportunistic) year to focus on recruiting during the holidays: 

1. The Great Resignation

There is extreme movement in the candidate market right now, especially in employees who are between 30 and 45 years old. The resignations for this age range have increased more than 20% between 2020 and 2021, with further spikes predicted through December and January. The tech and healthcare industries are being hit the hardest, further enforcing why the time to strike for great talent is now! 

2. The Hardest Role to Fill? Recruiters 

Right now, demand for recruiters is skyrocketing. There are over 364,970 ‘Recruiter’ jobs advertised on LinkedIn worldwide. It’s actually more difficult to find a recruiter than it is to find a tech professional. If you don’t have enough recruiting staff, how can you fill all your job vacancies? When in doubt: automate as many processes as possible. Make your talent acquisition process as lean as it can be. 

3. Social Media Activity is Peaking

As we said before, social media traffic spikes a whopping 73% during the holidays. On top of that, 87% of Gen Z will be on social media to get inspiration for their holiday shopping. That’s a huge audience of potential candidates who are primed for social media job ads. Even better, the number of competitors who are buying ads on social media is declining at the same time. This puts your content front and center. 

4. The Stimulus Bills

The global economy is especially strong right now, and it’s positioned to stage its most robust post-recession recovery in 80 years. What does that mean for the world of recruiting? Most employers have the capacity to grow their businesses by speeding up their hiring. Not only that, the excess of stimulus funds that were injected into the economy are readily available to subsidize that growth. 

6 Holiday Recruiting Hacks

There are clearly many challenges and possibilities to be faced in TA right now. Here are a few concrete recruiting hacks to conquer the challenges and capitalise on the opportunities: 

1. Share your employer brand while your audience is active. If you don’t have job vacancies to be promoted from mid-December to mid-January, you should get ahead of the push by sharing your employer brand on social media while user activity is peaking! This can help you build awareness and consideration from candidates in advance, so the sooner you get your content in front of the marketing department, the better. 

2. Connect your ATS system to your social media. Redirect your focus from solely relying on job boards to leveraging social media to promote your job ads. Job boards are frequented by active candidates – candidates who are actively seeking employment. They make up only 30% of the talent market. Passive candidates, on the other hand, comprise the other 70% of the talent market and, since they’re not actively seeking jobs, they’re less likely to be checking out your listing on a job board. As a matter of fact, passive candidates are more likely to be on their mobile phones using social media. For these reasons, it’s imperative to stop sourcing solely from job boards and take advantage of social recruiting. 

3. Enable retargeting in as many places as you can. Whether it’s to make sure you capture all the traffic coming to your carrier page or the employer branding ads you’re pushing out during a lull in open vacancies, enable retargeting everywhere you can in the leadup to the holidays. For example, by posting an employer branding video on social media when user activity is at a high, you can use retargeting tactics to ensure everyone who watched the video  sees your job ads in the New Year! 

4. Use programmatic bidding. Programmatic bidding is an efficient way to use algorithms and AI to optimize your recruitment marketing strategy and get more candidates who fit the parameters you’re seeking. If you’re unfamiliar with the technology, try working with a trusted talent partner like Adway who can show you the ropes. 

5. Spend the budget you saved for end-of-year. Whatever funds you were able to set aside earlier in the fiscal year (particularly November), the period from mid-December to mid-January is a great time to put them to use.

6. Make sure you’re iOS 14 compliant. Without being fully updated, it can make it extremely difficult to access and interpret key analytics in your ATS system. Spend some time ensuring you’re iOS 14 compliant on everything from job boards to carrier pages to social media. Approach your marketing department now and tell them you need your tracking to work alongside iOS 14 updates. 

We Wish You a Merry Recruitment Season!

While everyone deserves some down time to reflect and reset over the holidays, we hope you enjoyed this lesson in how a few simple hacks right now can help you execute a winning recruitment strategy in the New Year. By combining a little bit of knowhow with the convenience of automation and HR tech, you can get a head start on the competition for top talent next year. 

If you’re still getting your feet wet with TA tech and automation, reach out to us at Adway. Our groundbreaking technology helps you attract the next generation of talent through the art of social recruitment marketing. 

Recruiting is a challenge for any company, but seasonal recruiting is a whole other beast. The key to being successful at it is having a bulletproof strategy in place. 

Seasonal recruiting isn’t easy. Trying to anticipate how many workers you’ll need to source for short periods of time is far from an exact science. Do it right, and you’ll conquer holiday rushes. Do it wrong, and you’ll be explaining to higher-ups why you’re either way understaffed or way over budget. It’s a complex process, but we’ll break it down into easily digestible segments so that you can attract, select, and hire seasonal talent—on demand and on budget. 

Budget Wisely

It goes without saying that if you need to rev up your recruiting efforts, you’ll have to allocate additional money to make it happen. To ensure that your ledger doesn’t end up in the red, consider the following tips:

• Interviewing is a resource-intensive, expensive process. Every time you interview a candidate, it takes time—and money— away from other tasks. This can add up quickly, especially if your company conducts interviews with multiple steps. For seasonal workers, it might make sense to adopt a shorter, expedited interview process. 
• Online targeted ads can be a fantastic way to attract seasonal employees. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is advantageous because, as the name suggests, businesses only pay for ads when someone clicks on them. Careful, though: depending on the ad type, the competition for PPC ads can be fierce. Find out more about creating seasonal campaigns with Google ads.
• Print advertising can be a simple and cost-effective method for reaching candidates. By putting up posters in stores or droppings flyers/leaflets into shopping bags, you can directly target an audience that’s likely already an advocate for your brand—your customers.
• Technology costs—job postings, applicant tracking systems, video interview software, etc.— are likely one of the biggest recruitment expenses. Do your research first to determine what’s essential and see if there are any tech hacks that might save you money. Point in case: McDonald’s recently launched a SnapChat hiring campaign in Canada allowing job seekers to apply through the popular social media platform.

Plan Ahead of Time 

Organizations should start planning their campaign and advertising strategy for seasonal hiring 3-4 months out. It is important to build ample time to define your target audience, messaging strategy, and channels to meet your hiring demands.

Jared Best, Hiring Success strategist

As the saying goes, timing is everything. This is especially true when it comes to seasonal recruiting. Make sure to develop your strategy well in advance. This will allow you to anticipate and plan accordingly for all of your needs and expenses. Here’s how to stay ahead:

• Start early! According to SmartRecruiters Hiring Success strategist Jared Best, “Organizations should start planning their campaign and advertising strategy for seasonal hiring 3-4 months out. It is important to build ample time to define your target audience (past seasonal workers, 2nd place finishers, college students, etc.), messaging strategy, and channels to meet your hiring demands. In the ideal scenario, you have 85-90% of your seasonal hiring completed with 30-45 days to go and can spend the last month leading up to seasonal peaks filling in the remaining 10-15% through applicants and referrals.
• Source year-round by using field recruiting apps and lead capture forms on in-store kiosks to target shoppers and brand enthusiasts who might be interested in part-time work. Depending on the industry, try targeting students since they are typically off school when seasonal workers are needed most—holidays and the summer months.
• Maintain an alumni network to stay in touch with former employees. Depending on their circumstances, they might be open to part-time work or be in a position to recommend worthy candidates.
• Ask for referrals from your current employees early and often. When asked what the best source for new hires in terms of return on investment (ROI) is, 82% of employers ranked employee referrals above all others.

Have a Winning Technology Stack

It’s probably safe to assume that you use one or a variety of recruiting applications in your day-to-day work. How up-to-date they are might be another story. Can your tech stack accomplish the following?

• Source candidates by placing job advertisements across various job ad boards. This will allow you to significantly cut back on the time you spend researching and posting on various websites.  
• Field recruiting at events like college fairs, hiring conventions, retail kiosks, etc. via the use of mobile apps or tablets. This will allow you to broaden your reach as a recruiter and interact face-to-face with candidates as you receive their applications.
• Use AI or application filters to sort through thousands of applications in a matter of minutes, picking out the best and most qualified candidates for your position. This will help you drastically cut hours spent pouring over irrelevant or ill-fitting candidates. 
• Maintain contact with employees you’ve worked with in the past through the use of a CRM. This will allow you to easily reach out to candidates you know and trust when your company needs additional staff.  

Streamline Your Onboarding Process

• Given that the majority of seasonal workers won’t stay on board for long, taking the time to onboard them may seem like a sunk cost. But, if they aren’t sufficiently knowledgeable about your company or products, it could negatively impact their ability to drive sales.
• Additionally, this could place unnecessary stress on management if they’re put into a position where they have to micromanage or correct mistakes that could have been avoided in the first place with proper training.

Conclusion

Seasonal recruiting is not something to leave to the last minute. Utilizing an effective seasonal recruiting strategy that employs effective budgeting, talent pipelines, modern technology, and streamlined processes will help you cut costs while still helping your business to deliver the best possible outcomes.

Spread holiday cheer and avoid the season’s recruiting faux pas to start the New Year on a sparkling note.

December is a bustling time for most. Travel. Parties, visitors, cooking, shopping, and eating… lots of eating. Yet, with all the festivities, recruiters are still hard at work trying to fill reqs and source candidates before the end of the year.

This time of year is especially hard for talent acquisition (TA) professionals who want to keep the ball rolling while everyone else is in holiday mode. Trying to move candidates through the hiring process can feel impossible, but no one wants to just press pause for a whole month. Practitioners can easily become antsy with the slow nature of winter, but no one wants to be the overeager recruiter, dimming the spirit of the season with reminders and nudges.

Good news! There are still ways to be productive during the holidays without getting on the naughty list.

Here are some pointers for staying productive and in ways your candidates and colleagues will actually appreciate.

1)

Don’t expect quick communication

Needless to say, people are busy during the holidays. Don’t expect fast replies from candidates. Beware of pushing too hard with reminders – it will get annoying quickly – rather make use of this time to get process tip-top for the new year.

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2)

Invite candidates to the company party

If it feels appropriate, invite top prospects to the company holiday party to get acquainted with the team, and stoked on the company culture!

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3)

Don’t contact people on the big day

Just don’t. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, but it’s still a public holiday, and as such no time for work communication.

Consider adding other religious holidays to the online calendar, so you aren’t inadvertently trying to schedule meetings on a day of religious observance. Of course, you may not know what holidays a candidate observes, so just be respectful. An example of this would be…

‘I was thinking Monday 3 pm would be a good time to meet. However, it’s a busy time of year, so feel free to let me know what works for you.’

If you know you are asking to meet on a religious, but not public, holiday (generally don’t ask to meet on public holidays) then it may be appropriate to acknowledge that in your email.

‘Hi, Would Tuesday at 3 pm work for you? I realize it’s a holiday so please let me know if Thursday or Friday would work better.’

This wording gives options without making assumptions.

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4)

Spread holiday cheer

Infuse holiday outreach efforts with seasonal cheer! Wish candidates happy holidays and a joyous new year. It’s a simple gesture that makes applicants feel special.

Many recruiters wonder what greeting to use. This author’s subjective advice is to go with heart. “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” are great and inclusive terms, but “Merry Christmas” isn’t necessarily bad. Sending a personal card or email is not the same as decorating a governmental office, and most people will be touched by the thought regardless. (Consult HR for the company phrase if it’s on behalf of the organization.)

The term “Chrismahanukwanzakah” can read disrespectful and is best avoided. Don’t assume a religion on someone, but if you know a candidate celebrates an often overlooked holiday, the acknowledgment of their practice could be appreciated. Also, remember that asking someone what they celebrate is a no-no – even if the inquiry is for the purpose of holiday cards. To learn more about this check our article regarding  Top Illegal Interview Questions.

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5)

Self assess

With fewer candidates available to meet, it’s a great time to review the year. What were some big wins? Where do you want to improve? 

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6)

Think undergrads

College and university students will be on vacation for winter holidays. They are probably at home, probably bored, and probably getting a lot of questions about their future – this is a demographic that may appreciate info on open opportunities… “Yes aunt Linda, I am excited to graduate. And, I’ve already received a job offer!”

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7)

Meet with hiring managers

As part of the self-assessment and future planning, meet with Hiring Managers. Get their takeaways from the previous year, and make some joint goals for the next 365 days. And, of course, learn what roles they foresee needing!

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8)

Update everything

Make sure all the info is up to date. Career site, social media profiles, review sites (like Glassdoor etc), and job descriptions should all be accurate to start 2019. Don’t forget profile photos, too many professionals have out of date headshots. To avoid the appearance of ‘catfishing’ make sure the picture was taken in at least the last three years.

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9)

Relax and recharge!

Don’t burn yourself out before the new year even begins! Make sure to turn your email off for a couple days and enjoy the holidays.

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