Is The Holiday Season a Good Time to Interview?

The countdown has begun. The business year is definately winding down. So how will you spend the next 2 weeks of this year? Is this a good time for candidates to interview for a new gig? I guess it depends how quickly the client wants to pull the trigger and how fast the candidate wants to make a move. Traditionally, I find that some candidates are very interested in using some of their holiday vacation time to evaluate new opportunities. Scheduling phone screens or follow-up telephone interviews is a little easier than booking travel and trying to get a quorum of people on the interview team to show up to meet with candidates face to face. In our practice, December is usually a bit slower and the pace falls off dramatically after the 2nd week of the month. Not so this year. All of the sudden - we are quite busy. And so are other search consultants globally. Clients that have waited all year to upgrade talent and add new players are all of the sudden calling with new engagements - and the pipeline looks great as we look ahead to January and Q1 of 2010. I like it. Actually, I like it a lot. Some of our clients are asking us to work through the holiday season in an effort to make offers by 12/31. Do I think that will actually happen? Maybe. I personally have not seen lots of search assignments close in the last couple of weeks in the year unless plenty of work has already been completed by late November or early December. It's hard to get traction on getting an offer out the door unless you are down to the short strokes. Too many people involved in the hiring decision are MIA. People are tired and looking forward to some R and R over the holiday season. I am certainly planning to take some time off - but given where the market has been all year - I do plan on taking fewer days off this holiday season. Time to make hay - right? What about you? Are you planning on working over the holidays? Let me know. I may need some help! I hope everyone enjoys the holiday season. It looks like 2010 could be off to a good start! I like that.