Candidates are NOT looking for a job at Easter!

Recruiters may as well knock off early today and roll in late next Tuesday because, according to Broadbean, few candidates apply for jobs on Good Friday and Easter Monday.  In fact this Easter weekend is just behind the Christmas period (New Year’s Eve and Day, Christmas Eve and Day and Boxing Day) in terms of poor job seeker activity.

Contrary to popular belief, the weekend is also a slow time for responses with the number of applications falling by around two thirds. Broadbean sees candidate applications increase on a Monday (but not this Monday!) and responses peak at lunch time on a Tuesday.  As Dan recently pointed out on his blog this message has still not got out to the general recruitment community: "Friday night is NOT the best time to distribute your adverts. It is, however, the most popular time for posting amongst my clients".

So... sneak off after lunch and come back in on Tuesday ready to post all your jobs and snap up the best candidates (of course, if those are recruitment jobs you should be giving our new site UKRecruiterJobs a go!).

Comments

[Tony Restell (Top-Consultant.com)]

I agree and disagree with this post. Certainly on our own jobs board the majority of candidates are job-hunting from their place of work - so activity tends to be highest during the working week and correspondingly lower at evenings, weekends and during public holidays.

However, client feedback would indicate that a lot of the best candidate applications are received during these slower periods. Perhaps candidates seeing a role whilst surfing at work but then taking the time to apply to the role properly only when they get home? Or fast-track executives only able to job-hunt outside of office hours?

I can't give you the definitive reason, but certainly our clients perceive that whilst application volumes are lower at these times the "gems" that they do receive from having roles live at these times more than makes up for this. So it's quality and not just quantity that is important.

I'd be fascinated to know if there are any stats from any of the the applicant tracking providers out there that can support this notion.

Anyone?

Tony Restell
Top-Consultant.com

[Richard Millington]

I am! Kinda. Please do give my blog a read. It's a new approach to trying to get a really competitive job/internship.

Generally, I agree with the post, I can't recall any of my friends going on a mass job blitz at the moment. Most are too busy finishing off their studies now.