Hired in July

Nobody hires in July, which is why July is the best month to hire.

Look at both sides of the market in the dead month. On the candidate side, the good people are quietly looking. Not loudly. Summer is when someone finishes a year, takes a fortnight away from the office, and comes back to the question of whether they want the next one. The conversations that lead to a move start on a beach and are had over a phone. Nobody is holding a job fair, but the people worth having are more reachable in July than in any month the recruiters call busy.

On the employer side, everyone who could compete for that person is away. Their approvers are away. The role they would have opened is sitting in a draft, waiting for a signature in September.

Now count forward. A role opened in July is interviewed in August, offered before the schools go back, and in the chair before the fourth quarter, which in this region is the quarter that decides the year. The person learns the business in the quiet and is useful in the loud.

The role opened in September, when everyone is back and every company opens theirs in the same fortnight, competes with all of them for the same shortlist, closes in November if it closes at all, and is filled after peak by whoever was still available. The team runs the season a person short and hires the replacement afterwards.

Waiting looks free. Nothing is spent, nothing is signed, the headcount sits in the budget untouched. The cost is the whole of the fourth quarter run by a team one person light, and it never appears on a line anywhere.

A headcount signed in the dead month is worth two signed in the autumn. It goes unsigned for one reason, which is that the person who signs it is the one on the beach.