Do organizations generally scale back hiring in December?

December 17, 2008 9:35 PM

What's going on in December with hiring? Do people pretty much NOT hire in December?

I know the economy sucks. You don't have to remind me. Luckily, I have a job. However, I just graduated school with my BS in mechanical engineering, and am doing everything I can to find a job. Up until the end of November, I was getting emails and calls regularly from HR people, hiring managers, senior engineers, etc. from various companies, government agencies, and other organizations.

I know nothing is truly recession proof, but the industries I've been focusing on are doing pretty well right now (ie. government, defense contracting, aerospace, etc.).

My question, then, boils down to this: Is December generally a slow hiring season? Is everybody just on vacation or focusing on the holidays? Will my phone ring again come January and the interviews continue? Or is this all part of the whole economy being in the crapper, and I should thank my lucky stars that I have a job while many others don't?

posted by rybreadmed to work & money (22 comments total)

Pretty much. I was in IT recruitment for five years and November-January was dead, dead, dead.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:37 PM on December 17, 2008

Yup, pretty much everyone is busy or out of town Thanksgiving - New Years. It's a bad time to look for a permanent job.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:40 PM on December 17, 2008

December is tough - vacations, holidays, end of fiscal year for some... I don't have any stats, but I wouldn't count on any interviews until February.
posted by k8t at 9:40 PM on December 17, 2008

If you were running a business, would you try to interview people right now? It might not even be possible to get all the people who need to be at the interview into a room at this time of the year.

That said, the company I work for is doing preliminary phone interviews now.
posted by kindall at 9:44 PM on December 17, 2008

During most years we wouldn't interview around now, but this year we're also in a hiring freeze. So...it's worse this year, but expect things to pick up next month, especially because (as k8t points out) many companies' fiscal years begin in January.
posted by crinklebat at 9:55 PM on December 17, 2008

No one moves or hires between Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl. It's just how it is.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:15 PM on December 17, 2008

I know several large companies that have hiring, spending, and project-start freezes in place right now, most running at least until the first of the year at the earliest, and some longer or currently indefinite. Doing this at the end of the year is pretty normal; if they extend the belt-tightening much into next year, then I think you can start chalking it up to business conditions.

As a sidenote, I think there's a bit less of this at the end of the calendar year in companies that deal exclusively with the public sector (and in the public sector itself), because their accounting calendar is different and doesn't end on 31 Dec / 1 Jan. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen anyway.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:34 PM on December 17, 2008

I've always had a shitty time getting a job in December, then things way up in January. Basically even if the process starts somewhere enough people will be out of office that it will will be hard to get everyone together to sign off on hiring decisions.

I've a tendency to work for companies that hire contractors for 12 month stretches, and recently I've been locked into December-January being the period when I have to look for work, which pretty much sucks.
posted by Artw at 11:07 PM on December 17, 2008

We just hired somebody. But yeah, we don't want her to start until January, and we started the process in November.
posted by salvia at 11:35 PM on December 17, 2008

Not much of a chance until the middle/end of January. Holidays and year end aside, most department heads won't have received the final-final (as opposed to the kinda final) budgets for their departments until year end numbers have been, well, finalised.

Temping, though, should definitely pick up in January. New year, new projects starting and all that.
posted by Grrlscout at 11:38 PM on December 17, 2008

Well, thanks everybody. I was starting to worry that nobody liked me. It makes sense, of course. You have a group of people who need to decide on the next person to hire, and at any one time one of them is likely on vacation. It sounds like I just will need to sit tight until around February.

Are there any stats or articles anywhere about hot (or cold) hiring seasons?
posted by rybreadmed at 12:29 AM on December 18, 2008

Mid to late January is a pretty decent time to find a job - as is late June to early July. You need to synch your job hunt with the new fiscal year. Some companies start their new year in January, and some, like mine, start in July. When the new money comes in, jobs open up.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 1:09 AM on December 18, 2008

everything seems to slow down nov, grind to complete halt in dec and start up slowly mid jan again. sucks to be a freelancer about now.
posted by krautland at 4:25 AM on December 18, 2008

Are there any stats or articles anywhere about hot (or cold) hiring seasons?

Just keep in mind the quarterly system q1 = jan - mar, q2 = apr - jun, and so on. Budgets may be refreshed at the beginning of each quarter.
posted by ezekieldas at 5:58 AM on December 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Pretty much what ezekieldas mentioned. The places I've worked though and the trend here is that fiscal Q1 starts around March and that's when the main budget for the new year is approved. Reason being, nobody wants to deal with getting the books settled at the end of December due to Christmas and New Years, statutory holiday days, people on vacation, planning for trips to see family, etc.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 6:32 AM on December 18, 2008

From an HR person's standpoint, December is actually REALLY busy, too busy to hire people that are just going to want to go on vacation a week later anyway or who can't start because their manager is going to be on vacation. So we would wait until January when year-end stuff was completed and we could focus on it again.
posted by magnetsphere at 8:04 AM on December 18, 2008

Aside from the reasons given above there are also some industries that are not hiring permanent employees at this time of year because they are too busy to devote time to the recruitment process - retailers, logistics people and turkey farmers for example.
posted by rongorongo at 8:14 AM on December 18, 2008

Middle to end of January is usually when hiring picks up again, but the real activity won't start 'til mid-March, when companies know what they can afford for headcount for the new fiscal year and they've sorted out their existing spots.
posted by batmonkey at 10:06 AM on December 18, 2008

I don't mean to threadjack... but, do ya'll think this, in general, applies to new projects for contract (or freelance) work?
posted by Netzapper at 2:34 PM on December 18, 2008

new projects? yeah, totally. everyone is trying to finish up their old projects.
posted by salvia at 11:28 PM on December 18, 2008

I used to work in federal government - a lot of people have "use or lose" leave that they have to take at the end of the year. Our offices were pretty empty in December.
posted by candyland at 6:43 AM on December 19, 2008

I just wanted to follow up with those who might read this later and are looking for the resolution. Starting around mid-January, I started receiving emails and phone calls again. I still don't have a new job, yet. However, I suppose it's promising to still be getting calls during a recession/depression/whatever this is.
posted by rybreadmed at 11:03 AM on February 7