It’s back-to-school season, but the buzz extends beyond reactivated academic campuses.
Workplaces are feeling new life, too, with summer hours fading and fewer folks taking those extended vacations. There’s a sense that it’s time to get back to business, through both renewed productivity and hiring. It’s a sentiment that’s coined the term September Surge, capturing the wave of expected activity that coincides with not only the tail end of Summer, but the ensuing fourth quarter.
For employers, it can be prime time to attract new talent. Many employees are refocusing on their career trajectories, reciprocating the activity. In more competitive industries, preparing for the September Surge – and extending its payoff – means tightening your game up in terms of:
- Your hiring process
- Your available roles and job ads
- Your employer branding
- Your available resources
Even in a relatively tepid labor market, where mild payroll gains are prompting interest rate cuts and tough hiring choices, companies in health care, hospitality, and public administration are positioned to pounce – or whiff – on opportunities because of the sheer number of talent available and roles ready to fill. Health care and the public sector have been adding jobs throughout 2024, but there’s a fine line between hiring seasonal help and finding the right job fit.
Right person. Right role. Every time.
PI Hire gives you the data you need to better predict which candidate will succeed in the role, and stay for the long term.
Here are some key steps for maximizing returns on your September Surge efforts – well beyond September:
Refine your hiring process.
Making a quick hire will cost you in the end if the person is ill-suited for the role. Your hiring process is only as good as the hiring strategy behind it, and that strategy should account for the candidate experience as much as it does that of the hiring team.
Maximize everyone’s time by getting your hiring team aligned on what success in the role looks like. That means accounting for the skills and resume you’d like to see, sure, but also the behavioral traits that lend to success for someone filling this role, and joining this team.
Create a Job Target. Gather your key stakeholders, from HR to the hiring managers and anyone else involved in the interview process, and align your team with confidence. Armed with a collective understanding of the skills and behaviors that portend success in the role, you can tailor your interview approach and streamline your search accordingly.
September Surge HR tip 👉 Keep the hiring process efficient for candidates juggling multiple offers.
Refresh your job ads.
Maybe your HR team has been shorthanded throughout the summer. Maybe some roles have remained unfilled, but are no longer an immediate need. Perhaps you’ve gone through some restructuring, and the verbiage in your job ads no longer reflects the state on the ground.
Whatever the case, don’t waste a chance to hire top talent simply because your postings aren’t up to date. Review all the avenues through which you’re actively recruiting, and check the titles and specs for accuracy. Tools like PI’s Job Ad Optimizer help you write job descriptions that attract the right candidates, reviewing and updating your ads with language that reflects not only the skills, but the behaviors required for success in the role.
September Surge HR tip 👉 Identify the mission-critical roles and focus on refreshing those.
Optimizing job ads and postings isn’t just a matter of setting your team up for hiring success. Doing so is also a reflection of your credibility as an employer, which leads us to…
Review your employer branding.
Put yourself in the candidate’s seat. They’re assessing your organization, just as you are evaluating them. What would you be looking for in a company?
Is your About Us page up to date? What does your website say about the mission and vision of the organization? Your hiring team should be able to speak to these specifics before, during and after the interview, and candidates often weigh cultural fit equally alongside compensation, benefits, and working conditions when evaluating potential employers.
Job seekers share information with each other, and misleading branding can result in more than just a poor Glassdoor review. Fall victim to some laser-targeted LinkedIn shaming simply because you gave a candidate a false impression, and the fallout may be more severe than the cost of making a few simple changes ahead of time.
September Surge HR tip 👉Focus on what makes your company an appealing place to work.
Firm up your resources.
Despite what the September Surge name might entail, the rush to secure top talent should not come at the cost of your long-term objectives. In other words, you want to hire people who will not only succeed, but stick around.
To make that happen, you need to invest (or reinvest) in the support systems that sustain tenure. Consider the team(s) these new hires are joining. Will they be able to provide adequate training, and answer questions? Will they provide balance?
The science-backed Team Discovery tool helps you visualize where your current gaps might lie, and how a new hire can be both complementary and additive, in terms of their skills and behaviors.
September Surge HR tip 👉 Set aside the time and resources so everyone can elevate the onboarding experience.
How PI can help
The Talent Optimization platform, backed by behavioral data from The Predictive Index, supports the entire employee lifecycle. Hire with the confidence that your people will not only fit their roles, but thrive – and stay – in them.
