Picture this: Your business is thriving. More customers than ever are buying your products, and you’re seeing a dramatic increase in profit. And you’re not even in your busy season yet! Suddenly, you start worrying about keeping up with demand. How will you ensure customers stay satisfied when your staff members are spread thin?
There’s a solution to this problem: seasonal workers! Seasonal hiring is common for businesses that want to keep up with the demands of their busiest times. However, talent acquisition can bring other challenges to your already swamped business.
That’s where this guide comes in. Here, we’ll cover best practices for seasonal hiring to ensure you can find the talent to support your organization during your time of need. With these strategies, you’ll be well-equipped to tackle hiring, regardless of how hectic your business is.
Table of contents
1. Understand your seasonal hiring needs.
It’s always best to conduct seasonal hiring before the busy season (think of how crowded stores get on Black Friday!) to give you time to assess your needs and determine what staff members you need. To help you understand your seasonal hiring needs, you should:
- Identify periods with higher staffing requirements. Analyze historical data to help you forecast future demand. For instance, if your data shows that your employees have a greater workload in the spring and struggle to complete their tasks, you may want to hire seasonal staff for spring to ensure your full-time employees have the support they need.
- Determine the seasonal roles needed. This includes the role title, specific skillsets, and qualifications for the seasonal role. For example, let’s say you’re a software company that struggles to onboard clients promptly during your busy season. In that case, you may wish to hire onboarding specialists with previous experience working with software and other technology.
- Analyze seasonal hiring trends in your industry. This can give you an idea of when work will likely pick up for your business and when you should hire seasonal employees. Make sure to prepare job listings in advance and set aside time to perform interviews two to three months ahead of your busy season.
Let’s look at an example of how a summer camp might handle seasonal hiring. These camps are seasonal businesses, operating during the summer when children are out of school. While they accept registrations year-round, they may see a large influx in submitted registration forms just before their deadline. Thus, they may hire someone to help process these forms. Once the camp staff finalize registrations and know how many campers are enrolled, they can hire an appropriate number of camp counselors to manage and supervise camp activities during the summer.
2. Build a strong employer value proposition (EVP).
Your business has probably already established a strong organizational brand, with visual and verbal elements that support your goals and identity. However, you’ll also need a unique employer brand that communicates your leadership style, values, and workplace culture.
The foundation of your employer brand should be your employer value proposition (EVP). This should focus on everything your company offers its employees, including:
- What current employees enjoy about working at your company.
- What your company offers that competing employers don’t.
- Your company’s strategic goals and the kind of talent that will help.
Other important details your EVP should include are:
- Your business’s leadership and management style
- How employees are evaluated and promoted
- Career development opportunities
- Work flexibility, such as flexible hours or virtual work opportunities
Ultimately, your EVP should answer the question, “What’s it like to work at this business?” With a strong EVP, you can build a unique employer brand that shows seasonal employees the benefits of working at your business and entices them to apply to your job listings.
3. Leverage multiple recruitment channels.
We’ve mentioned that one of the best ways to secure the seasonal help you need is by putting up your job listings well ahead of time, ensuring that you fill the necessary roles in time for your busy season. Another best practice for maximizing the number of applicants for seasonal roles is to leverage multiple recruitment channels.
We recommend using the following channels to spread the word:
- Careers site. You may already have a website dedicated to careers for your business. Post your seasonal job listings on this site. Clarify that these are not full-time positions to avoid any confusion.
- Online job boards. Online job boards such as Indeed and ZipRecruiter streamline the job search process for applicants. Add your job listings to these boards to increase the number of job-seekers who find your roles and the number of applications.
- Social media. When it comes to increasing visibility, there’s no better way than social media. Let your followers know that you’re hiring for seasonal roles—you’ll find that many of them will be excited about the opportunity. LinkedIn is an especially great platform for posts like these, as its audience consists mainly of professionals and job-seekers.
- Email newsletters. If you’ve previously hired for seasonal roles, those individuals may be interested in similar opportunities in the future. When you begin seasonal hiring, send an email newsletter to these individuals and encourage them to apply. Include a link to your careers site to make it easy for them.
Be sure to communicate role expectations clearly and accurately through these channels so applicants know if their skills and experience match what you’re searching for. This makes it easier for applicants to determine whether they should apply for your jobs and ensures you’ll receive more applications from qualified candidates.
4. Streamline the application process.
The job application process can be extremely grueling for job seekers, especially those looking for seasonal work. Make a good first impression on applicants by implementing a streamlined, efficient hiring process.
Start by ensuring your team is internally aligned on what a good candidate looks like. Brief them on the specific skills and qualifications you’re looking for. These should also be included in your job listings. Furthermore, come up with qualities or characteristics to keep an eye out for during the interview. For example, if you’re hiring a camp counselor, you probably want someone outgoing and energetic, as that is an extremely social role. That way, you won’t waste anyone’s time if they’re not a good fit for your job openings.
Additionally, handle all hiring matters in a timely manner. Process applications within a week of receiving them and send interview requests to the applicants you wish to learn more about. Stay transparent about where applicants are in the process, and don’t be afraid to send rejection emails. Job seekers will appreciate your honesty and the update.
Most job seekers are looking for full-time roles, making seasonal hiring difficult for organizations. That’s why it’s important to approach the process strategically by emphasizing your appeal as an employer and simplifying the process for applicants. With these strategies, you’ll be well on your way to attracting and acquiring the talent you need, regardless of the time of year.
