When Is The Right Time For Staff To Change Firm?

“I couldn’t possibly leave my firm during busy season” one candidate tells me during a telephone conversation as I talk to them about their career options while the sun starts to set through my office window. “Quite right” I tell them.

“When would be a good time?” I ask next. “Well, I don’t really know.” they say, with a little hesitation in their voice, “I think that I’d like to see what my salary review will be, or maybe wait until after my bonus is paid, but I feel conflicted between wanting to move on now – my heart just isn’t in it here anymore – and starting the next phase of my career” is a typical response.

“Well” I would say, “Let’s look at all of your options and together, we can figure out which is the best course of action for you.”

This snippet of conversation between recruiter and candidate is typical.

How a candidate behaves during a transition from one firm to another is often indicative of how they might behave during their time with you, as their next employer.

If they will leave their present employer during their time of greatest need, then maybe they will do it to you, should they decide to move on to another firm in years ahead.

In most cases June through to December is the most convenient (or should I say, less inconvenient) time of year to make a career change.

Let’s think this through.

If an employee resigns in January, it could take you a couple of months before you find the right replacement candidate. This means inducting a new team member in March, just as you start ramping up for busy season, and when you probably have the least time to effectively manage the on-boarding process. Your staff will be in the same boat, and maybe asking a Manager to take on a new team member at this time of year isn’t a wise move.

Finding talent is a difficult enough task these days. Doing it during your busiest time of year is less than ideal.

But if you have holes in your team roster, you have little choice but to recruit during busy season, which means – sometimes out of desperation – you are trying to recruit from a shallow talent pool, asking candidates to do something that you would not really want them to do.

It will also make you less than popular with the competitor firm that you recruit this new team member from; maybe you won’t get a Christmas card from them this year!

But timing is not the only issue to consider. The way they go about the process is also a good pointer to what you’re likely to get when they join the team.

If they conduct themselves in an honest, open and professional manner (the way I would suggest you would want them to behave) then the chances are that you’ve found yourself a decent hire.

However, if they do not conduct themselves in this manner, maybe there are a few red flags that will be noticed during the process.

· Have they disclosed their present compensation level truthfully, without embellishment?
· Have they given reliable sources of references?
· How have they described their responsibility and technical abilities in their resumes?

Yes, as shocking as this might sound, some candidates might be tempted to use a little artistic licence when describing their work experience and abilities, compensation and other details about themselves.

For example, if their resume states that they ‘Managed a small team to successfully complete demanding projects with tight timelines to the clients complete satisfaction’ what does this really mean?

Were they genuinely managing 3 or 4 people with really tight deadlines, being responsible for the whole project or did they play a much smaller role, overseeing one person on one task and nothing else?

If you think you are hiring someone with supervisory skills you might get an unpleasant surprise when you put them in charge of a team of three and they’re not up to the task.

How relevant are the references that they have given, and what type of responses did they give when you called them?

There is often a direct correlation between how well candidates conduct themselves during the recruiting process, the time of year that they are prepared to move firms, and how accurate their resume really is.

Whether hiring direct or through a recruitment firm, all these issues need to be considered.

We cannot control the timing of a staff resignation but we can control how we manage the recruiting process when we start to look for their replacement.

Buyer beware applies in these situations, ‘Hirer Beware’ might be a better adaptation of the phrase.