January is a time of new year’s resolutions and job hunting. In fact, there are so many people who decide to make a change that 7 January has been officially labelled as National Job Hunt Day. So, if you’re looking to recruit, now is a great time to prepare so your ad is ready at the peak time.

In the news, automatic enrolment opt-outs remain low and there’s reports of slow (or no) growth for small businesses.

Top news stories

Automatic enrolment opt-out remains low

Less than 14% of employees have chosen to opt-out of the scheme, which is interesting news for the 100,000 businesses going live with the scheme in March 2016.

Local councils hand out £3 billion in rates relief

However, less than £100m of this was on the discretionary rates relief, according to figures from the Department of Communities and Local Government.

A third of small businesses have not grown in 5 years

Business owners have claimed that access to growth capital, too much red tape and "lack of bank support" are holding them back from expanding.

Small businesses reject cloud for data storage

Despite growing usage, only a fifth believe cloud is a long-term storage option and just 13% use cloud as their primary storage platform.

Good news for business drivers: petrol could drop to £1 a litre

The RAC has said that there's a "very good chance" petrol prices could fall to £1 per litre, or even below.

Key dates for your diary

27 November: Black Friday. read our article - Time to prepare.

30 November: Cyber Monday.

How to plan for the peak recruitment season

According to statistics, January is the busiest time for job hunting, with two out of five people looking for a job. So, if you’re thinking of bringing new employees into your team, it makes sense to target that month so you have access to the biggest pool of candidates.

With that in mind, now is a good time to get everything ready to avoid a mad rush when you get back to the office after Christmas. Here are a few simple steps to make your recruitment as effective as possible.

Understand your needs

If you’re thinking about recruitment, then it’s likely you have a skills gap or need more people to handle the workload. Do spend some time thinking about how best to fill those needs. It may be that just need another person in a department and so need to expand your existing roles. However, you might want to take a more innovative approach and create a new role to support the team more generally or develop new areas for the business.

Create a compelling advert

Your advert is a critical part of the process, but many companies get it wrong. Do your adverts have personality? Do they stand out? Can a candidate tell what it’s like to work at your business?

Try to showcase why your business is a great place to work, as well as specifying what you’re looking for from an applicant. Follow any tone of voice guidelines that you may have in place and don’t feel bound to traditional formats if you’d like to try something different.

Also think about what is likely to motivate people. Recent research showed that managers think money is the main motivator, whereas younger workers are more interested in meaningful work. Consider about what makes your business a great place to work and explain that in your advert. Maybe you’re offering flexible working, duvet days or the chance to influence the business.

Think about where to place the ad

The options for where to advertise are wider than ever before, so think about where you should place your advert to attract the right type of candidate. Are they on social media, using LinkedIn, reading local publications? If you’re looking for graduates in specific disciplines, see if you can post to university job boards.  Can you ask your employees to share roles on their social media?  You can give them the links to use and provide copy to them if you were nervous of incorrect messages.

Shortlist and interview

If you developed a list of requirements for the role, you should find it easier to shortlist. This can also help to protect you from any claims of discrimination, as you’ll be able to show a clear criteria for selecting applications.

It also pays to consider whether you want to cross-check the information before inviting people to an interview. Shocking research showed that more than half of applications have errors, so you might want to double-check the information. We offered some advice about how to do this.

The next step is to arrange the interviews and meet with your shortlisted applicants. It’s the chance to get a real understanding of the person and how they’d fit in with the business, so make sure you’re prepared. Remember that the candidate is also interviewing you, so be as professional as possible. You don’t want to lose a good applicant because of a poor interview.

Offers and contracts

Once you have chosen who to employ, make sure you take up references, if you haven’t already done so. If possible, one should be their most recent employer. You must also check that they have the right to work in UK. The government has an online tool that can help you check if a worker has the right to work in the UK.

If you’re happy to go ahead, you should confirm the offer, with a written statement of the terms and conditions. This could be an offer letter or a written contract of employment.

Don’t forget the legal requirements

Throughout the recruitment process, it’s essential that you know the legislation around recruitment. In general, you need to ensure you don’t discriminate on the grounds of:

• age
• race
• gender
• disability
• sexual orientation
• religion or belief
• marital status or civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• gender reassignment.

You can find out more about your obligations on the Acas website.