The best time to hire is (really) now

You must be thinking I'm crazy or I have my own agenda (I do run my own recruitment agency in Singapore). But regardless of how you are going to hire, the time has never been better than now.

I know the impending recession is still looming over our heads. Projects are down, profits are miserable. If your business is going to outlast the recession, here are the reasons why you should be hiring:

Your competitors will be letting go some of their talents
This is the standard knee jerk reaction every organization out there will be doing. It is a no-brainer. No business means less profit.

To balance the books, you reduce expenses and what best way to do it than to reduce salary cost since they normally constitute the highest expenses component. And so your competitors will let some of their talents go, talents that you had been pulling your hair out to find over the past year.

Replacing the dead weight
Since you can easily find replacement now, the risk level in ridding of dead weights and not finding capable replacements are significantly lower (see above).

More contingent staffs
When the market is good, less people are willing to take on contingent assignments. With a volatile employment market, the luxury to be choosy diminished and that provide a lot more opportunities to look at gaps you can temporarily addressed.

And if they turn out well, reward the commitment and hard work by converting them to perm staffs when the opportunity permits.

Time is on your side
Remember how you had to drop everything to rush a hiring process so you won’t be beaten to it by the hour? With lesser hiring activity across, you can take the time to interview more candidates and get to know them better. So when you are ready to hire, you would have more than enough chances to know their skills sets and their cultural fit.
 

Adrian Tan, Managing Director, RecruitPlus Consulting Pte Ltd