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Understand Recruitment Cycles to Give Your Job Search an Edge

by John Rossheim

When it comes to connecting with the right job opportunity, timing isn’t everything, but it’s certainly something. Tuning into industries’ and employers’ annual recruitment cycles just might give you a decisive edge.

That’s the consensus of recruiters and employers with fingers on the pulse of seasonal variations in hiring. Here’s a quarter-by-quarter summary of how these hiring dynamics play out.

First Quarter: A New Year’s Wave of Hiring

Sometimes peaks of hiring correspond with workplace factors that are only loosely related, like when people take vacation. “Hiring seems to be done by consensus more than any other decision,” says Scott Testa, chief operating officer of Mindbridge Software. “So most hiring decisions have to be made when people are in the office.”

Major hiring initiatives may follow close on the heels of the holidays and summer. “The big months for hiring are January and February, and late September and October,” says Testa. “Job seekers who make contact right at the start of these cycles have the best chance of being hired.”

Strong hiring periods like the first quarter, when demand for talent may outweigh the supply of qualified candidates, may be a good time to go for a job with more responsibility or higher pay. “If you’re currently employed and looking to improve your status, you’ll want to look during the peak hiring season,” says Glenn Smith, president of search firm Precise Strategies.

Second Quarter: Gearing Up for Summer

For those whose livelihood depends substantially on fair weather, spring is when hiring peaks. In the construction industry, hiring in April, May, and June proceeds at double the pace of December.

Tourism and hospitality hiring is also very strong in the spring. And businesses looking to hire professional workers before fall often do so now, before key decision makers start rotating out for summer vacation.

Third Quarter: Recruiters Relax a Bit, and Vacation Plays a Role

Hiring slows down in July before picking up at the end of August. For those with nontraditional but impressive employment backgrounds, there’s an advantage to looking in relatively slow hiring months like July and December, says Smith.

For example, recruiters, less pressed for time than in peak months, may be willing to take a longer look at an experienced professional woman seeking to return to work after taking years off to care for children.

Fourth Quarter: A Rush, Then a Lull

The fourth quarter presents the most complex hiring dynamics of the year, with its mix of fall activity, holiday retail hiring, Thanksgiving-to-New Year’s slowdown, and end-of-year financial and budget maneuvering.

“Hiring managers and bank CEOs will typically try to reduce their operating profits by incurring search fees towards the end of each year, to avoid paying taxes,” says Josiah Whitman, an executive recruiter with Financial Placements. His firm’s job orders are distributed this way: first quarter, 23 percent; second quarter, 21 percent; third quarter, 20 percent; fourth quarter, 36 percent.

Although December hiring is at low levels in many industries, recruiters are determined to fill the year’s remaining openings by December 31, and the supply of applicants dwindles as Christmas and the new year approach.

Major industries classified as information, financial services, and professional and business services, having hired heavily in the second quarter, see their lowest level of hiring in December, says the JOLTS survey.

But December isn’t as slow as it used to be, say some observers. And applications tend to slow down during the holiday season more than openings do — tipping the balance in favor of those who do apply.

“It seems that business just keeps going through the holidays,” says John Challenger, CEO of outplacement and search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “There doesn’t seem to be the kind of letup that there used to be.”

So playing the recruitment peaks doesn’t mean waiting out the rest of the year. “You need to be out there looking for opportunities, not finding excuses to avoid looking,” says Tom Johnston, CEO of SearchPath International.

Lazyest Gallery 的插件搞了好久，刚才终于装好了，原因是没有在/wp-gallery/目录下建子目录，插件作者在说明里面也没有说这个问题，还是在其论坛上看到的。

在Edong网上申请的300大洋的Linux空间上安装好了Wordpress http://www.chinesefolk.com ，安装非常简单，照着这个http://alexhuang.org/?p=193 看就没有问题，因为刘韧的那个说明的地址我一时找不到了。

本来想图片多用Movable Type 的，后来看到Edong的这个服务不支持CGI，只好用Wordpress，在网上也看到一些Wordpress的图片功能的插件，下载安装了http://soderlind.no/ 的Imagmannger 和http://lazyest.keytwo.net/ 的ImageManager 这个图片集工具，装是装好了，就是还不太明白不知道到底怎么用。

试用下来，Wordpress很不错，插件和主题的管理都很简单，只要下载下来，解压到Plungin和Theme目录下，就可以在web的管理界面直接看到进行管理。

在donews上想加一个计数器，试了几个国内的，发现在计数器前都有乱码，后来还是申请了一个国外的才可以，不知道是不是因为后台字体的问题。

本周四（2006.2.23),欧洲批准了应用电缆传输数据通讯的技术标准，这个标准。是来源与35个组织中和10所大学的研究成果。

PLC技术，Power line communications 的缩写，在欧洲的相关技术组织称为OPERA(Open PLC European Research Allicance)，这个组织的部分基金由欧盟委员会组成。

尽管基于PLC的技术传输速度可以超过200M，而去欧州也批准了这个技术的标准，然而那些已经过早应用的失败的PLC应用还是使人感到不安。有些很早就接入这个行业的公司如Eon公司已经放弃了这个市场，源于复杂和昂贵的实施费用，以及太少的回报前景。

西门子公司也曾经试图成为这个行业的先驱者，2001年的初次试水后也应为缺少欧洲的行业标准而作罢。

与此同时，业余无线电协会的一些位于美国的成员，声称通过电缆传输的信号干涉了他们的无线电传输，OPERA在一份白皮书中回应说他们的技术对于业余无线电是不会产生影响的。

关于PLC技术标准可以访问 http://www.ist-opera.org/ 获得。

据 美国电影协会报道，比利时和瑞士在本周三（2006.2.22)逮捕了Razorback2的负责人，关闭了该网站。比利时当局在布鲁塞尔附近的一家互联网主机服务中心没收了Razorback2的服务器，Razorback2的负责人也在其瑞士的家中被捕。

现在连不上Razorback2的朋友们也不用再尝试连接该服务器了。

今天在整理照片，想把照片做成一个视频文件，忽然想起来以前下载的Photostoy这个软件一直没有试过，即打开开始使用，发现其实还是很好的一款软件。

以前我把图片做成视频的时候都是用微软的MovieMaker，有个问题是有时候想在某一个图片上作解说的时候还要注意时间要和图片的间隔一样，使用起来不太方便，现在用Photostory可以在每个图片上单独作解说，而且使用非常简单。希望快速方便的把图片制作成有图片解说的朋友可以下载试用一下。

下载地址如下：

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/b/f/4bf7f68a-204d-4897-9b9a-b24c2504e2fe/PStory.msi

今日话题（2006-2-23）: IT 预算（二）

接着说昨天的预算的话题，谈谈IT的预算都要考虑哪些方面。

一般预算会分为两类：固定资产类和费用类的预算。

固定资产类预算是指有时间期限的资产类项目，费用类指短期的消耗类的东西，比如计算机和培训费就分别属于固定资产和费用。属不属于固定资产类还有一个金额上限的问题，即到达多少才算是资产，例如：如果设2000元以上的设备类才算是固定资产的话，现在假设有10个每个价值1000元的硬盘，虽然总价值是一万元，那么也不能算为固定资产。

那么一般预算都要考虑的具体都有什么呢？

1)      新的财政年度的IT项目。
      考虑明年都有哪些新的IT项目，列出这些项目都需要什么样的技术方案，每个方案都会有哪些具体的花钱的地方。比如一个ERP的项目就牵扯到服务器，软件，备份带库等固定资产，同时也会有培训，外包，差旅费等费用类的预算。和上级主管或总经理商量这些项目哪些是他们同意的，然后可以根据项目的实际情况估算情况，尽管你还没有签订合同，你还是也可以要求供应商帮助你提供相应的报价。

2)      你的公司的发展规模和公司的员工人数变化情况。
发展快速的公司要求你对服务器，磁盘系统，备份系统都能够有所准备。

3)      硬件维护和软件维护的费用。
不要忘了自己公司里面有些设备是已经过了服务期的，还会有些设备是需要付款维修的，比如说每个公司员工的笔记本和员工一起共进了早餐喝进了牛奶，而这个厂商是不会负责免费更换的。

4)      软件的费用
买正版软件的费用，不需要多说了吧，其实这个问题还是和公司高层对软件的认识的问题，曾经在一家公司碰到里面都要求购买正版软件的老板，也碰到过希望你帮他省钱又不想说不买正版软件的老板，在这个事情上，有时候真的是很为难。

5)      外包。
外包在现在越来越流行的今天，不妨建议老板考虑将核心之外的IT业务外包，虽然会增加这方面的预算，但是可能在其他方面还是值得的。

6)      数据和语音通讯费
WAN和Intranet，以及Voip这些数据通讯租用和维护的费用有时候也是一个很大的费用。

今天的话题就到这里，明天继续讨论关于IT资产管理的问题。

[完成此篇用时40分钟]

http://www.msnshell.com/