Every year, talent acquisition teams brace for the start of the new year. It’s often labelled a “hiring boom.” After the holiday slowdown, organisations reset plans and hiring activity ramps up.
But what’s really happening, and how should talent teams respond?
There’s a difference between activity and opportunity.
Volume doesn’t equal quality, and that’s the trap
January brings volume, but volume often drives the wrong behaviours:
- Teams default to spray-and-pray posting on job boards.
- Recruiters chase more applicants, not better ones.
- Talent teams get overwhelmed with CVs but underwhelmed with outcomes.
And here’s the issue: channels like job boards drive applications, not engaged talent. Even when applications rise, the average applications per job can stagnate or skew far from a meaningful shortlist.
For international tech businesses, this challenge is amplified. They’re competing not just locally, but globally, for niche skills. A higher volume of applicants doesn’t help if they’re the wrong fit.
Precision beats volume…every time
Rather than chasing January volume, the most effective talent teams focus on precision. The goal isn’t more activity, but better outcomes: quality hires, faster decision-making, and closer alignment to business priorities.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Build a proactive talent pipeline
Don’t wait for seasonal surges. Continuous nurturing and engagement create a ready pool for the roles that matter.
Building a strong employer brand is critical to any proactive talent pipeline. It’s not a quick fix, but sustained investment pays back by attracting higher-quality, more aligned candidates before roles even go live.
Use data to prioritise channels
Job boards can deliver volume, but data shows where quality actually comes from. By analysing audience behaviour, engagement signals, and historic performance, talent teams can prioritise niche communities, specialist platforms, referrals, and targeted media that attract more relevant candidates, not just more applicants.
Deploy analytics, not just activity metrics
Measure time-to-hire, source effectiveness, offer acceptance, and quality-of-hire, not just applications. These metrics show which channels and audiences actually deliver value, helping teams move away from volume-led decision-making.
Leverage automation wisely
AI/ATS tools can screen and rank, but human strategy still decides what matters. Automation should enable better decisions, not replace them.
Smart teams treat January as an opportunity, not chaos
January doesn’t create hiring problems; it exposes them.
When activity spikes, volume-led strategies break down fast. Applications increase, but relevance drops. Time gets eaten by screening, and the roles that really matter take longer to fill.
The teams that perform best use January as a moment to prioritise precision:
- focusing on the roles that drive growth,
- using data to guide channel choice,
- aligning hiring decisions to business outcomes, not just headcounts.
That’s the real shift: from posting more jobs to making better hires.
Your next hiring boom should feel intentional, not reactionary
January is busy. That’s not new.
What is different is the pressure to hire well while competing for the same skills as everyone else. More applications don’t solve that problem. Better targeting, clearer priorities, and smarter channel choices do.
The teams that get January right aren’t the busiest. They’re the most deliberate.
Build a Hiring Strategy That Prioritises Quality, Not Volume
Hiring volume is easy. Hiring well isn’t.
If you want to move beyond application counts and build a more precise, data-led hiring strategy, Crunch can help you see where quality talent really comes from.
