With the first two months of 2016 over, Resourcing Solutions were in a position to test the theory of whether January really is the most popular month to change jobs.
A month ago, both the HR Magazine and the Recruiting Times published articles using evidence from a study by Glassdoor which cited,
“January is the month employees are most likely to think about changing jobs, with almost one in five (18%) citing this as the most popular month to make a move”.
However, as a specialist engineering and construction recruitment business, we wanted to look at our raw data and put this theory to the test. It turns out that although it seems that people are more likely to ‘think about’ making a move in January (according to Glassdoor), they don’t actually change jobs more often in the first month of the year. Being realistic, the recruitment process ahead of starting a new job can take months when you consider factors as finding a suitable role to apply to, notice periods etc.
Our permanent placement results from the past 3 years do not point to a more popular month for changing jobs. Over the past 3 years we have seen January (ironically), April and June respectively as our top months for candidates starting their new roles. However, there is a common trend and the good news is, it’s just around the corner. SPRING! For the past two years, spring has seen our highest level of people commencing new jobs which ties in very nicely with fresh, new beginnings associated with spring.
These ‘spring’ insights could back one of the statements from Glassdoor; that January is the most popular month to ‘think about’ changing jobs. To explain; you ‘think about’ a new job in January, and ‘start it’ in spring once the recruitment process has taken its course. We looked back at our web traffic and online applications to see if there was a peak in January, as people start to look and although we can pin point a very slight upturn in January across some years, there is nothing really significant to say that January is an extra special month.
So, forget January. Although a new job might be on people’s radars at the start of the year, spring is where it all happens and is officially the most popular time to actually change jobs.