July seems to be a point every year in which staffing firms take an introspective inventory to see the traction that they’ve accomplished at this point and strategically determine or forecast how the remainder of the year will turn out.This activity trickles down to producers as well. No two years are alike and sometimes the second halves of the year turns out better than the first.
Our company has performed its own quantitative analysis to see how we’ve performed in the first half of a year versus the second half. This study went back three years and the numbers averaged within a few points of each other the same every year. For instance, we found that 55 percent of our revenue was generated in the first six months of the year. The second half produced the remaining 45 percent.
The next question we wanted answered was: If we exert the same effort throughout the year, what would cause revenue to fall by approximately 10 percent in the last six months? The reasons appear to be multi-pronged. For instance, managers (and employees in general) tend to take more vacation time in the summer. With key members of interview teams being away, this seems to make the hiring process more protracted. Also, the holiday season starting from mid-November to the end of the year tends to slow down hiring and often delays bringing on new employees until a new calendar year begins. This can also lead to positions being slashed due to budget cuts.
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Personally, I’ve had years in which the second half of the year can resurrect a poor or mediocre first half. How can this be done? There is no one approach that tends to reverse fortunes but several key habits can have a positive effect. For instance, diversify your portfolio of clients that you call on. Some companies’ fiscal years start later and they ratchet up their hiring efforts later in the year (For those companies, it’s the beginning of the fiscal year). Also, government spending can offset poor early hiring. Government years start on July 1st and many entities have to spend their budgets before the end of their year because they lose funds allocated to that year or are able to re-start spending in the middle of summer because of new funds infused into dwindling budget allocations.
I’ve also found that there are no magic elixirs that make a difference but rather following the tried and true fundamentals that all good sales people should have. Those include making more calls, creating more client visits, qualifying good clients from poor ones and putting your efforts toward good ones, taking good job orders and asking recruiters to refine their sourcing habits in order to find the best candidates possible. Again, this isn’t an act of re-inventing the wheel but more importantly, building a better mouse trap. If your year isn’t what it should be, use the second half to win the numbers game.
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