tl;dr
The worst time to hire: December
The best time to hire: Whenever NOW is
Full story:
Hiring close to the holiday season is one of the worst times to hire a Filipino virtual assistant. More on this lower down.
It’s not all bad news. Finding a great VA is easy most of the year. The best time to hire is whenever you think about it. That would be NOW. The second best time would be around the 1st and 2nd quarters of the year.
It’s usually around this time that Filipinos unhappy with their current jobs start looking for other opportunities. Most of them go to Onlinejobs.ph first.
Why do they go to OnlineJobs.ph first?
– no fees
– no salary markups
– no cost
– no commitments
– LOTS of employers hiring
If you want someone young, hungry, and willing to learn, the 2nd quarter is graduation season for colleges and senior high schools in the Philippines. I usually go for inexperienced workers whenever I can because they’re really excited and eager to work. They bring a lot of good ideas and want to prove themselves.
I can’t even tell you how many amazing people on my team started as young, inexperienced, and hungry.
I almost always prefer young and hungry over old and experienced.
But once October rolls around, it’s going to be harder to hire.
1. Filipinos are very family-oriented, and they take the Christmas holidays seriously. It’s not unusual for some people to quit their jobs because of family pressure to focus on the holidays. That’s why we recently released a newsletter on how to get your VA to work over the holidays with advice on how to deal with family pressure.
2. The 13th month is a big deal in the Philippines. It’s not easy for them to find a job that offers it. Even if they hate their job, if that job offers 13th month, they’re going to try to stick it out until they can find something better that offers the 13th month.
Even though this isn’t a good time to hire, you can do something today to make hiring easier.
Write a job post. Upload it to Onlinejobs.ph (You don’t need to upgrade your account yet).
You’ll either:
– Get a bunch of applications so you can start hiring sooner. You can use our AI matching tool to make it even easier and faster.
– You didn’t get any applications, or you didn’t get any good applications. This just means that there’s something wrong with your job post. You can check my advice on how to write a great job post or use our job post templates. You can even email our support team (support@onlinejobs.ph) and ask for advice on improving your job post.
Either way, you’re done with most of the work. All the hiring steps after this will be a walk in the park.
So while I know that November/December aren’t great times to hire, I still hired someone in November. And I’ve still hired in December before. I just know that I need to explain my PTO policy for over the holidays when I do.
John