Do the arithmetic backwards.
The Australian energy and infrastructure market effectively closes in the week before Christmas and does not genuinely reopen until the end of January. That gives you roughly fourteen usable weeks from 1 September.
Now work backwards from a start date. A senior technical or leadership hire in this market commonly carries a four week notice period, often longer at executive level. Offer to acceptance, reference checking and contract execution takes one to two weeks. A well run interview process takes three to four weeks. Search and shortlist takes two to three weeks.
Add those up and a start before Christmas requires a brief in the market by about the second week of October. A start in the first half of February requires a brief by the second week of November. After that the realistic answer is March, because December interviews do not get scheduled and January offers do not get accepted.
That is the whole point of this piece. The deadline is not December. It is October.
What spring does to candidate behaviour.
Three patterns repeat every year and they all work in your favour if you move now.
- Bonus timing drives movement. Candidates with a bonus paying in the first quarter will not resign in November. Candidates whose bonus already paid, or who are not on one, are the active market in September and October. Knowing which is which changes who you should be approaching.
- Contractors plan their January now. Anyone coming off a scope in November or December is deciding their next move in September. Contract requirements that start in the new year are easier to fill in September than they will be in December.
- The year end review conversation creates candidates. September and October performance and remuneration conversations are the single largest source of new candidates in the Australian market. People who get a disappointing review in October start looking in October.
The failure modes we see every spring.
- Waiting for the new budget. Organisations that hold roles until January enter the most contested month of the year with no preparation. The role still has to be filled, it just costs more and takes longer.
- Losing November to availability. Interview panels disappear in November. Conferences, leave, year end reporting. If the panel is not booked in advance, a four week process becomes eight.
- Offering in December. A good offer made on 15 December is a coin toss. People do not want to resign before Christmas and three weeks of family conversation changes decisions. Either offer by the end of November or plan for February.
- Letting the contract renewal slide. Contractors whose engagement ends in December need their extension confirmed in October. Leave it to late November and they will have taken something else, and you will be rebuilding knowledge in January.
What to do in the next two weeks.
Three concrete actions, in order.
One. List every role you need filled before March and mark the ones that must be in the market by mid October. Most organisations have not done this and discover in November that half of them have missed the window.
Two. Confirm every contract extension through to March now. Your contractors are making their own plans this month.
Three. Book the interview panel through to the end of November. Two slots a week, in the calendar, held. The single cheapest thing you can do to protect a spring hire.