Why January is the Perfect Time to Look for a New Position

Most employers set their new budgets in January of each year. Come January they have fresh budgets that they can use to pay new salaries and bring in new people.

There is typically a lot of "pent up demand" once these new budgets are passed and hiring organizations are eager to bring people in and do so quickly once they have the funds to do so. After months of not having authorization, or funds to pay new salaries, employers can now hire people to fill vacant positions in all sorts of departments.

There are also some other less pleasant reasons why January is a busy hiring month:

• Most employers have reviews towards the end of the year where they ask certain people to leave that they plan on replacing with "fresh talent". There are some major Fortune 500 organizations out there that even annually fire any employee who has been reviewed in the "bottom 10%" of employees more than two years in a row.
• Hiring organizations also know that many people are likely to leave each year after bonuses are awarded (or not rewarded) in December or early January and plan their hiring accordingly.

All of these things "converge" as it were to make January a very active hiring month for employers.