Planning a vacation this summer? With a little preparation, you can keep your recruitment efforts moving forward while you’re away.

At Nationwide, we love checklists. (One of us has even admitted to adding something to a list after it was already completed, just for the satisfaction of checking it off.) To help you leave the office with confidence, we’ve put together a practical pre-vacation checklist for local government recruiters.

Pre-Vacation Recruitment Checklist

📣 Communicate and Delegate

• Inform your team and relevant hiring managers of your vacation dates.
• Assign a point person to handle urgent recruitment needs.
• Brief your backup on active recruitments, key contacts, timelines, and priorities.
• Set up your out-of-office message and schedule it to activate on your first day away.

📰 Job Postings

• Schedule job advertisements in advance on your preferred recruitment platforms.
• Set calendar reminders for job posting opening and closing dates.
• Prepare draft postings for anticipated vacancies so your backup can publish them if needed.

📲 Candidate Communication

• Set up automated email responses for applications received during your absence.
• Create templates for common inquiries, such as application status updates, and share them with your backup.
• Notify candidates of potential delays if they are in a sensitive stage of the hiring process.

🤝 Interview Process

• Confirm and schedule interviews before your departure whenever possible.
• Prepare interview questions, evaluation forms, and supporting materials in advance.
• Delegate interview coordination responsibilities to a trusted colleague.

✍️ Documentation and Tools

• Ensure your backup has appropriate access to the applicant tracking system (ATS).
• Store relevant files, schedules, and process documents in a shared location.
• Provide any necessary system access information through secure channels.
• Document any pending tasks, deadlines, or special circumstances related to active recruitments.

Keeping recruitment on track during the summer months is essential, and checklists can be one of the most effective tools for staying organized. Think of them as a backup for your brain—they help you manage details, stay focused, and avoid that nagging feeling that you’ve forgotten something important.

Use this checklist as a starting point and customize it to fit your agency’s hiring process. Once everything is checked off, you can enjoy your vacation knowing your recruitment efforts will continue moving forward while you’re away.

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Need additional assistance with recruitment planning, hiring strategies, or hard-to-fill positions? We’re here to help. Contact us at info@mynpsj.com.