Budgets don’t always allow this, but having been part of a business that wasn’t able to continuously recruit, vs one that has been able to hire for 18 months plus I can say for a fact that keeping a warm pipeline and an open role at all times is dramatically better. Let me explain a bit about why:

1. Constantly filling the pipeline. They’ll be sourcing and adding new candidates regularly, so that if at any point you need to fill a bunch more req’s you’ve already got a pipeline and you can ramp up the things you’re already doing.
2. An open role for opportunistic hiring. If you find out that a great developer is available, you’ll have a role. You may have to pivot your budget a bit to change what role you’re hiring, but at least you have a shot at great talent.
3. Reputation as a hiring organization. If you continually hire, you’ll become known by engineers and other hiring partners (e.g. the key networkers & recruiters) as having roles, and more people will show up at your door.

Obviously, there are downsides to all of this. You’ve got to plan for your hiring to be spread across the entire year. You’ve got to have a budget that is reliable enough that you can count on it for hiring quarters in advance. Of course your budget will change, but you need some confidence. I’ll cover in a future post how to think about budgeting that will allow you to have a high level guess at your hiring all year long.