Follow me on Twitter A common misconception holds that the November-December holiday season is an unproductive time for job-hunting. Smart job seekers take advantage of the unusual opportunities that the season 
brings — to position themselves for a holiday employment success.
Hardly anyone enjoys having to look for a job. It can be extremely tempting to find reasons to avoid the stress and hard work inherent in the quest to find meaningful employment. Even people who have compelling reasons to find a new job as soon as possible often find compelling reasons why they can’t look for work today.
For job-search procrastinators, then, what could be better than having an excuse that lasts for almost two months?
The year-end holiday season, framed by Thanksgiving and New Year’s, is commonly viewed as a bad time to look for a job. “Nothing’s going to happen until January, so why waste my time?” goes a common refrain. “I might as well enjoy the holidays and regroup to tackle a serious job search in January.”
That’s the conventional wisdom …
But the conventional wisdom is wrong.
While the holiday season might interrupt business as usual, the result is a changed playing field for those who stick to their job search — bringing opportunities that job seekers might not encounter during the rest of the year.
This article puts to rest some of the misguided beliefs about the year-end hiring and employment
environment, and shows the advantages of sustaining — and even ramping-up — a fulltime job search through November and December.
Unconventional wisdom for holiday job seekers When it comes to the holiday job search, avoid falling victim to the conventional wisdom.
Don’t take a vacation from your job search. One reason that slacking off during the holidays is a mistake is that other, less-savvy job hunters do not realize that it is a mistake. They retire from the search … which leaves the field wide open for those who do not let up. This shall owing of the active candidate pool will make the swimming easier for you.
Of course, not everyone will postpone job hunting until after the New Year, but thousands of people
who ought to be following leads and scheduling interviews choose instead to wait out the holiday season. It will be much easier to get a jump on the competition if there are fewer people in the race. While you will rarely have the field all to yourself, in November and December, it’s likely to be a lot less crowded.
Business doesn’t take a holiday. Companies do not shut down during the last six weeks of the year. The stock market does not close in November and December, banks do not stop taking deposits, and people continue to make phone calls and strike deals. Likewise, hiring managers do not stop reading new resumes that land on their desks.
Companies also do not wait until January 1 to do strategic planning. Budgets and headcounts for the coming year have already been approved, goals have been set, and steps are already being taken to carry out the plans. If managers want new people on board in January, January 1 is too late to start interviewing.
Still, many people mistakenly believe that employment inquiries will be set aside until after the holidays, and fewer people submit resumes and job applications toward the end of the year. This means that those who do are likely to receive more attention.
Also, while companies might to some degree curtail recruiting activities around the holidays, those open-position ads that do appear are often for high-priority jobs that need to be filled promptly. With fewer job seekers studying the employment listings, this reduced competition works to your advantage.
Certainly, the holiday season interrupts business as usual, but office parties, holiday celebrations, and lunch hour shopping errands remain extracurricular activities. If there is hiring to be done, it will be done.
Momentum matters — don’t break it. One of your goals as a committed job seeker will be to develop and consistently work on an ever-expanding list of potential employers and job opportunities — even beyond your ideal target job. Smart job seekers also apply the widely recommended approach of treating a job search as their full-time job — working every day to steadily expand their network of connections and job prospects.
If you as a job seeker have a great job search underway — or even a tentative one — in October, Thanksgiving is not the time to go on vacation. It would be destructive to let the momentum dissipate. The loss of momentum is the great saboteur of the job-hunt process — in any season.
Focusing too narrowly on job targets is another momentum breaker. When job seekers concentrate their efforts on only the one great job that they truly want — when they fail to identify and explore multiple job possibilities, and fail to build the crucial network of connections that goes with this exploration — their progress can be entirely upended when they come in second or the company puts a freeze on hiring. Under such circumstances, it can take weeks for the job seeker to overcome the discouragement and reorient himself or herself to start pursuing new targets. What could have been just one bump along the road instead results in a dead end.
Don’t let anything — the holiday festivities or a limited vision of the possibilities ahead — cripple your momentum.
The most wonderful time
The holiday season means a change of pace for many people. Do not allow this to slow your momentum, though. In fact, the unusual gifts of the season can help spur momentum.
The following practical suggestions can help you take advantage of the special opportunities that occur during the final weeks of the year and can lead to a big payoff in January.
Reconnect with everyone — and expand your network — during the holidays. The holiday season, with its once a- year gatherings and celebrations, offers a perfect opportunity to renew old acquaintances and make new ones. On the professional side, holiday parties are a chance to renew business relationships and to introduce yourself to new people.
The fulltime-job approach to the employment search means staying in touch with the people in your network on an ongoing basis. This is crucial to your success. Many job searches stall
because people lack the discipline to keep in touch, or lose interest in doing so. The truth is that people forget about you if you don’t make yourself visible. The holidays are an ideal time to touch base with people you know well and others who are new to you — to extend good wishes, and to give an update on your situation.
Do not be afraid to let people know that you are looking for new employment opportunities — although, of course, you should use discretion and avoid putting someone on the spot. Ask for a chance to follow up after the party is over.
Consistency pays off. For example, one colleague sent out “gratitude emails” in December to many of the people that had networked with during the previous months. This prompted one of his contacts to forward his resume to someone else, which resulted in an interview — and his new job.
Everyone you meet can become part of your network. Holiday reconnections can lead to new and stronger personal and professional friendships, and help you spread your search, increase your options, and keep the momentum going.
Devote “time off” to expanding, defining and refining your targets. Your committed job search takes time and focused effort. The comparative downtime provided by the holidays — including more free time spent at home — presents an opportunity to hunker down at the computer to do more research and expand your job targets. Keep in mind the importance of pursing an array of job options; your job search will be hobbled if your targets are skimpy.
Expand your targets by:
- Re examining your objectives and job search tactics
- brainstorming with your support network, including professional colleagues as well as your family and friends
- doing Internet research, which can include identifying additional job leads and new companies to contact.
People are often amazed to discover companies they never knew about — organizations that might not be high profile, but that offer rewarding jobs and turn out to be great places to work.
If you have neglected one or more job search channels, add new ones. Job hunters tend to favor ads and employment agencies as their first avenues of search. These are the options that are closest to the typical person’s comfort zone.
To separate yourself from the competition, expand your networking activities and reach out to the companies that your research has uncovered. (The Five O’Clock Club offers guidance on how to approach employers and improve your confidence and effectiveness when you do so.)
Launching a targeted mail campaign is an excellent holiday pursuit. It takes time to research companies, create intelligent cover letters, and make the follow-up phone calls a few days later.
There are five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Imagine the impact of sending out 10 targeted letters each of those weeks. You will have a busy holiday job search if you do this, and it would be remarkable if you don’t end up with several promising options to explore further.
If you’ve come to avoid online or newspaper ads because responding to ads has never worked well for you, spend a few hours scanning the ads anyway, but not just to look for openings. People do get interviews through the ads, but the ads can also help you to spot trends in the kinds of jobs being advertised and the salaries offered. You might also see ads placed by companies you have already been targeting, which should prompt you to use your networking contacts to get an introduction to the company.
The year ahead: There is no such thing as a bad season to job search
If procrastinators are fond of excusing themselves from a year-end job search because hiring supposedly goes downhill after Halloween, then their favorite time of the year is probably summer. Yet, June, July and August combined are frequently declared the summer holiday, and many people believe that nothing will happen until after Labor Day. Accordingly, they head for the beach, telling themselves that they will get back to the job market when the season changes.
Of course, it’s a good bet that there will be another excuse when the Tuesday after Labor Day arrives.
Setting an arbitrary date when you will finally tackle an unpleasant task invites only dread and more delay. In fact, there is no bad season for your job search. No matter what month it is, you can always do something to make progress. In the summertime, with most of your competition relaxing at the beach, you can work the job market productively. For the present holiday season, though, you’re looking for a January payoff.
When to use the holiday excuse
There is one time, however, when you can play the holidays-are-bad-news card. If you lose your job as the holidays are approaching and you are negotiating for the best possible severance deal, be sure to tell your department manager or the human resources officer that it is a tough time to be looking for a job: “You know, with the holidays just around the corner, it’s a rotten time to send out resumes. I’ll be facing an uphill battle and nothing will happen for months.” Since nearly everybody believes this, you
have an opportunity to pump up your departure package.
But you know that you are just being a good negotiator — and you also know that the holidays are a great time to be in the job market. With the right combination of application and attitude, your holiday season could bring a yearend employment success — with new reasons to celebrate and a great start to the New Year.
Quick Hints
- There is no bad season for your job search.
- Make an early New Year’s resolution to commit to a full-time job search — before the new year even arrives.
- Don’t let anything — especially the season — cripple your momentum.
- The holidays bring ready-made reasons to reconnect with people — and to add new people to your career and job search network. Touch base with everyone to extend good wishes — and give an update on your situation.
Spend your holiday free-time building your list of employment targets. Hunker down at the computer and do more research.