Should candidates continue to aggressively job hunt during the Christmas holiday season? 

That’s a question that we frequently get from our job-seeking clients. The answer can be somewhat subjective, depending on personal circumstances.

But the long and short of it is, if you’re serious about a new career path or work opportunity, you should definitely keep your job hunting activities going during the holidays. If you have some special travel or vacation plans for the holidays, those should definitely come first! Everyone needs some well-deserved downtime with friends and family around the holidays.

The trick is to maintain a good personal-professional balance. 

Keep up some level of job-hunting activity so your search doesn’t go stale and you don’t miss any significant job opportunities.     

Providing safe and healthy work environments for our employees is always our priority at HCR. We have an established reputation as a leading staffing and employment agency in the Greater Toronto Area and Southwestern Ontario. This gives us access to world-class companies and qualified candidates like you an inside track to exciting job opportunities to:

• Add some flexibility to your career
• Search for short- or long-term assignments
• Find positions that match your skills and experience
• Begin every assignment prepared and ready to work

So let’s dispel a few myths before we get started. The experts over at Top Resume reviewed whether the end-of-year hiring slowdown myth is fact or fiction. Here’s what they came up with:

Final verdict: Is the holiday hiring freeze fact or fiction?

After looking at all of the evidence, the jury cannot decide. On one hand, temporary hiring speeds up tremendously during the holidays — upwards of 100,000 temporary jobs are available at major corporations. On the other hand, there are fewer qualified candidates and less incentive for hiring managers to fill their open positions, so some may wait until the new year to resume their search for candidates.

The best advice for job seekers is this: Don’t give up during the holiday season. While the supply of full-time permanent job openings may decrease during the holiday season, the number of active job seekers in the job market also decreases. If you find and apply for a job listing that you’re interested in and qualified for, your job application will face less competition during the holiday season — and you stand a better chance of landing the job. What do you have to lose?

We agree with their overall assessment. Candidates have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

In this post, we’re going to discuss some great reasons to continue your job search during the holidays—and a few tips to help maximize your efforts! 

Let’s get started with the main reasons to stay active in the December/Christmas holiday:

• Seasonal work could become permanent 
• Less competition 
• Potential year-end hiring budgets and needs 
• Companies are active in the job market, looking to start the new year off right

Seasonal work could become permanent. 

If you’re working at a temporary, seasonal job that you enjoy, it could become permanent. This happens all of the time. Many large companies, such as express shipping companies, manufacturing companies, and retail outlets, use the holidays to recruit permanent employees.

So don’t be shy about asking your boss if your temp job could become a permanent employment opportunity. Leadership at every level in every great company is always on the lookout for talented, motivated employees who can help them grow.   

There is less competition for job hunters during the holidays. 

There is no doubt that fewer candidates are actively involved in the job search process around the holidays. There are many reasons for this, and some are more obvious than others.

Stress levels are high, parties and get-togethers are plentiful, and time is generally at a premium this time of year. You can use all of these seemingly obstructive factors in your favor, though. 

Hiring managers and HR teams are under stress for a different reason this time of year. They have open positions to fill. Resumes and interested candidates are much harder to come by, which gives you an excellent opportunity to get noticed. 

The holiday season is a great time of year to bubble up to the top of the applicant tracking system software and look like a real go-getter to hiring professionals in the manufacturing sector. Job hunting this time of year doesn’t have to be a full-time effort either. Take your time and look for a few end-of-year opportunities that look particularly interesting to you. 

You just might get a big end-of-year surprise.      

Take advantage of potential year-end budgets and hiring needs.

Manufacturing companies are especially active in recruiting this year. 

Automotive and aircraft manufacturing companies are still short-staffed from the previous two years of uncertainty. Along with warehouse and distribution companies, these companies are actively recruiting for some excellent jobs with benefits and long-term growth opportunities.

There are manufacturing companies right now with staffing and hiring needs that are unfilled. They have money earmarked to hire candidates just like you.

Companies are active in the hiring market and looking to start the new year off right.

As we point out in several previous posts, the job market is currently heavily slanted in favor of job seekers right now. It is a super-competitive environment for hiring teams vying to recruit new employees in the manufacturing space. These teams need to be fully staffed for next year to meet production goals, execute on new contracts, meet growth goals, etc.

Recruiting and staffing teams have budgets and bonus plans at their disposal to meet these goals. No company wants to start the new year off short-staffed. You can use this to your advantage by staying active in the job market during the holiday season. 

To help you stay active in the job market this year, we wanted to offer some assistance. So last but not least, here’s an early Christmas present from the team at HCR!

A few extra tips for your holiday job search: 

Update your personal brand

No matter where you are in your career, unless you’re considering retirement, you’re probably not at your last job. You need to think about your personal brand. This is a fancy recruiter’s term for how you present yourself to potential new employers.

Personal brands consist of things like your resume, cover letter, Linkedin and social media profiles, websites, references, work samples, etc. Depending on your circumstances, you may have an extensive personal brand or a more limited one. The point, though, is that you do have one.

At a minimum, make sure you have a great resume and cover letter that highlights all of your skills, experience, accomplishments, credentials, etc. Fine-tune your LinkedIn and social media presence as well. A professional recruiter can also help you with some of these basics if you need some direction.

Devise  a reasonable job search schedule

First and foremost, make sure you slow down a bit during the holiday season and spend some well-deserved time with family and friends this year! We all need to enjoy ourselves, especially this time of year.

Just try to dedicate a little bit of time each week to some very focused job searching, watching for any activity with your search that needs your attention, providing follow-up emails, etc.

You just might get that end-of-year Christmas gift of the new job you’ve been looking for!

Last but not least—work with a staffing agency that understands you and your career goals.

Engaging with an established recruiting and staffing agency will help you with your job search. A motivated recruiting firm can streamline the hiring process by helping you find the companies that are looking for a candidate just like you.  

Whether you are searching for reliable and skilled workers or looking for new job opportunities, HCR has the solution. We match great people with great career opportunities every day.

Why settle for just any job when you can choose an opportunity that is uniquely suited to you? 

At HCR, we are anything but a typical recruitment firm, and you will notice that difference immediately. Your recruiter will get to know you beyond your resume. We want to learn your personal and professional career goals and objectives.  

At HCR Personnel, we’ll treat you as an individual, not just a number. HCR recruiters have decades of experience and far-reaching connections in the manufacturing, engineering, and industrial sectors. We know which employers are looking for great employees with your skills, experience, and goals.  

Give one of our professional recruiters a call today at 416-622-1427 or get in touch online today.