If you’re thinking of looking for a new position next year, good news: one of the best times to hunt for new employment is right after the holidays.
Why is this? Generally, because people are in “holiday mode.” Things slow down: we’re all “focused” pretty much on the holiday festivities, shopping, etc. This especially tends to be so in the final week or week and a half of December, right around Christmas Day. Many people take several days off, after all. And many of those tend to be hiring managers: the people who actually decide whom to hire to fill an empty position in their department.
Yet hiring DOES tend to pick up in January, once the decorations are down and the New Year’s Eve confetti is swept up.
In other words, it’s back to business as usual in January.
Yet…
(Yep, here comes some not-so-good news),
…. this coming year may be a bit different in this regard: Forbes is predicting a recession next year. Here’s what the website says: “One of the best near-term recession indicators is the job market. The release of October’s jobs report showed unemployment rose to 3.9%. Small increases in the unemployment rate have historically been sufficient to trigger a recession. This is called the Sahm Rule. Now, it’s not calling for a recession yet, but it may be getting close if the unemployment rate does not improve from here.”
Even if we don’t move into a recession, other economists predict job growth to slow down in 2024.
What does this mean for you, if you’re looking for work?
- If you are unemployed, it will be tougher to land work. Just face this and do that which needs to be done.
We wrote a blog post on how to stand out from the crowd and rather than repeat ourselves, click here for the link to the post and follow its advice. Seriously. What we recommend truly works!
Yet we urge you not to despair. Economists have been calling for a recession for more than year; it hasn’t happened and there’s always a chance it won’t happen next year. After all, recessions come and go – they always do – and the job search strategies we recommend in the posts linked to above truly do help you stand out in a crowded field.
- If you’re currently employed, don’t give notice until you land another position. You may dislike your job with a passion that burns an ulcer in your gut, but hang in there and look for work while employed because employers simply prefer to hire people who currently are working. Theories abound as to why, but a fact is a fact.
Don’t think that you’re different. We’ve known hundreds of people who thought the same – and perhaps you have known some yourself – and who found out the hard way that they just… weren’t. Don’t think your great skills/background, etc. will somehow save you from having a harder time landing work. There are many other people out there with the same great skills/background and you’ll need to make a real effort to stand out from them.
Regardless: January still tends to be a great time to look for work!
In fact, if you were to start applying for positions now (in early December), you could find yourself interviewing in early January.
Lastly, a tip for the unemployed among you worried about looking for work:
Register with a Debbie’s Staffing branch near you.
Yes, many of the positions are temporary, but you’ll bring in some income for a while and you won’t have time to sit around playing the pity violin.
Plus, and this is FACT: a good number of our temporary employees are hired on by our clients. Whether they are working in a temp-to-hire-assignment or a short-term assignment, our clients look to us to find great people and when we send those great people to our clients, they’re often hired on to our client’s own payroll after a few weeks. (We can’t guarantee any of this of course, but it does happen.) We recommend that you take a look at our current job opportunities.
Still, January does see companies coming out of holiday mode and looking to fill positions they didn’t rush to fill in these past few weeks.
Start looking for work and remember: all will come to he or she who hustles while they wait!