Fall season is a great season to be a hungry job-seeker. Many industries such as retail, transportation, manufacturing, and financial services are ramping up for their busiest season of the year.
The dreaded “New Year’s Resolution” is also a major challenge for hiring managers, as many of their current staff are giving notice to go search for their dream job or to build their own business in the coming year. Others are planning to embark on a personally-fulfilling journey such as world travel.
All this puts you, the eager job-seeker, in a great position to find the meaningful work you’re looking for. Job boards will be packed in the next few months. “Help Wanted” signs will be scattered all over the place. Many businesses will be offering on-the-spot interviews for applicants via job fairs and resume-toting walk-ins to their business.
Here’s 5 great reasons why the fall season (late August to mid-December) is a great time to get hired:
1. Fall and early winter is the busiest month for many businesses.
Ever hear of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years? While some companies inevitably get stuck hiring at the last minute due to labor shortages of one sort or another, most are smart enough to start pulling in staff before the last quarter of the year is in full swing. Fall is one of the best seasons to get hired, bar-none.
2. Vacation season is over.
And, this is great news for anyone looking for a job! If they got the chance to even take one, many business owners are just getting back from a late-summer vacation. So are recruiters and HR staffers. Hiring peaks in spring and early summer, but falls off later in the solstice as temp positions are filled, and business owners and/or recruiters take some much needed relaxation time for themselves.
3. The hiring process often happens much faster.
Due to time constraints, hiring managers don’t spend near as much time vetting and hiring candidates as they would in the hiring frenzy that occurs in Jan/Feb for many companies. September and October are take-no-prisoners month, and with so many more sales opportunities cropping up in manufacturing and retail, there’s often less time to be uber-selective and picky.
4. The holiday season is a great time to prove your worth.
It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for work in management, sales, administration, or customer service — the holiday season is tough on every division of a company. Business is happening at a frenetic pace right now, making it easy to prove your worth to a company and set yourself up for long-term employment for the coming year.
5. Companies have a lot to worry about once fall is over.
It’s so true for many in the retail sector that business will slow in the first couple of months of the year. That’s not true for everyone though, and just because there’s a slow-down happening doesn’t mean every business will be laying off their employees. The New Year is a busy hiring season, and smart recruiters know to get a jump on things, as competition for viable candidates ramps up to astronomical levels during that time.
Early winter is also a time when New Year’s resolutions drive employees to look for their dream job or pursue other interests like travel, leaving their current job open for someone else.
What are you waiting for?
As you can see, fall isn’t a time to lay around with a mug of hot cocoa and consider your career options for the coming year. Employers are hiring like crazy and job seekers will have much less competition to deal with as employers fight to fill (often) more spots than there are available and qualified applicants.
Main Image Credit: Dan Foy/Flickr
