Shopping. Baking. Entertaining. Traveling. Job Searching. Wait, what?!! With so many things to do during the holiday season, it would be nice to cross at least one thing off your “to do” list. If you’re overwhelmed, skip anything but the job search to get your life back to a manageable level. Why? Because consistency when searching for a job is important.
To help you continue your job search momentum during the holidays, follow these expert job search tips:
- Understand that prospective employers, hiring managers and recruiters probably have abbreviated hours during the holidays. Give them extra time to respond when following up by phone or email.
- Be patient. In addition to the holiday season, many companies are closing their books for the year and finalizing 2016 budgets. This may impact their hiring plans for the remainder of the year.
- Be flexible. You’ve been offered your dream job, you’ve negotiated terms, and you’re ready to get started! Your enthusiasm is commendable, but be flexible with your new employer. You may be ready to start right away, but they might need a little more time to organize this time of year.
- Network. If you’re out of work, you may not feel like attending holiday parties, but this is a good opportunity for you to do some informal networking. Don’t go for the hard sell though. It is, however, appropriate to let people know you are exploring new opportunities and to ask them to keep you in mind if they hear of anything.
- Volunteer. Volunteering is a great way to stay active in your community while you’re looking for a job, especially during the holidays. You will stay busy, feel useful, and may even pick up some new skills or contacts along the way.
- Avoid overindulging. If you’ve been out of work for a while, you may not be feeling very festive. This makes it easy to overindulge in holidays treats and beverages. Indulging occasionally is OK, but don’t overdo it. You don’t want to show up to a job interview hung over.
- Plan for 2016. Whether you’ve been searching for a health care job for five weeks or five months, this is a good time to re-evaluate your job search strategy for 2016. How many jobs did you apply for? How many responses did you receive? Did you get any offers? What worked? What didn’t? What changes could you make in the New Year? By looking at your job search process as a whole, you may identify strengths to build on or weaknesses to improve (e.g., reworking your résumé.)
The entire MyHealthRecruiter.com team wishes you a joyous holiday season and peace and success in 2016. If we can help in any way, let us know.
Happy Holidays!
Diana Albertson, CEO
MyHealthRecruiter.com