There are many hurdles you have to leap over during the course of landing a job. Some you have complete control over – obtaining the right skills, applying for a wide range of jobs, and getting your interview technique down. Others are completely out of your hands – the right job position opening up, the person hiring having an ideal candidate in mind (that you don’t match up with), and even things like trains being on time!
The key is to harness what control you have and use it to your advantage. Which brings us to today’s blog post, looking at the best time of the year to apply for a job. This may seem like an area that will always be beyond your control, but in truth, there may be a way to apply order to the chaos.
Generally avoid summer and Christmas
To put this simply, you need to expend your effort when it makes the most sense to do so. You wouldn’t go for a beach holiday in the UK in the middle of winter, would you? No, so you shouldn’t be bending over backwards sending out CVs and chasing up every job site when companies, in general, won’t be hiring. Or at the very least, when they won’t be hiring quickly.
Senior management will probably be on holiday during the summer, so even if you do get a job opportunity, you’ll likely have to wait for the boss to come back before you can have an interview. Then they can’t hire you until their superior returns two weeks later. But then don’t expected to be given the paperwork because the administrator is in Florida.
Christmas is even worse, as entire firms will be off for extended periods of time. Furthermore, as it is the end of the year, recruiters will be reluctant to hire new people knowing a major holiday is coming up. This isn’t true of every sector (more on that later), but the vast majority of companies will fit into this category. Fortunately, this information does inform our estimate for when best to apply.
Concentrate on the start of the year and Autumn
If Christmas is the end of the year for a business, then mid-January will be the start (once everyone has got back into the swing of things). Companies tend to set out their vision for the coming year, and that usually corresponds with a flurry of firings and hirings. This means the window between January and April is the ideal time to be putting all your effort into your search. April is traditionally seen as the start of the financial year, so it may be the best month of all to go over the top in your search.
September through November is the corresponding period after the summer holidays, when normality sets in, and the push to meet end of year targets begins, so it is also fertile ground. Of course, you should be looking year round anyway, even if it is considered a quiet time, but these two periods are when your are most likely to land a new job. At least, in most cases. . .
Do your research
This step, along with applying some common step, will make all the difference. For example, if everyone is going on holiday in the summer, June, July and August are the best times to try and land a travel related job. Similarly, leisure companies like theme parks and cinema chains will be gearing up for their busy periods, so they too will be looking for new employees when everyone else is gearing down their searches.
Another factor to consider is the wave of students who flood the market every August/September after their graduation. If you have a similar degree, you may be crushed beneath the surge, so try and time your search smartly so that it either takes place before or after this stampede.
Whatever job you are applying for, you can use the three tips outlined above. Do your research and figure out if your company has specific busy/quiet times, and if they don’t, stick to the general time frames outlined ahead. Again, you should never stop searching, it just pays to step up, or step down, your search at certain times, so you don’t end up wasting your time. And hopefully, with a little luck, you’ll land your ideal job!