Rats! No one is Hiring during the Holiday Season

You have heard the expression perception is reality.   It comes about as a result of feeding the brain information which then gets sorted out and stored. We in turn consciously and unconsciously look for statistics and measurements to support our belief.  Take for instance the housing market.  When we think, hear and read that we are in a buyer’s market than as a seller we start believing we will get less for our house than it is really worth. We know this is true because realtors are telling us this is the case based on their expertise.  So what do we do? We decide not to sell and to wait until the market improves.  The fact of the matter is houses are selling, buyers are buying and people are still conducting wise real estate transactions during this period of time. 

Likewise, when we are in a job search and are told that no one is hiring during the holiday season we might logically believe this to be true and therefore play the wait and see game.  How foolish we can be.  What a waste of valuable time.  I suggest you rather go against the grain, challenge those naysayers, and believe the opposite is true.  Why?  Because the majority of people are believing this to be a bad time to look for a job, if you  stay active in your job search you will be more likely than not to find an opportunity waiting for you because there is less competition looking. 

The holiday season in the US between Thanksgiving Day through New Year’s Day is a five to six week period of time that has the potential to be ripe for picking or extremely depressing.   It all depends on how you look at it.  I see it as a time to work as hard as possible on pursuing your goal of landing the next job.  While many others make little or no effort because of the perception that hiring decisions aren’t being made during this time, you have an opportunity to stand out from the competition.  Use this time wisely, pursue every lead and continue to conduct your job search as diligently as you have had done in the past.

In recent weeks I have had the good fortune to be in the midst of several opportunities that I am pursuing, and almost each day I get a lead from my network of people and resources.  I don’t see this as a bad time to be looking.  I see it as a great time.  So my advice to those of you who are in the job search - get yourself refocused, approach the next several weeks with great optimism and you just might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Next week’s blog: Lessons Learned