The next two weeks are a hectic time of the year for nearly everyone, but the expectations and events of the season can easily place extra stress on jobseekers. Penelope Trunk wrote an excellent post yesterday on how to deal with unemployment in the face of holiday cheer where she shared five morale-boosting tips to help jobseekers make the most of the holiday season. Based on the comments section, her encouraging points comforted and resonated with jobseekers. As Penelope admits, answering the simplest of questions, “How are you doing?” can be a land mine for someone wrestling with a period of unemployment.
What stood out (for me, at least) was Penelope’s 4th point addressing how December and January are strong hiring months. So true! And so easily forgotten! A recent post of my own offered several suggestions on how to effectively job search during the holidays, and the Career Collective, of which I’m a member, did an awesome job earlier this month of addressing the same topic. I urge you to read through the advice of my esteemed colleagues as well.
The bottom line: It is all too tempting to take a break during the holidays with your job search efforts, but the smarter move is to recharge and revitalize your search and continue forward. Let your competition take a break while you continue to network and connect with decision makers at your target companies.
To your career success in 2010!