5 Reasons to Continue Your Job Search During the Holidays

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Each year, as we roll into the holiday season, many job seekers wonder: Should I continue my job search during the holidays? The truth is that the month of December might be the best time to look for a job! You’ll likely have way less competition and be able to capitalize on the opportunities that are available to you this time of year. Here are just five of the top reasons to keep that job search rolling:

Job Search

1. Employers Are Hiring

If you are inclined to think that employers stop searching for new employees during the holidays, think again. This is especially true if their budgets are tied to the calendar year because they know how much money they have available to spend on recruitment and salaries. They might also be more apt to hire before the end of the year so they can maximize their budgets, instead of potentially losing that money after the calendar flips. And in some industries, January is a busy month, so they want to staff up now to be able to hit the ground running come the new year.

2. Less Competition During the Holidays

Since many job seekers put a hold on their job search during the holidays, there are plentiful opportunities for you if you keep your momentum high. While the average corporate job opening receives 250 resumes, with fewer people looking toward the end of the year, that number drops significantly. That means that your resume is more likely to be seen by the employers and recruiters who are looking for you.

3. Exceptional Networking Opportunities

December is full of parties, events, and other gatherings—so much so, that most people have very full calendars. That’s a big plus for you and provides you with multiple opportunities to meet key decision makers and others who can help in your job search. Whether you go to events thrown by professional associations, alumni networks, corporations, or friends and family, you’re bound to interact with some great people. Remember to let them know that you’re looking and be specific about the kinds of roles and industries you’re targeting.

4. Seasonal and Part-time Roles Could Become Permanent

The holiday season is a prime hiring time for several industries, including retail and hospitality. If you are unemployed and looking to do something to get your foot in the door or earn a little extra cash, you have a great opportunity to prove yourself and transition what started as a seasonal or part-time role into something more permanent. This is also true of contract positions. If a company is bringing on additional help during the holidays, that work may continue well into the new year. And if you’re already a member of the team, the likelihood that your contract will be extended is high.

5. Gain an Edge on New Year Job Seekers

New Year’s resolutions being what they are, there is often a surge in hiring come January 2. That results in more competition for the roles that interest you. By continuing your job search during the holidays, you’re positioning yourself for success, whether it’s in the month of December or further on down the line. Even if companies are waiting until they receive their 2022 budgets to start hiring, by starting (or continuing) your efforts now, you’re getting on their radar. That’s because hiring managers and recruiters probably have a good idea what’s coming down the pike, even if it’s not currently advertised. And if you meet them and start chatting at a holiday get-together, guess who they’ll have top of mind when they’re ready to hire? Yep: You.

DO Continue Your Job Search During the Holidays

There’s no doubt that by maintaining momentum on your job search during the holidays, you will put yourself in a great position to find success—if not in 2021 then certainly in 2022. Continue to reach out to employers and recruiters, apply to positions, and mix and mingle throughout the season. Your commitment can pay off dividends on your quest to find the perfect next job.

Looking for more support in your job search? Blue Signal Search is proud to announce the upcoming launch of Resume and Career Services, Powered by Blue Signal, in early 2022. Get on the mailing list now to learn more about this exciting new offering that will put you in the driver’s seat of your career and get you educated, empowered, and employed!

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8 Questions Successful Managers Ask Before the End of the Year

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The end of the year is filled with annual performance reviews, P&L reports, end-of-year budget meetings, a never-ending to-do list, and a thousand other holiday errands. As busy as the end of the year wrap up may be, the opportunity of a fresh start and a new strategic perspective on the coming year is something all leaders should take advantage of. That being said, good business strategy cannot be reduced to a quick planning meeting. It is important to prioritize the time to self-reflect and ask yourself the right questions, because the strategy you plan now has a direct and lasting impact on what your next year will look like. Palena Neale emphasizes that it is vital that leaders make time to reflect on the past year in relation to business goals, actions, values, successes and, of course, their "best" failures.

As you sit down to review the last 12 months and begin planning future strategies, it’s common to feel overwhelmed and left asking, “where do I start?” We’ve gathered a list of the top eight questions successful managers ask before the end of the year to ensure you get started on the right track in the year ahead. These questions are designed to zero in on the important things that tend to get overlooked in the holiday haste. As a best practice moving forward, you can also implement opportunities to review and follow up on these questions quarterly. Checking in on these main ideas will lead to a more realistic view of the overall year and in turn be a more productive use of your time.

8 Questions Successful Managers Ask Before the End of the Year

Question #1: How would I Summarize the Year?

Looking back on the entire year can seem daunting but it’s a great first step in your reflection process. Take a step back and review the past year as a whole. How would you summarize the outcome? Check in with the business goals you had set for the year and see what was met and what fell short. Take this time to dive into the overall performance of your team, individual employees, and most importantly, yourself as a manager.

When looking at the overall performance as a team and individual employees, it’s important to remind yourself to humanize the workplace. It’s okay to report on highs and lows of the year and have open conversations around both. Collaborate with your team about next steps and break down the work that comes from it. When evaluating yourself, don’t be afraid to be brutally honest and truly look for areas of improvement. Once you gather your findings in each area, ask yourself what you can learn from each. List out clear takeaways that you can turn into actions items to accomplish in the future.

Question #2: Where was the Majority of My Time and Energy Spent in 2021?

Pull research and look back to find where your time was allocated the most and where it was lacking in the past year. Are these findings sustainable going forward? Do they make sense in relation to your business goals? When looking at how time was spent, try to pinpoint what caused stress and be aware of signs of burnout.

Stress in leadership can lead to more negative effects than just personal wellbeing – businesses in the US suffer a $300 billion loss every year because of workplace stress. Additionally, almost 60% of leaders reported feeling tired at the end of each day, which can be an indication of burnout. One recent survey found that 44% of leaders who felt worn and used up planned to move to a new company in order to advance their careers. When deciding how to disperse your time, remember that when you’re at your personal best, the company can succeed. Inga Bielińska, a coaching and consulting mentor, recommends looking at the coming year’s agenda and planning for family events to participate in, friends’ reunions or routine outings to go to, winter holidays, summer holidays, and regular “me time” to help combat stress.

Question #3: What Areas Can I Take a Step Back From?

According to a recent survey, developing the next generation of leaders is the top challenge for 55% of CEOs. In most cases, taking a step back will create the opportunity to delegate tasks and responsibilities to those who are ready to step up in the company. This allows you to encourage individual growth on your team and it frees up your time for overall business development opportunities. It’s a win-win. Remember it’s your team who has led the company to its success so far. Trust them to take on more responsibility and show you what they can do!

Once you identify areas you are able and willing to delegate, set aside the time and resources you’ll need to properly train the individuals taking them on. Avoid throwing anyone in the deep end and make sure they are confident in their new role and expectations. Additionally, schedule future meetings to follow up on how things are going after team members have had time to settle into those new responsibilities. This will allow them the opportunity to ask questions and will ensure you are both on the same page moving forward.

Question #4: Where am I in My Personal Five-Year Career Plan?

This is the time to be a little selfish. Just as you would evaluate business performance, it’s equally important to conduct personal evaluations. Check-in with yourself and your business goals – more specifically, where you are in your 5-year plan. You can do this by conducting a personal SWOT analysis and looking at it from a technical standpoint. Loren Margolis, from Training & Leadership Success LLC, suggests asking yourself questions such as, "What are my top leadership strengths and weaknesses?", "What are my growth opportunities?", and "What are the internal (mindset) and external (marketplace) threats to my success?"

In the same sense, take this time to revisit your long term goals. When answering these questions, you’ll determine if you’re on track with your goals and certain areas that need more attention. Remember that all goals are works in progress and you can add and adjust them based on where you are today. Once you’ve reflected and updated, you’ll need to develop an actionable plan to continue on the path to meeting those milestones.

Question #5: How is Overall Employee Engagement?

Once you take a look at your personal progression, the next step is to do the same for your team. This starts with evaluating employee engagement. Studies show that 78% of business leaders are focused on improving their engagements with employees. In turn, engaged employees outperform their peers that are not engaged – and overall, companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable. A good place to start asking the right questions is during employee performance reviews. G. Riley Mills, from Pinnacle Performance Company, shares that “despite common conceptions about workers receiving performance-based feedback, research shows that they not only want it, but they also want to give it to you. A whopping 65% of workers want more feedback – and that number swells to 80% for younger workers (76% of which also want to give their bosses feedback).”

Before the new year, carve out the necessary amount of time to meet with employees one-on-one to touch base. Take this opportunity to notice anyone starting to show symptoms of burnout, or those who need more of a challenge. Be sure to set the necessary follow ups to discuss next steps and note who will need more attention in the coming year.

Question #6: What Gaps Does the Team Have?

No team is perfectly balanced all the time, especially when the company needs to make changes to stay competitive – and that’s okay. When looking for gaps, it’s easiest to tackle this separately from performance reviews. Individual annual performance reviews are critical, but they don’t give a holistic, big-picture view of a team. Meet as a team and create an open discussion regarding where employees are noticing gaps – be open to feedback.

Once identified, categorize them by priority. Which gaps are the most important to close and which are less urgent? Analyze what it would take to close them, such as incentives for the team to work harder, redistributed duties, improved technology, new hires, or more training. Prioritize which gaps to close based on projects and available resources. Oftentimes this can lead to the realization of necessary budget increases for departments. Going into that discussion with this tangible analysis can help increase chances of approval.

Question #7: What Technology Changes are Around the Corner?

Automation, smart devices, IoT, cloud computing, and other advances are changing the landscape very quickly, even in businesses outside the technology industry. No matter the industry, ask yourself how you will remain innovative in the near future. As remote work has taken off in the past two years due to Covid-19, technology and processes have advanced quickly to meet the communication standards among teams working across the country. Many businesses have identified software, programs, and devices to implement or better utilize for reliable internal communication, streamlining processes, remote work, etc. The innovation of 5G has brought a particular shift in advancing technology we use daily.

More specifically – cybersecurity has proven to be more important every year. It’s crucial to keep teams up to date about what skills they need to stay competitive. Additionally, pay attention to market trends throughout the year – last-minute technology upgrades are never convenient or cheap. After you reflect on these points, you may find it’s time to hire new IT professionals or teams to manage internal technology advancements. Remember that Blue Signal can help!

Question #8: What Would a Successful 2022 Look Like to Me?

After all the self-reflection and input from the team, the last step is to set business goals and intentions for the year. The hardest part of goal-setting is being realistic. Keep in mind – not all dreams should be goals. A great place to start when mapping out your business goals is to ask yourself what will stay the same, what will change, and how. All of these answers should lead to insightful follow up questions and provide you with the necessary steps needed to plan for success.

When setting these intentions, it’s important to focus on hard numbers and actionable projects. In turn, this helps outline expectations and clearly communicates what considers a goal complete. The best goals have benchmarks and key performance indicators to measure success along the way. A great tip is to dig up your previous business goals - not just from this last year, but 3-5 years back - and look for trends. Look for similar, overly ambitious goals you tend to make year after year and decide how to make them more achievable or choose to scrap them altogether. If you find yourself getting stuck and unsure of what’s important, ask your team for input! This will ensure all department’s individual business goals are represented in some way when it comes to the company’s future plans.

Once you’ve settled on your goals – memorize them. Throughout the year you should be able to clearly visualize what you’re going to accomplish – almost manifesting the outcome. Share company business goals with your team as well and remind them to refer back to them often.

In the busy month of December, it is easy to get buried in small tasks and miss critical opportunities to get ahead in the coming year. Optimizing these questions can help you stay organized and zero in on important business goals and action items to take. When reflecting, remember to celebrate the wins as a team and try not to tread on the goals you didn’t hit. A new year is the perfect opportunity to clean the slate and start fresh with an ambitious mindset. Alexsys Thompson, from Alexsys Thompson Intl., states that “as a leader reviews the wins and losses of the previous year, it is powerful to revisit the wins that were experienced, and acknowledging the misses through story will help ensure lessons are taken forward as valuable learning experiences.”

As you build out your 2022 strategy, remember Blue Signal can be a vital resource! Our seasoned recruiters can partner with you to help answer these questions and deliver action items related to hiring to hit your business goals in the year to come. Contact our qualified team of recruiters to learn more about the wide range of services we offer.

Coffee with a Recruiter, feat. Jared Wenzel – Resume Best Practices

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Senior Account Manager, Jared Wenzel is Blue Signal’s own one-stop shop for healthcare and managed care talent. He has 10 years of recruiting and consulting experience, making him an expert in strategy, talent development, and even resumes. In this segment of Coffee with a Recruiter, Jared tackles common resume queries that can help you stand out as the best of the best among any applicant pool. 

Question: Do I need a one-page resume?

Answer: “If the rumors about recruiters and hiring managers only reviewing resumes for a few seconds each, if those are true then yes I definitely believe you need to have a one-page resume. In regards to a lot of resumes that I see, many of them look like the person just copy and pasted their job description right into the body of the resume. While that does show an overview of what you can do, what’s really important is showing measurable accomplishments, any type of metrics, anything that you can show that you can stand out from the rest of the resumes is definitely a good way to go. 

Really what it should look like is less like a job description and more like your own personal highlight reel. The best way to do that is really just to cut the fluff. I always think of “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” - what sparks joy? What would spark joy in the minds of a hiring manager? What do they want to see? Well they want to see that not only can you do the job, but you can excel in the position. And I think showing measurable accomplishments and metrics is really going to make you stand out from the other applicants that just, again, copy and pasted the job description into the body of the resume.”

 

Q: How can I get hiring managers and recruiters to see my resume?

A: “That is a very good question! And one that I get asked a lot, because it seems like no matter how many times you send out a resume, sometimes it can be very hard to hear back from people. The truth is that oftentimes there’s a lot of people - could be hundreds of people - applying for the same job. So it’s really important to get your resume to stick out to those recruiters and hiring managers. 

For me as a recruiter, when I’m searching for somebody I’m going to be taking the position description and breaking it down into specific keywords that hopefully I’ll find on a resume or a LinkedIn profile. I think what you need to make sure is that you have keywords that are industry-term specific, like any type of business associations that you are in. Acronyms are great. I also think it’s very important to spell out those acronyms, not everyone is as familiar as you are with the industry. Anything ranging from the technology you have used, how you measure your metrics, anything like that is important. It can really identify the specific industry or position that you are looking for. 

There are resume optimization tools and certain websites where you can upload your resume and upload the position description. They’ll actually grade it by how many keywords are found based on your resume compared to the position description and give you recommendations on how to improve your resume to increase visualization. Many organizations will actually have tools that will scan resumes and grade them individually. If you don’t meet a certain grade your resume is getting kicked to the trash can, and the other ones are making it through. So tools like this are really helpful to kind of make sure that your resume can get more visibility. (Jared’s personal pick can be accessed here!) 

And once you have your resume in front of them, kind of a neat little tip is to highlight - I wouldn’t go yellow highlight - but you can bold, underline, or italicize certain metrics or measurable accomplishments that you want to make sure that human resources or hiring manager sees. Anything that draws their eye is going to grab their attention. So again, underlining, italicizing, or even bolding certain key metrics to make sure someone sees them, is a good way to get someones eyes directly where you want them to be.”

 

Q: What are some ways to take my resume to the next level?

A: “There are a number of ways which you can take your resume to the next level. First one may seem pretty obvious, but it is making regular updates to your resume. Especially as accomplishments are fresh in your mind, it’s easier to jot things down and especially make them more accurate. Now I’m totally about, you know, approximations when it comes to metrics, but obviously if you can capture them as you’ve completed them, it’s just going to make your resume look more accurate. And - no one likes to have to scramble and make updates to their resume, and look back and try to dig up all these old metrics. Especially if you find yourself without a job. So, keeping your resume current - updating it quarterly, or at the very least annually. When you’re doing your annual reviews with your direct report it's a really good time to grab those metrics and jot them down on your resume. 

The next one is to use a thesaurus. I’ve seen “dynamic” be used on so many resumes. Just put that into Google, put it into a thesaurus, and look up some variances of different words. It’s just going to make you look much more intellectual if you can throw in a couple words other than “strong,” or “innovative,” or one of the long list of cliche, descriptive adjectives people use for their resumes. Try to find something a little bit unique, and something that maybe fits your personality a little bit better too. 

I’m always a big fan of editing for consistency. You know, get down to your bullet points - do they have periods or are they open ended? Is your font consistent all the way through? How are your margins? Little things like this. I see typos all the time. Really just making sure, and keeping a close eye on things not only shows that you can be a meticulous person. Proofread, I think it goes a long way. And really, it looks way worse on a person when they find typos in resumes or in thank you notes, or anything else like that. Send it off to somebody else if you need someone to proofread it. If you see the red squiggly mark, it means it’s spelled wrong! So, try to fix that. You know, take a fine-toothed comb and go through your resume and make sure everything is pretty consistent. 

A little bonus tip for everybody, grab some references! If you know some people you work with or a past manager, get those set up and ready. Again, it’s not something that you really need to go scrambling for later. So if you can get some good people on your side, and kind of in your back pocket, it will just help for later on. Even if you don’t need it, but just in case you do, those are some good tips to help elevate your resume.” 

 

The Key Takeaways 

A resume really is the first introduction you have with a hiring authority, and just like actual intros - if not done right - it could be your last. To make sure your resume not only stands out, but also gets in front of the right audience, keep it simple by creating a one-page highlight reel, include the right keywords to get past those pesky Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) filters, and use some new adjectives to describe your style. Update your resume often, and keep good references in your back pocket in case the need arises. Finally, if all else has failed, you can always pick up the phone and call one of our expert recruiters to help get you on the right track for that next career move. 

Jared Wenzel
Jared Wenzel

Jared Wenzel

SR. EXECUTIVE RECRUITER

Jared is our own one-stop-shop for healthcare and managed care talent. With a background in recruiting, strategy, leadership development, and consulting – he knows what needs to be done to get your business to the next level. He finds the best of the best, not just the best in your zip code.