Guest blog from JobbyDoo:

Christmas is almost upon us! Carols will fill the air and there will be mince pies and festive cheer in abundance – not to mention a sleigh-load of Christmas jobs!.

Wait a minute, I hear you asking, did you say jobs?

I most certainly did.

With everybody out and about looking for presents and generally spending money like there’s no tomorrow, it’s going to take you twice as long to buy milk in your local supermarket. But it also means job seekers can look forward to a bonanza of seasonal employment opportunities.

Here we give you three simple tips to help you get your hands on the best job opportunities the festive season has to offer.

 

1. Make the most of your natural interests

Most seasonal jobs – e.g. shop assistant, personal shopper, gift wrapper, waiter, warehouse worker, etc – don’t require a great deal in the way of specialist knowledge or training.

Accordingly, the requirements for these jobs tend to be fairly generic, mainly focusing on a candidate’s personal qualities – i.e. attention to detail, punctuality and accuracy, a white beard (hang on, sorry, those are just the Father Christmas ads!)

This means, of course, that the competition will be fierce. So, with this in mind, our first tip for success in your Christmas job search is to focus on your natural interests.

Essentially, this means looking for work in sectors you are familiar with or knowledgeable about.

Want a practical example?

Well, if you’re a technology buff, you shouldn’t be looking for work in a perfume shop. It would mean having to learn about a sector you are unfamiliar with, which is easier said than done. And if you end up applying anyway, the chances are you’ll find yourself passed over in favour of other candidates whose knowledge of the sector is better than yours.

Instead, you should try responding to ads for vacancies in electronics shops, where you can put your personal interests to good use. Potential employers will be much more likely to take you on if they realize they won’t have to explain everything to you – particularly if your knowledge of the products is as good as (or even better than) their own!

This rule applies across the board. Basically, whether your passion is fashion, video games, books, or music, focus on job offers related to your areas of interest – and don’t forget to draw attention to your specialist knowledge in your application.

 

2. Look at all job offers – both online and offline

Once you’ve decided the area you’re going to concentrate on, you need to start looking for job offers.

To make sure you don’t miss out on a single opportunity, you need to look both on and offline.

For online searches, a useful resource are job search engines, which conveniently bring together all of the job vacancies advertised online in one place (one of them is Jobbydoo:  https://www.jobbydoo.co.uk).

This means that with a single search you can get a good overview of the opportunities available. And applying for the jobs you’re interested in can be done with just a few clicks of the mouse. If you want to make a start right now, check out the Christmas job opportunities Jobbydoo has selected for you: https://www.jobbydoo.co.uk/christmas-jobs

But the web is not the be-all-and-end-all of the Christmas jobs market.

Smaller businesses may decide not to use the internet, but instead to fill a vacant position locally. This will usually mean advertising their vacancy by putting up a sign in their window, or else relying on word of mouth.

To make sure you don’t miss out on these offline opportunities, the best approach is to go from shop to shop with your CV, asking whether they need help over the holiday period. Ideally these will be shops you use regularly since, if they already know you, this will increase the likelihood of them considering you for the position.

 

3. Start now!

Now is the time to start looking. Companies will have factored in the time they need to train up new hires to ensure they have a well-oiled team in place by the time the Christmas rush begins. Meaning their recruitment drive is starting right now.

Another reason for starting your job search now is that timing really is of the essence for these kinds of jobs.

These are companies in a hurry, who don’t have time to hang around waiting. This means, very often, that the candidates who reply first to job ads have a big headstart over the competition. Basically, the sooner you start, the better chance you have.

So don’t waste any more time and start looking for your Christmas job right now!