Don't Put Your Job Hunt On Hold for the Holidays

While some of the editors are getting ready to take a few days off (alas, not all of us will be off this next week), we leave some good advice from the career experts at the WSJ/Career Journal:

Don't Put Your Job Hunt On Hold for the Holidays

It's a myth that hiring slows down between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, says popular Journal columnist PERRI CAPELL. Sometimes, in fact, it's the very opposite, as "managers try to fill jobs before their budgets expire."

"Not only don't things slow down in December," says Tim Jones, vice president of human resources for Ixia, a communications technology test systems maker. "but there's a sense of urgency to fill jobs in many cases."

In fact, from the perspective of IMDiversity's editors, December has been an active month for the posting of jobs on our job banks. The activity seems to have been at least partially boosted by the fact of imminent or slightly extended deadlines for internships, coops and other entry-level or educational opportunities for the late spring and summer (yes, already), where a high volume of applications must be in early enough in the new year so that decisions can be made for a summer start.

For others, the holidays can be an ideal time to "line up one's ducks," fine-tune your resume, take the time to do the kind of employer research we all know we should be doing thoroughly, but don't always have time and focus to do as well as we should.

So, while we wish everyone a happy holiday season, we also urge those who are in an active job search to not let too much momentum go to waste over the next couple of weeks, but keep up the efforts to make 2008 a very happy new year indeed.

Good luck!