You may have heard of the September Surge. With summer vacations ending, kids back in school, and end-of-year goals coming back into focus, some employers go on a hiring spree. Even in the rockier job market this year, delayed Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the U.S. added 119,000 jobs in September, far more than expected.
On the other side of the equation, job seekers are often busy applying left and right in September. But around the holidays, many press pause on their job search.
“People assume that companies aren’t hiring or that they just stop hiring from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, and that is not true,” Vicki Salemi, career expert at Monster, tells CNBC Make It.
“Some job seekers may say, ‘It’s Thanksgiving and then the holidays; I’ll wait until January,’” she adds. But “if the majority of people do that, then you actually have more opportunity to stand out because there’s less competition.”
Karolina Severova, a senior talent acquisition specialist in higher education, says the fourth quarter was always one of her strongest when she was an agency recruiter, filling positions across businesses and industries.
