The Holiday Season is a great time to look for a job

I was speaking with a candidate on this past Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Even though he had just recently been laid off, he told me that he figured that with the holidays coming up, that he was just going to lay low and then start aggressively start looking for a position on Jan. 2.

I told him he was making a mistake.

While there is a myth that all hiring screeches to a halt during the Holiday Season, the holidays are in fact a great time to look for a job.
In fact, in my 20 years as a Recruiter, I have consistently had my strongest billing months in Nov. and Dec.

There are a couple of reasons for this.
1- Most people stop looking for a job during the Holiday Season. They have bought into the myth that nothing will happen so they stop looking. That lowers the number of people actively looking and therefore lessens the competition.
2- There are situations, especially at companies that operate on a calendar-year basis, where a Hiring Manager is told that if he/she does not fill his/her position by the end of the year, they may lose the position.

Don't misunderstand - there are companies that essentially 'shut-down' around the Holidays.
But there are companies that are still hiring. And there still exist enough opportunities out there that anybody who stops their job search during the Holiday Season is making a big mistake.