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The season of fall foliage and pumpkin spice lattes is approaching. Meanwhile, the job market might also turning over a new leaf.
A “September surge,” or the idea that more job postings become available after Labor Day, is tied to an end of a summer slowdown as job recruiters and hiring managers return from vacation, career experts say.
“The team is never there together; there’s always someone missing,” said Cara Heilmann, president of the International Association of Career Coaches.
“It just drags things out much more during the summer months,” added Heilmann, who’s also founder and CEO of Ready Set Go, a career coaching firm.
There is, however, no hard data for the theory, explains Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.
On average, the number of job openings in the U.S. does tend to fall by an average of 1.4% between August and September, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the number of hires made in the month tends to fall by around 6.0%, on average.
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Yet the fall season may be a good time to search, job experts say.
“We do see a seasonal trend in job seeker behavior, however, with a modest decline in the number of job applications submitted in September,” Pollak said.
On average, more than 20 million applications are submitted through ZipRecruiter each month, with application volumes falling 8.3% between August and September in 2022, for example. Last year, application volumes fell 12.1% between August and September.
As a result, individuals who are actively job hunting may see their chances improve as they compete with fewer other candidates, Pollak explained.
In fact, job-seeking activity tends to peak in January, with 20% more job applications started on Glassdoor than in a typical month, according to Glassdoor data from 2017 to 2020.
Meanwhile, here are some key ways to help you land that job you are after, according to experts.
1. Focus on networking
It will be important for job seekers to “be more strategic” said Erin McGoff, a career educator with more than 5.3 million social media followers across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
Instead of solely applying to hundreds of jobs online, focus on making direct connections with people in those companies, McGoff said.
It’s important now more than ever before to network and to try to land a job “through word of mouth, through your alumni, through any other associations you’re a part of,” McGoff explained.
This direct contact is key because recruiters and hiring managers are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of applicants, McGoff explained.
What’s more, “job boards are becoming extremely cluttered and oversaturated,” she added.
2. Gather insight
Networking with employees at a firm you are applying to for a job can give you information about the company and the interview process, said Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor.
To stand out as a candidate for larger companies, Terrazas said to try to gather key information:
- Be familiar with the company culture.
- Speak the “company language.”
- Research what interviewers are seeking.
3. Tailor your resume
Submitting a tailored applications is also important, McGoff said.
“The second that recruiters get that generic, untailored resume, it’s just going right into the ‘no’ pile,” McGoff explained.
To avoid spending hours on each job application, it’s also a good idea to assess how much you want the job you’re applying for by using a rating system to compare various jobs, Heilmann advised.
For example, if you see a job post, and you’re not that “jazzed about it,” be fair and rate it on a scale from one to 10, said Heilmann. If you see another opportunity that you’re very excited about and you rate it higher, then you need to spend more time customizing that application, she said.
4. The ‘three-legged stool’
A successful strategy — at any time of year — will involve a combination of applying online, networking and tapping a career coach or recruiter, Heilmann explained.
“I call it a three-legged stool,” she said.
If a job seeker is only doing one, just applying online, for example, “their entire strategy is not balanced,” Heilmann cautioned.
It’s also key to move fast.
“You might not have much time,” Terrazas said. “Fall is bookended by big holidays. It’s a relatively narrow window for job seekers to get on board.”