What are jobs for the holidays? And how to find them

The holidays are a time for family gatherings, special meals, memories, vacations, and seasonal work. Seasonal jobs are a great way to get temporary work for the holiday season, boosting your income when spending is usually higher than the rest of the year. Knowing how to find these jobs and what roles you may undertake during the holiday season can make a huge difference in landing these positions. Keep reading to learn more about holiday jobs and how you can find yours.

What are seasonal jobs?

Seasonal jobs are temporary roles that last for a certain amount of time. Companies often offer these positions during busy seasons to help meet the increased demand caused by an influx of customers, provide valuable work experience, or vet potential candidates for future full-time positions. The holidays are the busy season for many companies as gift-giving is commonplace during this time, resulting in many companies offering seasonal jobs in the lead-up to and during this season.

How to find seasonal holiday jobs

Seasonal job hunting is similar to finding full- and part-time roles. Here are some tips to help you find and land that seasonal holiday job:

Refresh your resume

Ensuring your resume is current and reflects your skills and accomplishments is key to getting the attention of hiring managers, recruiters, or other human resources professionals. This allows you to customize your resume to better relate to the positions you plan on searching for in your job hunt. If you want to search for different types of seasonal jobs, you may create a variety of resumes that align best with those other roles.

For example, creating two different resumes is a good idea if you want to search for seasonal retail and warehousing jobs. One that highlights your customer service and sales skills and one that focuses on your work ethic, attention to detail, and inventory management.

Start looking early

Start your job search early rather than waiting for the beginning of the holiday season. Many companies advertise for these roles a few months before the holiday season begins to ensure everyone gets the necessary training and experience. This helps improve productivity during the holidays, so they don't have to take extra time instructing new personnel during peak season.

Looking early on, you may find more job opportunities than searching later in the season because companies may have either filled the holiday roles they were looking for or found ways to manage the season with the teams they already have. Another benefit of inquiring in advance is that you have time to find the seasonal position that works best for you and your lifestyle rather than trying to adapt your life to fit into the job's parameters and its hours or pay.

Research companies

Knowing what companies or types of organizations hire seasonal employees can give you a starting point for your holiday job search. Contacting recruiters at those companies, monitoring their job boards, and signing up for job alerts can help you get in front of recruiters fast for those roles. This can increase your likelihood of securing an interview and landing the job.

Prepare for your interview

Once you've secured that first interview, it's important to take some time to prepare. This goes beyond ensuring you have the right outfit. Practicing your responses to commonly asked questions, researching the company and its offerings, and thinking of examples to talk about all go into preparing for your interview. This can help you explain why you're the ideal fit for a role and show an organization your excitement about working for the company.

"The holidays are the busy season for many companies as gift-giving is commonplace during this time, resulting in many companies offering seasonal jobs in the lead-up to and during this season."

Jobs hiring for the holidays

While roles vary between industries and companies, there are many seasonal jobs to consider for the holidays. Here are some positions to think about looking for as the holiday season approaches:

Sales associate

Sales associates are the face of the company and its products, as they greet customers once they enter the store and help them along their buying journey. This includes asking them questions to understand what they want, providing product recommendations based on their needs, and directing them to cashiers to complete their purchases.

Delivery driver

Delivery drivers can work for companies that deliver food and beverages, materials, or products to customers. Regardless of what these drivers are shuttling around, their responsibilities include verifying the contents of their delivery and safely transporting it to its destination. This role can also involve a certain level of customer service, as they often greet customers and get their signatures on delivery documents.

Customer service representative

Helping enhance the customer experience is the aim of customer service representatives. Often tasked with problem-solving and resolving complex issues, these representatives listen to customer complaints and find ways to resolve the situation, creating a positive customer experience and helping the company retain its customer base. Some customer service representatives also fulfill sales associate responsibilities when finding an agreeable solution for consumers, such as suggesting other company products or solutions and assisting with completing that sale.

Server

If you live in an area that sees an influx of visitors during the holidays, you may see an uptick in the need for servers in your area, as this trend also increases the demand placed on restaurants in the locality. Servers are the middle person between the customer and the restaurant. They are responsible for taking customer orders, delivering those orders to the kitchen, transporting food and beverages to customers' tables, and assisting with any other customer needs during their time in the restaurant.

Front desk associate

With this role prevalent across many industries, you may find more opportunities to take up this position during the holiday season. This is especially true for those in the hospitality industry, as visitors often stay at resorts or hotels. Front desk associates assist customers with checking them in for their appointments or stays, accepting customer payments, and scheduling future visits as needed. In the hospitality industry, their duties can include educating visitors about hotel or resort policies, helping at important events during their stay, or cleaning the lobby area where they work.

Housekeeper

As this role feels the effect of a busy hospitality industry, the demand for housekeepers can increase during the holiday season. Housekeepers are responsible for cleaning hotel rooms after guests depart and restocking items in each room according to the individual resort's requirements. Some housekeeper roles also include the need to launder linens after each guest's stay to ensure plenty of clean inventory is available for other rooms needing linen changes.

Production associate

Another position that may have increased vacancies during the holiday season is the role of a production associate. This is especially true if the manufacturing company creates materials or products in high demand during the holiday season, such as the toy or fashion industries. Production associates help on the assembly line of the manufacturing process. Some of their duties may involve starting production machinery, inspecting products as they make their way through the production process, and logging production numbers for order fulfillment.

Knowing how to start your holiday job search and understanding what jobs may be out there can be the key to finding and landing your seasonal job quickly. Seasonal jobs are perfect for earning extra income during the holiday months. They are also a great way to gain experience that can benefit you in future job searches for full-time roles.

More tips for finding holiday jobs

Want to explore the benefits of seasonal or part-time work? There are many benefits to working part-time that can help you in your future job searches.

Are you searching for a high-paying seasonal job? Many seasonal roles pay well so that you can save or balance your budget.