Do You Know the Best Season for Job Hunting?

Finding a new job is often a very difficult process. Not only must you create a resume that adequately explains your professional history, but you also need to stand out among competitors. Due to the inherently challenging nature of job searching, it’s recommended you take a logical approach to this process. A big part of finding a new career is knowing the best season for job hunting.

As a leading recruiting service, Mac & Fulton Talent Partners has seen first-hand the impact of seasonality on job searching. That being said, timing your job search to align with the best time of year will greatly increase your chance of finding a new job. Especially if you are considering leaving your job, please note that different times of year offer more opportunities than others. 

If you aren’t sure about the best season for job hunting, M&F Talent put together this season-by-season assessment. 

Changing Careers in Winter

When it comes to job searching in the wintertime, you get a mixed bag between Quarter 4 of the previous year and Quarter 1 of the new year. In fact, these periods of time separated by the holidays provide drastically different climates for job searching. 

December is traditionally a very difficult time to get hired. Most businesses have met their hiring quota from the previous year and are waiting for a new budget to start hiring again. However, December does generally include an uptick of new jobs being posted from businesses who intended to hire in January and February of the next year.

According to CNBC, “January and February … make for prime months to look for a new job. At the beginning of the new year, hiring managers are typically eager to spend their new hiring budgets and few people are on vacation, which makes it easier to make a group decision on a candidate.” It’s for these reasons that January and February are some of the best months for getting hired. 

Finding Work in the Spring

Considering such things as annual hiring budgets and people’s tendency to avoid hiring during the holidays, springtime is one of the best seasons for job searching. Spring is that perfect time of year when company budgets are full and nobody has begun taking vacations during summer break. It’s for these very reasons that many businesses like to get their new hiring done before summer kicks into full swing. 

Because M&F Talent focuses on the horticulture and cannabis industries, springtime is often our busiest time of year. Beyond the aforementioned pressures of seasonality, our clients generally do most of their business during the spring.

As outdoor farmers and greenhouse growers get their crops planted during the spring, they spend the most money on things like soil, nutrients, and garden supplies during this time of year. In turn, this activity greatly boosts the bottom line of companies in ag-tech and horticultural lighting. Especially if you are a salesperson in the horticulture or CEA space, M&F Talent definitely wants to speak with you in the spring. 

Getting Hired in the Summer

In looking at the natural ebb-and-flow of annual hiring patterns, the summer is not traditionally a great time to look for work.  

As Business News Daily tells us, “during the middle of summer, the least amount of vacancies are posted, not only for seasonal jobs but also regular positions, since teams are usually juggling many different employees taking time off for summer vacation.” 

However, because M&F Talent is rather specialized in our fields of recruiting, we see slightly different hiring patterns than more traditional industries. With summer being peak production time for outdoor farmers and greenhouse growers, our crop-producing clients tend to experience turnover during these months.

To help our client’s businesses remain operational and functional during the summer, M&F Talent tends to keep a pretty steady flow of open jobs posted on our website. 

Fall Job Hunting

As could have been guessed, the fall does not present an opportune time to find new employment. Not only are companies’ hiring budgets tapped out for the year, but the impending holidays tend to add extra stress to businesses. All things considered, the fall is a good time to get organized for a job search for the impending new year – including reworking your resume and thinking about places where you would like to apply.

As M&F Talent has seen, the horticulture and controlled environment agriculture industries also slow down greatly during the fall. With summer crops finished, many crop producers pause on hiring altogether in Quarter 3 and Quarter 4. In turn, slowed activity for plant-touching businesses also results in slow times for ancillary companies – such as hort-tech businesses and fertilizer companies. All things considered, if you are looking for a new career in the hort or CEA space, we recommend waiting on your job search until the new year kicks in. 

Summary

At M&F Talent, we understand well the challenges of job searching. As the top recruiting service in the horticulture industry, we have helped countless candidates find rewarding and meaningful careers. Not only do we enjoy finding jobs for people, but we also take real pride in giving candidates the best possible career advice. 

To give yourself the best possible chance of getting a new job, our staffing team recommends you consider the best season for job hunting. If you are able to control when your job search starts, it’s a good idea to wait until the wintertime – more specifically the beginning of Quarter 1. If you haven’t found anything by summertime, you might want to consider waiting until the next year. Following this advice will give you the best possible chances of finding a new job. 

Contact M&F Talent Today!

Contact info@mandfconsultants.com to learn more about job searching and our recruiting services.