Three ways to make the "job seeker wasteland" of August work for your career search

"August is a wasteland for job seekers."

A job seeker I'm working with said this to me earlier this week.

I told them: I get it.

As a former recruiting leader, the last 2-3 weeks of August are often challenging to both connect with candidates and move hiring processes forward due to so many people being on PTO.

However--As a career strategy coach, I see August as a time of opportunity for job seekers who are proactive.

Here are three ways that job seekers can proactively move their career search forward in August:

1. Use the lower "signal to noise ratio" to your advantage. The last three weeks of August are often when things slow down in many organizations due to people taking PTO. This also means that the typically high level of "noise" (emails, Slack/Teams messages, meetings, texts) drops significantly. As a recruiter, I'd use this to my advantage because I could often connect with prospective talent during this time--because they'd actually see, and have time to respond, to my message. Job seekers can do the same. Identify people at companies that are on your A Tier target list and send them a message via LinkedIn, ask a first degree connection if they'd facilitate an intro, or use a tool like Hunter.io to source a work email and reach out.
2. Follow up on that networking conversation you had a couple of months ago. Remember that coffee you had with your friend or former leader who is now at one of your target companies? They said there wasn't anything open at the time, but "there may be some things later this year..." Q4 is often the time of year when a lot of companies see a surge in hiring--and that surge often starts in September. This is a prime time to reconnect and check in on Q4 hiring plans (both FTE and project-based/contract).
3. Punch up your LinkedIn presence. When's the last time you posted any content? How active are you daily on reading/reacting/commenting on people's posts in your network? This is a great time to be active on LinkedIn as people are less overwhelmed with other chatter, and more likely to respond when they see you've commented on their post. (It's also a great way to have your posts and comments show up more in the feeds of people you want to notice you!)

Interested in learning how to take your career search from passive to proactive?

Schedule a complimentary call with me here: https://calendly.com/latitudecoach/30min