As the Holiday Season approaches, right after Halloween, many of my clients get a wake-up call about where their career is and where it should be. I get more calls right around this time of the year and they continue throughout the next several weeks, right up to Christmas week and on to the New Year than I do during the remainder of the year. This season is not just limited to Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and even Festivus (“for the rest of us”) that Seinfeld introduced, followed by the universally secular New Year. All of this is happening in a period of about two months around this time of the year. So, regardless of your religious denomination or your secularity this is the time to consider how you can best mobilize action to get yourself market ready and onto your next job, career, or life event!

Succumbing to the universal myth that little of no hiring occurs during these few Holiday weeks why must you now mobilize action? Why is this period of few weeks/months so important for you to mobilize action, more than any other part of the year? The answer is simple: During this period many social events and get-togethers happen. People come together for company parties, festival events, art events (Nutcracker, et. al), and neighborhood parties, just to name a few. People are also in the charitable spirit to reconnect with others after many years of being disconnected, eager to share memories of the times past. So, more than any other, this is the time to look up people that you once knew, even going back to your early years and childhood and catch up with them with a simple Holiday message and jumpstart a lost relationship.

Why must you do this if you have other avenues to go job hunting?

It is well recognized that most jobs are filled through networks that help you push your résumé at your target employer. Data suggest that nearly 75% of the openings are filled through internal referrals. In addition if someone is hand-carrying your résumé and channeling to the right decision-maker your odds of getting screened-in dramatically go up. So, regardless of what level of position you are seeking to change your current station you benefit by having the right inside connection if you want to seriously go about a job-search campaign.

Yet another reason to get going on your job-search campaign is that you can also persuade decision-makers to open up new opportunities that they may not have thought about. Most people and companies want to also make New Year’s Resolutions. So, if you run into some decision-maker at a Holiday event and have a brief conversation about an idea you have that can benefit their company, you have intrigued them enough to have a follow-up conversation after

• that event. Now you are ready to present your idea on how they can benefit in the New Year with your initiative that they have not thought about.

   

  So, what are some of the things to do and things to avoid if you want to use this Season to jump-start your job change or career transition? Here is a list:

  DO NOT

  1. Be shy about reconnecting—or connecting—with people with the sole mission of getting access to the right job opportunities. It is more about how you do this than about what you do (see below).
  2. Reconnect with someone after long and absent relationship and open the conversation about yourself, your lousy job, tyrannical boss, and how you have martyred yourself working for this loser company.
  3. Complain about how you made bad choices that prevented you from joining a start-up early in its life, which has now been acquired by Facebook for $20B.
  4. Carry your résumé to the event and foist it in their hands as you start your Elevator Pitch within minutes of your encounter.
  5. Badmouth someone you both know, who has achieved success purely by “luck.”
  6. Be negative about anything that you discuss with this person after meeting them with years between your previous encounter.
  7. Do not post your message on LinkedIn Message box or Facebook and expect them to respond with action that helps you. They may simply post theirs in kind on the same social platform.

  DO, However

  1. Start by making a list of all the people with whom you want to connect during this season and break that list into three groups: Intimate or close relationships (current or past), Professional relationships (colleagues, customers, vendors, alliances), and Acquaintances. Frame an appropriate and personal message that allows you to reconnect with each of these groups and make it as authentic as you can before sending them your Holiday Greeting.
  2. Get your résumé and LinkedIn Profile spruced up for a serious campaign. Do NOT wait until after your meeting with the person(s) to work on your message, including your Elevator Speech. When someone is interested in you they must be able to look you up on LinkedIn and request your résumé for a prompt response.
  3. Send the Holiday message to their personal email box or even to their Mailing address. For the latter use a card, hand-write your personal message, and send via a stamped envelope. No one—or very few do this anymore—so this alone becomes memorable to the recipient. Make sure you put your email address and phone number in such a message (they may not want to reciprocate in kind), which allows them that flexibility. Do NOT call to check if they got your message.
  4. Be patient in getting responses back. (The acknowledgement rate of messages during this time of the year is quite high. In the case of one client we sent out about 300 messages to all three groups and he received 250 messages back within two weeks. Among them some had lost touch with him for more than 15 years. Some more responded back after the New Year as they were away, etc. You normally do not see this rate of return during the remainder of the year.)
  5. Once you get the response make the next move to meet the person and decide what priority you want to give a person in designing a meeting. At a social event you may be able to meet many, so make sure that you have decided on how you to prioritize your encounters, glad-handing, or merely waiving your hands across the crowded party room.
  6. Keep the encounters brief. If you have read something about their recent glory or successes bring it up: I just saw your picture and write-up in Fortune or Forbes; congratulations! In large parties these encounters typically last less than four minutes. So, before you depart tell them you would like discussing something in private without telling them what it is.
  7. Send emails to all those you met at that event and be positive about each encounter. Ask them about a good time to meeting one-on-one.
  8. When you get the personal meeting (or phone call) with the person be brief about what you want from them and how you want them to help you. Listen to their response and conform to their request (e.g., if he says, “do not call Sally until after I tell her that you would be calling her about that VP opening” wait until he does).
  9. Thank them appropriately and keep them in touch as you progress through the process because of their help. Thank them especially well when you do get ahead in the process. If you do not get the job offer, thank them anyway. It is not their fault that you did not get that job offer.
  10. Keep in touch with all these contacts with frequent messages, Facebook postings, LinkedIn updates or Comments/Likes.
  11. Extend the same gesture to others, who contact YOU at Holiday times!

  Although some hiring does take place during the Holiday period it is more about using this special time to get connected with the right people and leveraging those connections to advance your career the right way.

  Happy Holidays!