5 Holiday Career Strategies

Holiday lights are going up and it’s time to befriend longer nights. For a job seeker, it can be nerve-racking — maybe hiring will slow down between Thanksgiving and the New Year. For solos like me, we are thinking, there is so much more to be done. (If you recently landed a job, excellent! Read on.)

I’m big on self-care and internal alignment when it comes to creating a fulfilling worklife. Here are some tip for this time of the year.

1. Job search and career-building are an endurance sport. It’s crucial to stay centered and rested. This helps with networking/self-marketing and interviewing. We want to appear energetic and interested! Give yourself time to slow down: long showers, a 30-min walk, sleeping in, tea with a loved one. Whatever gives you energy.
2. Practice gratitude. I’ve coached anxious clients who can’t help imagining the worst while waiting to hear about interviews or promotions. I asked them to consider: What qualities, traits, skills made you successful so far? Those can’t be taken away. What are you thankful for at this moment? Health? A pet? WIFI working? What else? As we named them, the room became full — the clients felt present and positive.
3. Reflect on your career messaging. It’s important to get your story straight so your contacts and advocates can repeat them. Whether it’s for career advancement, job search, client outreach, you want to make it easy for people to talk about you to the next person. This is a great exercise for updating your LinkedIn profile too.
4. Catch up with (ex)coworkers and supporters. Use gatherings to practice your pitch and get intel. Casually ask people what they do, what they love about it, and the biggest challenges in their field or life. This activity informs your career messaging/interviewing/client pitches. Share what you are working on – be open to receive goodwill, suggestions, and connections.
5. Envision. Reaffirm how you can help. Use the market intel (from gatherings and AI) and distill how you can take a team/client to the next level, either as an individual contributor, leader, or business owner. Often people think of the job description or the immediate needs; it’s actually very useful to articulate your longer-term impact. Visualize and relay what success looks like for you and those you assist.

By the way, the holiday lull might not be a thing, according to Forbes.

This article encourages maximizing holiday job search (kind of on steroids, but FYI). And how solos can grow business during this time.

I’d love to hear other suggestions you have! I’ll add them to the blog post here.

Ping me when you’re seeking positivity, insight, and a skilled coach to hold focus on  your next career venture.

Warmest Thanksgiving wishes,

Sue

What’s News

My Launch: A Career Success Playbook is shaping up! Full of worksheets on finding career focus, networking, resume/cover letter writing, LinkedIn, interviewing, tips on career pivots and self-advocacy in your career. It will be published in Q1 of 2025. Clients get the early PDF version now.

Check These Out

• The Unspoken Truths for Career Success: Navigating Pay, Promotions, and Power at Work by Tessa White. The author demystifies getting to the corner office, how we are perceived as workers, and office politics. The POV is refreshing and strategic.
• 7 Rules of Self-Reliance: How to Stay Low, Keep Moving, Invest in Yourself, and Own Your Future by Maha Abouelenein. Just released – like the title, we don’t need to wait for external affirmation to beef up our own career arsenal. This is about confidence-building and having control in our future.
• Bragging Rights: How to Talk about Your Work Using Purposeful Self-Promotion by Lisa Bragg. I refer to it to clients who ‘don’t want to brag’ in interviews. A resource that makes sense of what and how to shine at work and in job search.