It’s only a few months until December -- are you feeling that holiday glow? If not, maybe it’s because you’re missing that holiday ka-ching. Or any ka-ching for that matter. If you want to remedy that situation by picking up a holiday job, now’s the time to swing into action.
Here are some tips to keep you on the ho-ho-ho side of the holiday job search equation.
1. Brainstorm job ideas. Anything from retail to package delivery to food service could make your list. Grocery stores and liquor outlets get busy over the holidays, as do catering companies, coffee shops, restaurants and mail-order centers.
2. Start early for the major retailers. Most of the big-box and chain stores use an automated system to process applications, so you need to find the store’s website or its in-store job kiosk. While the “bigs” tend to hire early, they might also add staff later in the season, so remember to refresh your application from time to time.
3. Approach smaller retailers directly. Respect and preparation are the key for in-person discussions. Bring a resume (see tip 4 below) and visit during a quiet period. Once there, wait your turn, then ask to see the manager about holiday job opportunities. If the manager can’t meet with you, leave your resume with a short note that you will try again tomorrow. Leave your resume and follow up even if the person at the counter tells you there are no jobs; only the manager knows that for sure.
4. Make a simple resume demonstrating the skills and experience relevant to the category of employers you’re approaching. For jobs in retail, emphasize customer service, shelf-stocking, cash register experience, second languages, etc.; resumes for jobs in the food industry would feature food preparation or serving experience, or knowledge of safe food handling practices.
You might have to dig deep into your past for these entries, or even use bits from your personal life (perhaps you run a community sale, for example, and serve customers there). The point is to demonstrate that you know what they need done and that you can do it.
If a holiday job isn’t right for you, perhaps because of the schedule, you might want to consider a short-term business instead. Like summer businesses, holiday businesses need to be well-strategized and fairly narrow in focus to be effective. Your goal is to “get in and get out” with the least amount of setup and overhead.
Thus, while opening a two-month sales kiosk at the mall could fit the bill, making and selling holiday pies might fit it better. That’s because the kiosk will require enough lead time, planning and financial resources to purchase inventory -- which you may or may not be able to sell. But a pie business that takes prepaid orders holds no financial risk and requires relatively little planning.
That’s not to say that the sales kiosk is a bad idea; just be sure you can absorb a potential loss before you sign the lease.
Here are some other tips for holiday businesses:
1. Keep it small. When you start hiring staff, you complicate things and shrink your profits.
2. Think in terms of services or simple products that fill a seasonal need. Perennial favorites are housecleaning for busy families before or after a holiday; pies, cookies or specialty breads to be used as gifts or with meals; hand-knitted shawls or other useful gifts that can be mailed to elderly kin in nursing homes; and even prepaid gift certificates for a service you can perform for the recipient, such as technical assistance with a home computer system.
3. Target your market. If you want to clean houses, for example, think about who might use your service and how you should reach them. Perhaps you would make a simple flier on the computer and email it to 10 friends, asking each of them to also email it to any friends they know of who are hosting their holiday meals this year. This will likely yield more response than putting the same flier in a grocery store, where a larger but more random audience would see it.
4. Keep the bookkeeping simple. The fewer details, the better, so try to avoid complicated pricing schemes. Just set a price and make it a cash-upon-delivery or prepaid order system. Chasing people later for past-due invoices is a sure way to kill the holiday spirit.
5. Pay attention to the rules. Following food safety regulations, collecting taxes and reporting income might dampen the fun, but it’s always nice to keep your customers healthy and stay out of jail to boot.
Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 626 Armstrong Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102.
