Too early to plan for holiday job hunt? No, no, no

For most of us, the holiday shopping season — most commonly thought of as the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas — feels far away. For retailers, however, it’s practically Christmas already. They’ve been planning their sales since early last year, and now they’re ready for the next stage: seasonal hiring.

While some employers will wait until October or even later to bring on extra staff, most won’t dally. They want assurance they can handle the extra customers they anticipate serving.

And of course, retailers aren’t the only potential employers. If you think “season” and not just “holiday,” you’ll expand your list considerably. Ski resorts and winter sports venues come to mind, as do tax preparers and inventory services that help companies finish their end-of-year work.

To find seasonal or holiday work, your first step is to decide: What can you do? Take an inventory of your skills, or use this quick list of common tasks to get started: greet customers; explain merchandise; stock shelves; receive inventory; take phone orders; fill orders for shipping; use a cash register; take credit payments; wrap gifts; help customers find products; seat customers (restaurant, theater); load delivery trucks; deliver packages; manage teams; park cars; dress up as an elf.

Next, take a quick inventory of your “soft” skills and personality traits. Check this list to help you think of your own examples: outgoing; reliable; punctual; accurate; enthusiastic; high-energy; good physical stamina; in good physical shape; able to take direction; a good team worker; patient; hardworking; friendly.

Now, think about the kind of work you’d like to do and where you might do it. Even if you were simply planning to apply at your nearest big-box store, it will still be helpful for you to identify which departments you’d be a good fit for.

But thinking out of the box for a minute will lead to a broader set of opportunities, including smaller retailers, grocery stores, theaters, restaurants and, again, non-holiday employers who may be staffing up for the winter season.

Got all that? Skills, personality traits, target jobs and employers … check, check, check and check. Now it’s time to toss everything onto a one-page resume to use specifically for this hunt.

That said, if you’re planning to hunt only at the big stores, you can probably skip the resume step, as it’s very difficult to use a resume for most of their online processes. In this case, simply go to the company website, click on the careers button, then select or type into the search box the term “holiday jobs.” With luck, the system will lead you to a special section that might streamline your process.

Getting back to the resume, here’s how that document might look: start with your name and contact information as usual, then use a headline to state your goal and your availability. For example: “Friendly, experienced holiday worker available evenings and weekends to serve customers or stock shelves as needed.”

Next, provide a short list of relevant skills and personality traits, possibly in a section that includes subheads. For example, the main category could be called Strengths and the subheads could be Customer Service, Product Knowledge, Retail Experience and Inventory / Merchandising, with a couple of bullet points under each one.