Time for Job Seekers to Hit the Boards

Job seekers looking for work online will find that the early part of the year is a great time to look for a new job, according to market research firm Corzen’s most recent Seasonal Hiring Activity analysis. Corzen (www.corzen.com) analyzed seasonal online job posting activity over the past three years and found that the number of job postings on leading on line job boards always accelerates in mid-to-late January.

“We analyzed three years of online job posting data across all job categories and found a pattern of increased activity during the early part of the year,” said Bruce Murray, Corzen, CEO. “Generally, the number of jobs offered online has been growing, but we see clear upward trend consistently in the first quarter each year.”

What this means is that people looking for jobs would be wise to be sure they are looking during the early part of the year when employers have come back into the market and are looking for employees. They should be sure to visit the leading national, local and niche job boards serving their particular industry or occupation.

The Corzen measurements look at job posting activity on the leading national online job boards and group the job postings by various occupations – — such as Sales, Healthcare and Clerical & Administrative. The Seasonal Hiring Activity analysis looked at the pattern of job posting activity for each occupation over the course of the year. In only a few occupations — such as Education, where hiring follows the schedule of the school year — were the job posting levels at or below normal levels during beginning of the year.

There are several possible reasons for hiring activity to show a seasonal pattern such as this in the first quarter. First, companies who align annual budgets to the calendar year may have newly budgeted positions that begin with the New Year, and they begin to recruit to fill those positions. Second, hiring activity slows down significantly between Thanksgiving and New Year’s and there is a possibly a backlog of open positions that need to be filled. And finally, some companies see normal seasonal business growth during early spring and they need to be fully staffed to meet the demand that they know is going to be there.

“Whatever the reasons for this level of increased job posting activity,” said Murray, “the data shows this is an annual occurrence, and anyone looking to make a job change should take advantage of it.”