Two weeks ago the House passed the bill, and then it went to the Senate. Yesterday, the Senate passed the bill, 68-29. (If you want to see how your senator voted, look at this excellent map from The New York Times.) Today President Obama signed the bill into law. Obama said:

A consensus is forming that, partly because of the necessary — and often unpopular – measures we took over the past year, our economy is growing again and we may soon be adding jobs instead of losing them. The jobs bill I’m signing today is intended to help accelerate this process. (Reuters)

Among the provisions in the bill are tax breaks for small-business owners and Social Security breaks for employers hiring unemployed job seekers. Just how many jobs will be created, if any, is a topic of much debate right now. Experts (and regular Americans like you and me) wonder whether or not enough jobs will be created to offset the record unemployment rate. Obama seems to understand this and has said this bill isn’t the answer to everything, but rather a step toward recovery, according to the New York Times.

What do you think? Is this law going to help? Is it better than nothing? Does it leave out important provisions? Let us know what you’re thinking.

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That is one of the questions we frequently receive here at The Work Buzz. And we do our best to point you in the right direction. Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics made locating these open positions a simpler task by releasing the current January Job Openings and Labor Turnover Report.

It’s a lengthy release, so we’ll just give you some of the highlights.

• On the last day of January, there were 2.7  million job openings
• The job openings rate increased to 2.1 percent, which is the highest it’s been since February of last year
• Over the 12-month period ending in January, 48.4 million workers gained employment and 52.4 million workers separated from their jobs (a figure that includes both layoffs and resignations). Therefore the period saw a loss of 4 million workers.

Which industries have the most job openings?

The most opportunities exist in education and health services, where you can 620,000 positions were open at the end of January. In the same month 520,000 were hired into this industry, suggesting that employers are actively trying to get people onboard as soon as possible.

Professional and business services have the second highest amount of openings with 508,000. Trade, transportation and utilities come in third, with a respectable 482,000 available positions.

And perhaps the best news:

The layoffs and discharges rate fell over the year in many industries, including construction, durable goods manufacturing, nondurable goods manufacturing, wholesale trade, information, finance and insurance, real estate and rental and leasing, and other services. Regionally, the rate fell over the year in 3 of the 4 regions—Midwest, Northeast, and South. The layoffs and discharges rate did not rise over the year in any industry or region.

Not only are jobs waiting for the right candidate (you!), but industries aren’t laying off and discharging workers at the same rates as last year. I think we all want some good news, so we’ll take it.

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Some critics (in the House and in the general population) feel the bill is unnecessary. Others think it doesn’t do enough. Many observers feel it’s close but not perfect. And some people actually like it. What’s all the fuss about? Well, here are some of the highlights of the bill to give you an idea of what the Senate needs to approve next week before anything else happens (via AP):

 The $100 billion-plus bill would extend unemployment assistance, revive a bevy of expired tax breaks, help states with soaring Medicaid costs and prevent doctors from having to absorb big cuts in Medicare payments. The popular initiatives are traditionally extended on a bipartisan basis for brief periods of time, which hides their long-term costs.

First, [the jobs bill] would exempt businesses hiring the unemployed from the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax through December and give them an additional $1,000 credit if new workers stay on the job a full year.

Second, it would extend highway and mass transit programs through the end of the year and pump in $20 billion for the spring construction season. The money would make up for lower-than-expected gasoline tax revenues.

You’ll be hearing more about this in the coming days, weeks and months. If you love it or hate it, I think we can all agree that hopefully positive results will come from this.

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I’ve known office workers whose draconian bosses actually reprimanded them for talking too much. Not for job performance problems or deadline issues. No, they were good workers; they just got in trouble for talking — as if they were first-graders during a  school assembly. Oy.

Not everyone likes to gab, so a quiet workplace doesn’t bother some people. But for workers who can’t keep their lips sealed, silence is torturous. To help those of us who thrive on jibber jabber, here are six careers to consider. These jobs require more skills and education than just the ability to gab, but talking plays an important role that will make your day that much better:

Nurses
You can’t possibly list every responsibility nurses have. Whether in an emergency room, physician’s office or a number of other settings, nurses are working one-on-one with patients, ensuring tests are ordered, updating charts and staying calm. Patients who are sick or about to undergo surgery are often temperamental, nervous or just having a good old-fashioned  freak-out. The best nurses stay on task while talking to patients, whether finding out more information about their malady or just trying to keep everyone calm. Here, the gift of gab can be a patient’s dream.

Emergency dispatchers
Dispatchers obviously rely on their speaking skills to find out information about  emergencies, so that’s a no-brainer. Among their many skills, a knack for conversation is just as important as the ability to extract and report information. In  emergencies, people (e.g., witnesses, victims) get unnerved and often frantic. Dispatchers maintain conversations with the callers until help arrives, and that’s no easy task as they have to be calm and think quickly under stress.

Salespeople
If you’re going to sell anything — a pair of jeans, a car, a business plan — words are your best friends. Anyone who works in sales has to know when being aggressive is appropriate and when toning it down is better. Not every technique works every time, so understanding how to talk most effectively to the customer is a skill not everyone is blessed with.

Dentists
I know I’m not the only person who has been at a dental appointment, wearing the fashionable paper bib and protective glasses, while the dentist chips away at my teeth and asks how my job is. Luckily, most dentists have the good sense to time their questions when I’m about to get a break from all the oral construction going on so I can respond. Good dentists know how to fill the silence of a dental visit without peppering the patient with questions he or she can’t answer. At the same time, they understand that we don’t want to hear 30 minutes of personal ramblings while we’re a captive audience (with a numb mouth).

Hairstylists
For many people, hairstylists are the human equivalent of a Leatherman knife — you know the kind that is basically a pocket-size MacGyver. Hairstylists serve as some clients’ confidante and therapist as well as their stylist. While they’re clipping hair and mixing dyes, stylists are forming bonds with their clients as they discuss their lives and jobs. Anyone who’s experienced an awkwardly silent haircut knows how strange it is to be inches from the person holding the scissors and looking at you in the mirror, and yet you have nothing to say to each other for the full hour.

Perhaps most important for the stylist is the ability to communicate what he or she will be doing to the client. If the client asks for a trim and the stylist says, “Sure, we can do that,” then proceeds to chop off 6 inches — well, that’s not good. Effective communication benefits them both (and probably leads to a better tip).

News reporters
News reporters, as far as the public is concerned, are just talking heads, but they do more than just stand in a hurricane and tell you that, yep, it’s wet and windy. Reporters interview people, both in taped segments and on air, and you don’t want a mumbling, incoherent mess doing that job. Amazing news goes unnoticed if the reporters’ speaking abilities are subpar, so their talking prowess needs to be as outstanding as their investigative skills. You want someone who can talk on camera as if he or she is talking to you one-on-one, and that’s not easy.

If you’re a talker and have found a way to earn a paycheck, let us know. We know there are more jobs out there that other chatty readers would love to know about.

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Hochberg points out that many companies give employees an option to telecommute on occasion, but some workers worry about how it reflects on their reputation.

University of Maryland marketing professor P.K. Kannan says his research has found that about a third of people who can telecommute rarely do so, often because they’re afraid their boss won’t like it.

“It seemed like there was some stigma associated with telecommuting,” Kannan says. “Some people are saying it’s a career suicide. ‘If you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind, so I really don’t want to telecommute even though I could.’ “

And people aren’t just telecommuting on designated days, either. Some companies only exist in the virtual world because workers are spread out. No storefronts, no skyscrapers, no strip malls—just a band of remote employees.

I recommend reading the story if you’re thinking about working from home. Jobs that allow you to work from your home office some or all of the time are often the most sought after, and yet people don’t realize what a culture shock telecommuting can be, especially if they’re used to cubicle world.

We have discussed the topic several times, specifically here and here, which might help you if you’re on the fence about taking one of these positions.

For those of you who have worked from home on a temporary or permanent basis, did you like it? Did you hate it? Is it something you would do again (if you’re not still doing it)? Seeing as so many job seekers are looking to these jobs, your firsthand experiences are welcome in the comments section!

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Over at Novaurora Blog, Jason Putorti made a handy word cloudfor Obama’s speech. Front and center, sandwiched between the oversized text of people and America is jobs. Obviously, getting people back to work is as much on his mind as it is on the average American’s.

If you go to the New York Times site, you can see video of the speech and the accompanying text. Along the top is a timeline of the address, so you can see when he moves from one point to another and see just how much of this speech was about the job situation. At 1:43 into the speech, he first mentions our current (or most recent, depending on whom you talk to) recession and unemployed Americans. At 9:18 he references unemployment benefits. At 10:51 he continues his discussion of employment and continues until 13:50, when he begins to discuss his plan to create jobs. And it goes on and on–you can read the full text (sans video) here. The point is that the state of our union depends on jobs, and surely most of you reading this know that. If you’re looking for work either because you’re unemployed or want a change, you realize how much your career influences all other aspects of your life, and that affects everyone else in the long run.

Here are just some of the speech’s moments relating to jobs:

One in 10 Americans still cannot find work. Many businesses have shuttered. Home values have declined. Small towns and rural communities have been hit especially hard. And for those who’d already known poverty, life has become that much harder.

That’s why we extended or increased unemployment benefits for more than 18 million Americans; made health insurance 65 percent cheaper for families who get their coverage through COBRA; and passed 25 different tax cuts.

But I realize that for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from; who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response. That is why jobs must be our number-one focus in 2010, and that’s why I’m calling for a new jobs bill tonight.

We should start where most new jobs do –- in small businesses, companies that begin when companies that begin when an entrepreneur — when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides it’s time she became her own boss. Through sheer grit and determination, these companies have weathered the recession and they’re ready to grow.

We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities — and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient, which supports clean energy jobs.

But the truth is, these steps won’t make up for the seven million jobs that we’ve lost over the last two years. The only way to move to full employment is to lay a new foundation for long-term economic growth, and finally address the problems that America’s families have confronted for years.

Last year, we made the largest investment in basic research funding in history -– an investment that could lead to the world’s cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched. And no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy. You can see the results of last year’s investments in clean energy -– in the North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries; or in the California business that will put a thousand people to work making solar panels.

Obviously, it’s a bittersweet topic–for every bit of enthusiasm, it’s tempered with the reality of today’s unemployment situation. And it’s controversial depending on your ideological standpoint, I’m sure. Certainly not everyone reading this blog agrees with Obama–either with what he says or what he’s done. And perspective certainly comes into play, too. The AP released its fact check of the speech. Some points he made were labeled as false, others true. And one key jobs assertion? Well, that depends…

OBAMA: “Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. … And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.”

THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.

The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million “compared with what those values would have been otherwise.” It said the ranges “reflect the uncertainty of such estimates.” And it added, “It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.”

So what does this all mean? Ultimately, everyone is trying to figure out how to get the job situation under control. You and I–aka regular people–want to know that we’ll have a paycheck tomorrow or find a new job when we want to. The president and Congress are trying to figure out how to make that that hope a reality (if for no other reason than to get reelected). We’ve also posted about the stimulus package of the last year, too. (See Stimulus package for job seekers and Great Jobs in the President’s Stimulus Plan) Everyone’s thinking about jobs–from you and me all the way up to the president.

If you watched last night and are reading this blog, jobs are certainly on your mind. So what was your reaction to Obama’s address? Let us know what your thoughts are on the job situation, his plans and what he’s done about jobs so far.

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Lights! Camera! Fantasy! Movies are where we go to forget how boring our lives are. Well, unless you’re into obscure independent movies that aim to capture our tortured, meaningless existence in gritty, hand-held camerawork. But on average, movies let us disappear into the celluloid world for a couple of hours and get lost in the images flashing on the screen.

Sometimes a movie can make us feel good about ourselves. Not because the story is uplifting but because we look at the characters and think, “At least I’m not you!” And that feeling of schadenfreude is worth the ticket price. In that spirit, we put together a list of movie characters whose jobs are less than ideal. The real-life equivalents of these jobs are perfectly fine, but in these movies no paycheck would’ve persuaded you to accept the position.

Here are the 10 worst movie jobs:

Barney Matthews in  ‘Silence of the Lambs’
No, Matthews doesn’t get eaten in the movie, but that doesn’t mean his job is peachy. How would you like to be the primary caretaker for one of the scariest inmates a prison cell has ever seen? Anyone who works in incarceration facilities has to be thick-skinned and on alert at all times, which is why not just any person is up to the challenge of the job. Throw in having to deal with Hannibal Lecter and I’d guess the list of qualified and willing candidates gets even smaller.

Chris Parker in  ‘Adventures in Babysitting’
Haven’t we all babysat to earn a little cash at some point in our lives? At worst, we had to cut gum out of a toddler’s hair or rush someone to the ER for unsuccessfully doing cartwheels off of the couch. But suburbanite Chris Parker takes three children into the scary world of downtown Chicago in the 1980s without telling their parents. They outrun  gunshots, knife fights and organized crime. Oh, and they’re forced to sing the blues in a  nightclub. Totally not worth the five bucks an hour.

Commissioner Gordon in all the ‘Batman’ films
I’ll say right now that I’d love to live in Gotham and have Batman protect me from crazy villains. However, I would not want to be the police commissioner who doesn’t get much of the spotlight for defending the city. Think about how long Gordon worked to get to that post, and now that he’s there, some guy in a cape gets all the credit for protecting citizens.

Dorothy Boyd in  ‘Jerry Maguire’
Forget about the happily ever after. The two hours leading up to the end of this movie aren’t that great if you’re Jerry Maguire’s assistant. You’re the only employee in his newfound company, so that means doing anything he doesn’t want to do. You don’t have all the perks of your previous job, which you left for him, and business is shaky, seeing as Maguire’s agency has only one client. Oh, and you fall in love with your boss only to realize he doesn’t love you all that much (at least for a while). The performance bonus had better be awesome.

Everyone in  ‘Office Space’
The fake software company in “Office Space” is the epitome of the beige cubicle world that’s been demonized by every movie, TV show and comic strip in the last few decades. It’s what so many college students fear is their future. Look at poor Milton, whose job is so pitiful he cares more about his stapler than anything else. The setting makes for a fun movie but a horrible workplace.

Grace Coddington in ‘The September Issue’ / Andy Sachs in  ‘The Devil Wears Prada’
These are two different films. “The September Issue” is a documentary about the work that goes into publishing an issue of Vogue magazine, which is under the watch of Anna Wintour. The other film is a fictitious take on what it’s like to work at a glossy fashion magazine under icy editor Miranda Priestly, who shares many similarities with Wintour.

Coddington is a stylist and creative director for the magazine and, as the film shows, her hard work getting just the right look for a spread can take weeks of planning. Then Wintour can walk in, wrinkle her nose and decide the images won’t appear in the magazine. In “Prada,” Sachs is an assistant who works herself into a frenzy just to keep Priestly happy – or as close to happy as possible. Only she quickly finds out that Priestly doesn’t care how long it takes to do something or how much effort you put into it – if it’s not what she wants at that moment, it’s useless to her. We’re not saying everyone should be handled with kid gloves, but the occasional pat on the back seems like the least a boss could do for any employee.

Lucy Kelson in  ‘Two Weeks Notice’
Kelson wants to work in the nonprofit world and go after the big corporate enemies. Instead, she finds herself working for a greedy, narcissistic head honcho. Of course they fall in love and things get sorted out because that’s what romantic comedies do, but forget that part. If you don’t have a business mind and you want your job to align with your core values, taking a job that contradicts everything you believe in is a bit  torturous. Every day you earn a fancy paycheck but hate yourself for it. All the while you’re catering to a boss you hate (though secretly love, of course). Get past the heartwarming smiles of Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock and you have one pretty crummy job situation.

Norma Rae Webster in  ‘Norma Rae’
Any mention of Norma Rae in a list of workplace characters is a bit cliché, but her situation is the epitome of the workplace pits. Her struggle to stay healthy in an overwhelming and physically taxing workplace is bad enough, but when her efforts to change things at the factory cause her trouble at work and at home, life gets worse. Kind of puts the arguments about who ate your last string cheese from the lunch-room refrigerator into perspective, no?

The staff in  ‘Jurassic Park’
You’d think that getting to work alongside dinosaurs would be pretty cool, but one power outage later and suddenly the gig isn’t so sweet. Even the best veterinarian or the most scholarly paleontologist wouldn’t be able to handle himself or herself against a carnivorous velociraptor. Stick to your regular amusement park jobs where you can ride the roller coasters for free and eat cotton candy.

Wall-E in  ‘Wall-E’
Sure, Wall-E is the cute little garbage compactor everyone loves, but his job is actually kind of horrible because he’s all alone. Not alone the way you might feel in your cubicle with your headphones on. I mean alone alone. As in nobody-else-in-the-entire-world. For hundreds of years  he’s gone about his job, organizing the mess left behind by humans, and he only has his cockroach pal to keep him company. I think we’d at least want to have the obnoxious chatty co-worker to keep us company.

Did we forget anyone? Let us know your picks.

Bing: Movie roles stars turned down

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Yesterday, the Brookings Institute released the Q3 edition of its MetroMonitor, a “quarterly, interactive barometer of the health of America’s 100 largest metropolitan economies.” The MetroMonitor analyzes trends in U.S. metro employment, unemployment, economic performance, housing prices and real estate-owned properties to determine the rate of the country’s recession and recovery.

So what did they find with regards to jobs? Looking at Q2 2009 to Q3 2009, the overall percent change in employment change in the top 100 largest metro areas was -0.5% and also -0.5% for the entire U.S. Eleven metros that saw increases in employment in the last quarter and another six saw no change at all. Here are the 11 metros that saw positive job growth:

1. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 1.3
2. New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.6
3. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.5
4. Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.5
5. Columbia, SC
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.3
6. Worcester, MA
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.2
7. Jackson, MS
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.2
8. Raleigh-Cary, NC
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.1
9. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
   Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.1
10. Madison, WI
    Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.1
11. Syracuse, NY
    Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.1

The MetroMonitor also compared the largest 100 metros’ peak employment quarter to the most recent quarter (Q3 2009), measuring the extent to which employment has recovered from the recession’s full impact. In that respect, only one metro area has seen employment growth from its peak until Q3: McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX whose employment has risen 1.4%. When you consider that the percent change in employment for the 100 largest metro areas was down -4.3% since the peak and down -4.6% for the entire U.S., there seems to be a lot more healing to go … but at least we seem to be on the right track.

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Keep in mind that while November’s numbers are encouraging, it’s going to take a while to bring those jobs back and it will be a slow build over a number of years.  Since the recession began in December 2007, the U.S. economy has lost approximately 8.2 million jobs. 

Job seekers should stay informed about areas of job growth and loss. Health care, which has added nearly 613,000 jobs since the start of the recession, remains the shining star of employment. Temporary help services, a category that lost more than -214,000 jobs in the first half of the year, has added 117,000 jobs since July, an indicator of a more optimistic hiring environment.  Alternately, the biggest losses in were seen in construction, manufacturing and information services.

Employers are more optimistic than they were six months ago, but they’re still cautious. Hiring will remain restrained as companies see how the market plays out. On CareerBuilder, we’re seeing improvement across most major markets over the last few months as well as in categories that have struggled earlier in the year such as IT and professional and business services.

Here’s how the largest sectors fared in November:

• Construction:  Lost -27,000 jobs in November and 1.8 million since the recession.  Job losses had averaged -117,000 per month during the 6 months ending in April and -63,000 per month from May through October.
• Manufacturing:  Lost -41,000 jobs in November and -2.1 million since the recession.  The average monthly decline over the past 5 months (-46,000) was much lower than the average monthly job loss for the first half of this year (-171,000).
• Retail:  There was little change in wholesale and retail trade employment in November. Within retail trade, department stores added 8,000 jobs over the month possibly attributed to holiday hiring.
• Information Industry: Fell by -17,000 in November. About half of the job loss occurred in its telecommunications component (-9,000).
• Health Care: Added 21,000 jobs in November and 613,000 since the start of the recession.
• Professional and Business Services: Grew by 86,000 jobs in November.
• Temporary Help Services: Added 52,000 jobs. Since July, temporary help services employment has risen by 117,000. 

Want to learn more about the changes occurring in employment? Watch Friday’s episode of PBS’s Nightly Business Report. It discusses the job numbers, catches up with a job seeker who found employment and features Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder’s Vice President of HR .

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“Competition for seasonal positions will be intense as the job market is flooded with qualified candidates vying for a smaller number of open positions,” said Brent Rasmussen, President of CareerBuilder North America. “Employers tell us they are accepting the majority of their seasonal applications during October and November, meaning job seekers need to identify and apply for those opportunities now.”

Because of the weaker economy and expected soft holiday retail sales, employers do not anticipate a robust seasonal hiring period this year. The outlook for seasonal hiring in the fourth quarter of 2009 is projected to be similar to 2008, according to CareerBuilder’s “Seasonal Hiring 2009″ survey of more than 2,900 hiring managers. Eighteen percent of hiring managers plan to take on seasonal workers to meet business needs associated with the holidays and end-of-the-year wrap-ups, on par with 17 percent in 2008.

According to the National Retail Federation, retailers hired an additional 231,000 workers during the 2008 holiday season, a substantial drop from the 618,000 they hired in 2007. During the holidays, while some retailers were hiring seasonal workers, others were shedding full- and part-time jobs from stores and corporate offices. Since January 1, 2008, the retail industry has lost 770,000 jobs.

Here are some of the other results from the CareerBuilder survey:

• 12% of employed workers plan to take on a seasonal job to help make ends meet.
• 44% of hiring managers expect to pay $10 or more per hour and 12 percent expect to pay $16 or more per hour; 34 % of hiring managers plan to pay between $8 and $10 per hour and 20% expect to pay between $6 and $8.
• The most popular positions identified for seasonal recruitment include customer service, retail sales, administrative/clerical, hospitality, shipping/delivery, inventory, technology and accounting/finance.

What’s the good news long-term job seekers? Seasonal positions may prove to be the break job seekers are looking for as 31% of hiring managers indicate they are likely to hire a seasonal worker for a full-time position. Here are some tips if you are seeking seasonal employment:

• Start applying early – 77% of hiring managers do not plan to accept applications for seasonal workers beyond November. Especially in a competitive job market, getting your resume in early will help your chances of securing a position.
• Do your homework – Nearly a quarter of hiring managers say that having no knowledge of the company or products deterred them from hiring a seasonal candidate in the past. Check out the company’s Web site before the interview and familiarize yourself with products, services, press announcements, etc so the hiring manager knows you’re serious about the opportunity.  
• Show enthusiasm – Nearly half of employers say they were turned off by a candidate who lacked enthusiasm during their interview. Convey that you’re excited about the opportunity to contribute to the success of the organization and stay away from saying the primary reason you want the position is for the employee discount.
• Dress the part – If you are interviewing for a job in a retail clothing store, it’s a good idea to show up dressed in an outfit from that store. One-in-ten (11 percent) hiring managers said candidates who interviewed for a job in a competitor’s ensemble were ultimately not considered for the open position.
• Be flexible regarding your schedule – Forty-seven percent of hiring managers said they were turned off by a candidate who refused to work certain hours. Seasonal hours tend to fluctuate; you need to be open and flexible to alternative schedules.
• Use specific keywords – To find the most relevant jobs, search online using the following terms: seasonal, holiday, part-time, temporary and Christmas.

Want to know more? Check out this article on companies hiring this holiday season.

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