We Asked 403 People To Help YOU Get A Christmas Casual Job.

July 2020

If you are planning to get Christmas casual work at the end of 2020, we thought, let's ask the guys who got Christmas work in 2019, to help you.

So, we asked 403 to do our survey.

These 403 people all completed The National Christmas Casual Survey in March 2020. The idea was to get real life insights on;

• How real people get summer jobs?
• How many jobs did they apply for?
• When was a good time to apply?
• What percentage actually got a job?
• What can we learn from all this to make it easier to get a job in 2020?

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When do people start looking for Christmas casual jobs?

This might surprise you – 15% started looking in July or before! Another 17% started in August, another 21% started in September. So already you have 53% of people starting in September or earlier.

19% started in October and the last 21% started in November. 7% looked in December.

The lesson here – think ahead and start early. Don’t forget, the process of working through a multi-step application process takes companies time. Then, the new staff need to be trained, and this all happens well before Christmas.

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How many jobs do people apply to?

Another interesting result. 32% apply for 3 or less jobs. I wonder why? We hope they don’t get discouraged by a knock-back and just stop applying. It’s hard to get rejected, but it's important to keep trying. We guess some people stop applying too because they were successful!

And 37% apply for 10 or more jobs. That’s a lot. Well done for persistence, but… this could be a mistake too. If you “shot-gun” your applications everywhere, you're probably not trying very hard for any particular job.

There are two lesson here – only applying for one or two jobs is fine if you get it! But if you don’t, build resilience and keep trying. Applying for jobs is a game of musical chairs – and there’s always not enough chairs. Rejection is a part of the game. Your challenge is to keep playing.

The second lesson is - don’t blast applications everywhere, without thinking about how much you want to work for each specific employer. Employers really love it when you want to work specifically for them. If they feel like you don’t care where you get your Christmas job, they may not choose you. For example – is your cover letter the same for every job? Lots of applications is fine, as long as you treat each individually.

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How do real people actually search for Christmas jobs?

This is interesting. This is the big secret of finding jobs! Heaps of jobs are never advertised. Of our 403 survey respondents, almost 30% asked their family and friends for job vacancies.

26% went door-to-door handing out resumes. (Shout out to the best resume website in Australia, our very own howtoresume.com.au

67% searched with online jobs websites like Seek, Indeed, Summerjobs.com.au.

17% used uni or high school careers offices.

And 10% went direct to the company they wanted to work for.

The lesson here – remember family and friends are a great way to find work. Nothing beats handing our resumes door-to-door. Tip! Take a notebook and write down the contact details of the manager you spoke to so you can follow up. And – if you know the company you’d like to work for – go direct!

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What kind of job did you get as a Christmas casual? This is pretty obvious. 60% of our respondents got Christmas work in retail. That makes sense – shops are busy at Christmas. 26% got a job in hospitality, and 3% in warehouse work.

Lesson here – go where the jobs are!

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Did you actually get a Christmas casual job?

Another interesting result. What do you imagine is the answer? 100%, 90%, 80%?

Only 55% were successful getting a job! 45% did not get a job in 2019/2020.

The lesson here – this is a tough challenge! Don’t expect it will be easy. And more importantly, don’t be discouraged if you fail at first. Try again with a new employer or next summer.

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So – what's the take out?

1. Getting a Christmas job is harder than you might imagine. Almost half don’t get a job. So be mentally prepared for those rejections.

2. It looks like some people give up too early and don’t keep applying for different roles. And other people look like they might be shot-gunning tons of applications everywhere. Do each application well.

3. And the one thing that probably will help you the MOST - Apply early. Start in July, in August or even September. The faster you apply, the more time you have to prepare good applications for other jobs.