If you’ve been working for any length of time, you’re aware that job hunting has its rhythms. Hiring traditionally picks up at certain times of year (such as the fourth quarter, when companies are actively budgeting their headcount for the next year) and dies in others (fewer companies are hiring in late August, when many people are on vacation). But what about September?
You’ve potentially heard folks talking about the “September surge” in hiring, when job postings seem to exponentially increase immediately after Labor Day. “For businesses and organizations whose fiscal year starts in October, such as the Federal government, you can expect an uptick in hiring in September,” Amy Glaser, senior vice president at Adecco, recently told Forbes.
For those on the job hunt, September might prove more fruitful than around the turn of the year, at least according to other experts. “I feel like September is more of a New Year’s philosophy than New Year’s,” Laurie Chamberlin, head of LHH Recruitment Solutions, North America, suggested to Worklife. “September is like back to school, back to work, back to ‘what am I going to do every day?’ It’s like New Year’s for the workforce and education.”
But does the data support this idea, at least in the context of tech hiring? An analysis of CompTIA Tech Jobs Report data over the past few years (largely drawn from Lightcast, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country, as well as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) doesn’t show outsized spikes in job postings or employment in the September timeframe.
Even if there hasn’t been a “September surge,” demand for tech professionals remains high. Tech unemployment hit 1.8 percent in August, and employers everywhere are scrambling to find specialists in cutting-edge technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence (A.I.), and machine learning. No matter what your background, chances are good you can find suitable opportunities in a variety of arenas, from manufacturing to retail and traditional tech.
No matter what the time of year, it’s key to keep your resume and other application materials updated. Before applying for any job, review its posting and note the skills it lists; make sure to insert any of those skills you’ve mastered onto your resume, as recruiters and hiring managers rely on automated resume screeners that check for such terms (and will likely discard your application if they’re not present). You’ll also want to list any personal projects, and use your resume’s experience section to show how you’ve positively impacted your previous employers’ strategies and tech stacks.
