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Year-Round Opportunities in Seasonal Jobs

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Last Updated on December 17, 2024

seasonal jobs

Seasonal jobs are temporary positions that last for the duration of a specific season and are available year-round across various industries. Retail stores, amusement parks, restaurants, and entertainment venues often experience increased activity during certain times of the year, creating a need for additional staff.

What This Article Covers

  • Opportunities for seasonal jobs across major industries and times of the year.
  • Why Christmas is the busiest season for retail, delivery services, and holiday attractions.
  • How tax season creates short-term job opportunities for financial professionals.
  • Summer job roles like lifeguarding, national park staff, and summer camp counselors.
  • The demand for seasonal employees during Halloween and amusement park peak months.
  • Job opportunities at ski resorts during winter, from ski instructors to hospitality staff.
  • Practical tips to find seasonal employment through job fairs, referrals, and job boards.
  • How seasonal positions can potentially lead to permanent job opportunities.

Christmas

The holiday season, particularly Christmas, is a bustling period for a variety of businesses in America. Retail stores, eateries, hotels, car rental agencies, and airlines experience a significant surge in customer activity during November and December. While many retail operations maintain a modest pace for most of the year, these two months often account for a large portion of their annual sales. Seasonal employees typically find work through early to mid-January before their temporary positions conclude.

Mall Santa

Every mall in America has a Santa Claus who is available for photographs with children. Mall Santas are also responsible for talking with children about what they want for Christmas. This seasonal job lasts from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Delivery Jobs

Due to the Christmas rush of mailing gifts all over the world, delivery companies post their job openings in October and November and hire seasonal employees to work during the holiday season. There are several types of positions open in the delivery industry during the busy season, including package sorters and delivery drivers. Two qualifications for most seasonal delivery jobs are the ability to lift packages and a license to drive a large delivery truck.

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Tax Season

Anybody who has experience in the financial realm and enjoys helping others complete tax forms can find seasonal employment as a tax preparer. Since most people in the United States must file their personal tax returns by April 15th each year, tax preparation service companies post their openings on job boards and begin to hire seasonal employees in January. Companies often train their seasonal employees to be ready for customers by February and their jobs normally last until mid to late April. The IRS also hires seasonal employees to help with organizing the intake of millions of tax returns that are mailed by taxpayers.

Halloween

The Halloween industry is big, but it only lasts for about one month. Halloween stores and haunted houses offer seasonal employment to individuals who want to work during October.

Ski Season

The ski season in most states runs from November through May, but some workers are hired as early as October and some remain employed as late as June. Ski resorts need many types of seasonal workers to help with all aspects of the ski industry including ski lift operators, ticket sellers, ski patrol, ski instructors, retail employees, ski equipment rental workers, hotel staff, and restaurant servers.

Lifeguards

During the summer season, usually between Memorial Day and Labor Day, swimming pools are open across the United States. Aside from the warmest states that have year-round outdoor swimming pools, other states have a multitude of swimming pools that need to be staffed. Lifeguarding is an excellent seasonal job for students who are home from school during the summer and want a job for a few months during their break. Swimming pools usually post their job openings in early spring.

National Parks

National Parks see many tourists during the summer months. The United States’ parks system must increase its staff to accommodate the number of visitors during their busy season. Seasonal employees help staff visitor centers, guide tours, monitor the parks, pick up trash and debris, and oversee the safety of visitors.

Amusement Parks

Many outdoor amusement parks that are only open during warm months need seasonal employees to staff all of the park’s rides, stores, and restaurants. They also need ticket sellers, ticket takers, and workers to run their customer service departments. Amusement parks usually start to advertise their seasonal positions in the spring.

Summer Camps

Summer camps offer many seasonal positions to people who want to work during the summer months. Most summer camp jobs are filled by students who are looking to make money during the summer while they are on a break from school. Summer camps advertise their open positions as early as January or February, but if they cannot fill all openings they will continue to collect applications until every job has an assigned employee.

There are several ways to find seasonal employment:

  • Look for Help Wanted signs in the windows of stores and restaurants.
  • Ask friends and relatives if they know of any seasonal job openings.
  • Attend a seasonal job fair.
  • Look for seasonal positions on job search engines.
  • search job profiles to determine the types of vacancies that are commonly filled during specific seasons.

Can Seasonal Jobs Turn Permanent?

Usually, seasonal jobs are meant to be temporary positions with definite start and end dates. However, many employers evaluate their seasonal employees and decide to keep the ones they believe to be hard-working, dedicated, and excellent at customer service.

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