{"id":38,"date":"2022-11-11T00:16:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T00:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/?p=38"},"modified":"2022-11-11T00:25:42","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T00:25:42","slug":"assessing-the-best-time-to-apply-for-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/2022\/11\/11\/assessing-the-best-time-to-apply-for-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Assessing the best time to apply for jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was on the hunt for an entry-level software engineer position recently in anticipation of my upcoming graduation date. I started looking for jobs around mid-June and I was able to land a job offer the first week of September. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My job search experience was demoralizing. In retrospect, the first few months were especially rough. August and September were noticeably better; more companies were reaching out to me and my applications were garnering more attention. In contrast, June and July were awful. I recall applying to as many jobs as I could find and rarely hearing back. I’m talking about a 1% response rate. I didn’t even consider the season in which I was applying at the time but in hindsight, timing is important. Some sources even suggest that the day that you apply and the time of day you apply can affect your response rate[1<\/a>]<\/sup> so I’m not surprised that the season might play a role as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read an article<\/a> this morning about the best time to apply for jobs and it confirmed a suspicion I had – that Summer was a bad time to apply while Fall was a great season to apply. I wanted to put this idea to the test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have accounts on many job-searching platforms like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Untapped.io, Indeed, and Glassdoor but the platform in which I receive the most attention from recruiters is Handshake<\/a>. Handshake is geared toward helping college students land jobs. It’s a great place for college students to connect with recruiters, register for events, and apply for internships and jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I signed up for Handshake in August 2020, long before I intended to look for a job. I figured it would be a good place for recruiters to reach out to me with interesting opportunities. And I was right. Since I joined, I’ve received over 150 messages from recruiters encouraging me to attend events, apply for internships and jobs, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Yes, that is 68 unread messages.
Source: https:\/\/app.joinhandshake.com\/stu<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I noticed that the number of messages I received on Handshake waxed and waned over the course of a year. I wanted to see if this ebb and flow paralleled the article’s suppositions. How many messages did I receive in the Summer? Were there substantially more in the Fall? The article suggests that January and February are also great times to look for jobs. Does the data support this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I started scraping! I created a Jupyter Notebook and used the popular scraping library Beautiful Soup<\/a> to scrape all the messages I received on Handshake. I parsed out the text, date, and sender of each message and outputted the data as a CSV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Jupyter Notebook that scrape the dates from Handshake messages<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I used the data visualization tool Tableau in order to visualize the number of messages by month. I filtered out 2020 data since I joined in late August so I only had data for September, November, and December and the number of messages I received in these months was minuscule anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I created a bar chart to view the number of messages by month so that I could assess in which months (irrespective of the year) did recruiters reach out to me the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The results were surprising. While it’s true that I received a lot of messages in the Fall, I did receive a decent amount of messages in Summer. I dug deeper into the data and found that seven of the ten messages I received in July 2022 were on or after 7\/18\/22 so the data does still support June and early July not being the best times for job hunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visualization also corroborates the article’s finding that companies hire a lot in January and February. In my case, February strongly supersedes January. The article notes that January and February are active hiring months because “these are the months most companies receive updated budgets and sales forecasts. Executives have a better idea of what they need and whether they can afford to hire new team members, which leads career advisors to consider these the top months for hiring.”[2<\/a>]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data also demonstrates that December is not a good month to search for jobs. I received a grand total of two messages in December 2021 and December 2022 combined. It makes sense that hiring starts to wind down in November and halts in December because it’s holiday season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would like to note that while my personal experience on Handshake does align with the article’s general findings, Handshake is a tool for college students. Companies have specific hiring pipelines and timelines for interns and new grads so it’s not surprising that recruiters reached out to me more in specific months. I’d like to do a similar analysis in a few years using LinkedIn or Hired data since these platforms are more geared toward experienced professionals. I’d love to see if the article’s findings still hold true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whether you’re a college student or not, I believe considering the time in which you apply is critically important. My main takeaways are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. February, September, and October are probably the best months to apply.<\/li>
  2. Avoid applying in early Summer months and avoid December at all costs!<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    [1] https:\/\/www.indeed.com\/career-advice\/finding-a-job\/best-time-to-send-resume<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    [2] https:\/\/www.topresume.com\/career-advice\/the-best-times-of-the-year-to-job-search<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

    \n\n<\/pre><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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