If you are yet to break into the workforce and get your first part-time or casual job, statistics support Christmas time as being your best bet to find one! Job openings (particularly in the retail sector) increase dramatically during this time. In fact, 60% of Christmas Casual jobs advertised in Australia are for retail work. Other common opportunities include hospitality work, product demonstrating for companies, reception duties and manual labour.
Christmas casual jobs will usually start appearing on Careerboard, Unitemps, Jora and other online job boards anywhere from August – September and are continually advertised all throughout the season. If you want the best chance for success, it is recommended to start looking as early as possible. However, there is nothing stopping you from scoring a casual gig this late in the year! Unitemps have a couple of Christmas casual jobs advertised right now.
The best way to start looking for your perfect Christmas casual job is to have a think about where you would love to work during the holiday season. Remember, having a Christmas casual job isn’t going to be all candy canes and ginger bread men. There are going to be days when you will have customers interrupting you to ask questions while you are still in the middle of assisting another customer, and you will awkwardly have to respond to both. The same Christmas album will play on rotate and you will hear all of the classics at every shift multiple times, to the point where carols will test your sanity. You will want to experience all of the chaos in a place that you really like and actually want to work for (preferably with some good discounts to ease the pain).
If there are a couple of shops that you visit without fail every time you go to the shopping centre, those shops should be your first preferences. You would likely know the product range quite well and where everything is, which is half the battle of working in retail during Christmas. If you regularly chat to someone working in your favourite store, even better! The odds are more in your favour if a current employee in the store knows who you are and can confirm that you are a regular.
The same goes for any regular cafes/restaurants that you might frequently visit. You can also use this tactic if you know one of your friends has just been employed as a Christmas casual. Maybe they need one more person, and your friend can pass on your resume and put in a good word. Connections are the easiest way into casual jobs every time.
If customer service just isn’t your thing, you might want to consider selling your skills to earn extra money over the holidays and getting a side hustle. There are a range of different services people are looking to pay for during the jolly season. This might include lawn mowing, creative gift making, drivers, food delivery, dog walking and etc. If you have the right equipment and an ABN, you may consider adding a service listing to Airtasker, Gumtree or Fiverrr and researching how much you should charge for your services. You can consult the Fair Work Australia website to assist with this.
Before you start applying for casual jobs, log on to Careerboard and get your resume checked online with one of our Career Consultants, especially if it’s been a while since you last applied for jobs. They can send you feedback on where things might need improvement. You can also refer to our online resume templates. Of course, this will not be necessary if you are freelancing and instead you will need to become an expert on self promotion! See the ‘identifying personal skills’ tab next to the resume tab on our website and use Blackboard and enrol into the Careers and Employment online modules for more tips around this subject. Ensure the website you are using to advertise on has recent photos/examples of your work to show off your abilities to clients.
There are a million different ways to make a bit of extra money doing Christmas time, so get creative and get networking!
Griffith University Careers and Employment Service 