When it comes to connecting with the right job opportunity, timing isn’t everything, but it’s certainly something. Tuning into industries’ and employers’ annual recruitment cycles just might give you a decisive edge.

When to start a new job is the question?

The beginning of the calendar year (January and February) marks an excellent time for hiring and interviewing activities in most industries. Industries will differ from each other slightly of course, but January and February are strong months overall.

January tends to start slowly as hiring managers often don’t come back from their holiday vacations until the 2nd week of the month. But once that happens, hiring activities pick up rapidly and interviewing starts to happen with higher frequency.

Another reason for the boost in hiring activities in these late winter months is that companies often get their new budgets for the year in January, and a lot of the hiring activity that was delayed in November and December can now move forward.

The summer months tend to see a drop off in hiring and interviewing activity. Managers tend to take vacations more often during this time of year, and it’s harder to get a team together to conduct a face-to-face interview. Companies also fill many of their open positions during the hiring push that occurs at the beginning of the year (In January and February), so there’s less of a need by the time June, July, and August come around.

It’s only natural that after a spike in hiring activity, there will be a dip in hiring activity. Unfortunately for summer job seekers, the big spike in activity in January and February will leave you with less options in the summer.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t any jobs to be had; you just have to look a little bit harder.

Overall, summer can be challenging for job seekers and hiring managers alike, because it’s tough to get the right collection of decision-makers to be present at the same time. However, you might be able to stand out due to the fact that there are less applicants during the summer months. Because of this, it’s still worthwhile to do some job hunting in the summertime.