We’re well into the holiday season, and our firm has been busier than ever! With this hectic time of year, there’s so much to contemplate, especially career-wise. Organizations are looking to assess their seasonal hires and employees are considering what moves to make during the busy season. At The Execu|Search Group, we’re reflecting back on our year’s worth of insight and advice, which we hope has helped you navigate your career path in some way.

To cap off this merry season the right way, we’re going back in time and reliving some of our best pieces of advice on your job searches and careers. Join us in recounting our most fitting tips to help you take advantage of the holidays and boost your professional standing through the career recruitment process. We recommend embarking on a new step every day for 12 days to make the most of this festive time and to close your year strong! What better gift to give yourself than the opportunity to improve your professional value?

Day 1: The holidays are hectic, but your job search doesn’t need to be

Have you ever been on a productive job hunt kick sending out multiple cover letters and resumes, only to fall from your high after realizing you applied to the same job twice? Mistakes like those aren’t just embarrassing, they’re costly. Keep yourself from being a scatter-brain by getting organized on your job hunt. Our biggest tip to you is to create a master list of every position you apply for, detailing the job, the date you applied, the company, how you applied, and a few other key points, which can be found in our post on organizing your job search.

Day 2: Your job search will get the most leads on this day…

Here’s our gift to you! We’re letting you in on a little secret – Mondays are the best day of the week to apply for a job. A recent study concluded that applicants are more likely to move forward to the next round of the hiring process on Mondays, with 30% of people studied successfully making it to the next step of the interview process. Read more on the phenomena, here…

Day 3: Get back in touch with your references

The holidays are the perfect time to get back in touch with former colleagues and coworkers. To begin the process, we recommend creating an excel document listing all the people who know your work well.  Once you’ve done this, send warm wishes to all those on your list (potential and current references) by sending a fun holiday e-card, or by simply calling them up and giving them your sincerest greetings in the spirit of the holidays. Get even more ideas on how to proceed from our post on managing your references.

Day 4: Brush up on your interviewing skills

This may feel like a great time of year to take it easy, but don’t let your interviewing skills get rusty! Regardless of your field or career level, there is certain interview etiquette that all must abide by, made up of numerous important facets: dress professionally, arrive on time, and be prepared, amongst others. Like the light bulbs on a Christmas tree, if one falters, you risk undoing the rest.  To ensure you’re fully prepared come interview time, make sure to review our post on the basics of the successful interview, especially if it’s been a while since you’ve had one.

Day 5: Work on your brand

Like holiday traditions, your professional image has to be memorable. We call this “building your brand.” Though it may sound odd to refer to your professional self as a brand, it’s extremely effective to treat it as such: How can you present yourself in the best way possible? How can you sell your “brand” to a potential employer? Are you getting the exposure you need to your target “audience?” To answer these questions, as well as discover and tailor your own personal brand if you’re just starting off, try this 8-step approach.

Day 6: Remember people’s names after the party

With all those holiday parties, make sure you remember everyone’s name for networking purposes! It may seem like an impossible feat, but there are lots of simple ways to reinforce the names of those you’re meeting. For example, you can make an association to match the name to the person. You might try thinking “Robin was the one wearing the large gold necklace.”

For added reinforcement, make sure you exchange business cards with your new contact. Once you have finished speaking to them, in order to help solidify your memory of them, write down any unique details about the person on the back of their business card. This information can be especially beneficial to reference when you reach out to them (or if they reach out to you) at a later date.

Day 7: Write a compelling cover letter

What would a gift be without pretty wrapping? Half the fun of holiday gifts is working your way through the wrapping to find the gift inside. If you’re submitting your resume without a cover letter, it may be as stark and unappealing as an unwrapped gift under the tree. Cover letters can showcase a lot of your skills—such as communication and writing skills—that your resume can’t; in fact, stating that you have such skills on a resume can actually come off as cliché or take up valuable space on your resume where you should be displaying hard skills and experience. If you need more incentive to work on your cover letter, you might want to take a look at our post, No Cover Letter, No Call?, and apply some of the tips and advice there.

Day 8: Enrich your career with mentorship

Just like families pass down holiday traditions, experienced professionals in every field pass down their wisdom through mentorship. This is an excellent way for them to give back to the field that fostered their career—and isn’t the holiday season all about giving? The mentor-mentee relationship is one of give and take on both sides and can make all the difference in one’s career with a new resume addition, reference, or connection. At the very least, the joy of sharing wisdom and industry news will help keep both parties on the up and up. Whether you’re just looking for your first job or a veteran in your field, consider the perks of finding a mentor or becoming a mentor.

Day 9: Enhance your resume

With the New Year approaching, why not give your resume an update? If you’re looking to change jobs, or simply want to refresh your resume, now’s a better time than any. With the resume typically being the first thing a hiring manager sees when considering you as a candidate, you want to ensure that yours is polished enough to get a leg up on the competition. You’ll find that you have plenty of options for reformatting your resume, including splitting your positions into different listings based on a shift in duties, or starting an industry-related blog. For more suggestions, head to our post on ways to bulk up your resume.

Day 10: Find value in your alumni network

You can meet a whole slew of professionals by tapping into your alumni network. Having all attended the same school, you already have one talking point, and a big one at that. Research for potentially rewarding connections by asking your Career Development Office (CDO) if they have an online Alumni Database you can look through. You can also attend professional events hosted by the CDO, and get in touch with alumni through social media. A great site to do this is through LinkedIn where you can peruse alumni related groups to see which members would be most relevant for you to connect with. For more on how to start alumni relationships, head to our post detailing all your options.

Day 11: Practice your storytelling skills

The holidays are all about storytelling, and many people don’t realize that being a good interviewee requires being a good storyteller. The last thing you want to do is stop an interview in its tracks by responding to questions with simple yes or no answers. Instead, interviews are opportunities for painting a picture of your strengths and career experiences. Many common interview questions, such as “Tell me about a time when you had to overcome a challenge,” require us to tell stories—even if that’s not what we originally see them as. For more advice on how to craft compelling interview answers in story format, take a look at our post titled Tell a Story, Land the Job!

Day 12: You met them at the party… connect on LinkedIn

Now that you actually met promising contacts at the holiday party, it’s time to harvest the seeds you planted by asking them to officially connect on LinkedIn. While keeping the generic “I’d like to add you to my professional network” message might be the easiest thing to do, you’ll leave a better impression by making the effort to personalize your message.

When writing your message, be sure to include how you know them, where you met, and what you talked about at the party. Explain why you’d like to connect with them (they’ll love hearing any kind words you have to say about them) and what you have in common. For more specifics, try these five steps.