How to Land 10+ Interviews in January: A Holiday Networking Strategy

 If you've ever found yourself spiraling down a late night rabbit hole of. What am I meant to do and why haven't I found it yet? And let's be honest, who hasn't? Then you're in the right place. I'm Theresa White, career Clarity expert and five times certified career coach, and I'm here to help you navigate the question of how to find a career that truly lights you up on career clarity.

Unlock. We're all about those light bulb moments. I'm talking to people who are still trying to figure out what they're meant to do, coaching them life to reach that magical, yes, this is it moment, and we'll also hear from those who've already found their dream careers and figure out exactly how they did it.

Whether you are looking for inspiration or actionable advice on finding a career you love, I've got you covered time to unlock some career clarity. Let's dive in.

 Welcome back to Career Clarity Unlocked. Before we dive in today, I wanna start with a little honesty and share a little behind the scenes moment, actually a big behind the scenes moment. If you've been following me for a while, you probably know that for the last two years, I ran a massive 12 day online event called The 12 Days of Career Goals.

It was incredible. It helped thousands of people and it was one of the most meaningful things I've ever created, and I honestly loved every second of it. The speakers, the community we brought together, and the way we impacted people's lives. But at the same time, what people didn't see was that I was working seven days a week, 14 hour days for weeks and weeks on end to pull it all off.

took a toll on me. I for both: 2023

I had no energy to make this a beautiful holiday with the kids. And it was an incredible difficult decision if I should run the event again this year or not. My heart is in the event. I love it so much. I'm so proud of what we created, but I also realized that I had spent the entire holiday season helping everyone else get clarity, but I didn't give myself a minute of breathing room to enjoy my own life.

So that's why I made a different decision this year. No big event and no burnout this year. I'm still giving just in a Chinle way. I'll tell you about that later. And the reason I'm sharing this with you is because I want you to know that December is not the time to burn yourself out, but. It is a time to be intentional, not crazy.

Overworking not running 24 7. . It is the time to be intentional. It is a time where we don't wanna do more. We wanna be more intentional with the things that we do, and that is what today's episode is going to be about.

nt to make a career change in: 2026

You can't start in January. A lot of people start thinking about it in January. Start panicking in January. Start wondering why is nothing happening in January, but the actual interviews, those come from the quiet and strategic moves that people have made in November and December, and I am going to walk you through how you can do that today.

So welcome back to Career Clarity Unlocked. If you are new here, I am so happy you are here. I am Theresa White, career clarity expert and five times certified career coach and the coach behind over 600 women who found careers that feel like pinch me. I am getting paid to do this, and I am here to help you land a role that feels aligned, energizing, and right.

All of that without sacrificing your sanity, your values, or your holidays. . So today we are going to be talking about the real hiring timeline from November all the way to February. Why holiday networking is actually the least awkward networking ever.

I'm gonna give you a simple three part strategy so you can prep for January. I'm also gonna be sharing powerful client stories,, including one woman who went from stuck to 26 interviews with eight companies.

And I'll also give you a week by week action plan and you will know exactly how to set yourself up for 10 plus interviews in January without burnout. And because I love making things easy for you, I created a free guide with the exact seven networking templates you need the season. You can download that free guide.

I will share the link with you in the show note. Okay, let's get into it.

 . The most common thing, or the most common question I receive from job seekers is, is there even a point? To apply during the holidays. And the question comes because there are certain assumptions people have. One is that nobody's hiring during the holidays.

Two December doesn't count, or I'll just start fresh in January where everything is slow anyway. And every year the people who operate based on these assumptions. They miss out on the January and February hiring boom, because what's so important is that January hiring is not about January effort. That effort is built long before that.

So let me pull back the curtain for you and walk you through what's actually happening behind the scenes starting early November. It's starting to get quieter, but it is meaningful. Yes, the hiring volume is lower, but it's not zero by any means. Leaders are finalizing their budgets and headcount.

Some of them still are sneaking interviews before Things get hectic during the holidays, and applications are much lower than usual, which means you visibility is higher. As we're getting into late November, that is the week around Thanksgiving. That can really feel like crickets, but at the same time, hiring managers are catching up on emails, forwarding resumes, bookmarking strong candidates. So it is a golden time to network 'cause you wanna be on the radar before all these people, all the hiring manager are starting to post their jobs in January, early December is a quiet but golden time because job seeker activity drops lower than hiring activity.

Most people are mentally checked out at that point, which means that you stand out by doing very little. In late December. Yes, that is a total dead zone for interviews, but it is again, a gold mine for visibility. People are off, it's slow, people are checked out, but they are still managers in the office that are thinking about January, that are thinking about Q1, that are thinking about their team and who they want to hire and bring on, and they're mapping out hiring priorities.

And if your name is in their inbox during this quiet time, you are added to their shortlist without any competition, no noise, and that is where the magic happens. Then we are heading into early January. That is the reentry week. That's where most job seekers wake up from their holiday coma and think, okay, great.

Now I'll start. It's the same week we see applications, spike, recruiters getting flooded, and while all of that is happening, everyone seems to feel behind. But if you have built relationships since November, you don't even have to start. All you gotta do is follow up and then interviews peak mid-January.

Referrals, pop recruiters respond fast. That's where you wanna be ready. This is your moment, and if you leverage it, then you're gonna be one of the candidates who's offer gets finalized in February, who is gonna be negotiating and who is ready to start in their new role.

pecially as we are going into: 2026

But there's also real growth at the very same time when it comes to tech enabled roles. Even in non-tech companies, in healthcare, in education and nonprofits, there's demand for AI literacy and data literacy, and very much for durable soft skills. Communication, leadership, adaptability, everything that AI cannot do, so you don't stand out by applying online like everyone else.

The way you need to stand out is by clarity, visibility, timing, warm connections, and early prep, which brings us to the three pillars of a successful winter job search.

 The good thing is there are only three things that you need to focus on in November and December. Pillar one is to get crystal clear on your direction. Pillar two is a light, warm, holiday friendly networking, and pillar three is prepping new materials and pipeline before January. So I'm going to break this all down for you First, career clarity.

The holidays are such a beautiful time made for reflection. Yes, it is busy, but there's also quiet moments while we are wrapping gifts, stirring soup, zoning out by that tree or the advanced crus, you know, that, that, that round reef that has four candles and you light one every weekend on the four weeks before.

Christmas. I don't know if you do that in the US but we do that in Germany and it's beautiful and those are the perfect moment for clarity work. Without clarity, nothing that happens after will work. Your job search is gonna be all over the place. Your messaging is all over the place.

It's frustrating, time consuming, not effective and efficient. Lack of clarity is truly the number one silent job search killer. When you are unclear, you end up applying to jobs that you don't really want. You are hesitant to reach out. You might be second guessing everything. You feel like a knot in your stomach when you're reading the job posts.

And most people avoid networking because they don't even know who to talk to or what to say. But when you have clarity, everything changes. Your energy changes. You become magnetic. People want to help you, and you can articulate your story easily.

And that's what happened with my client. Grace. Grace was stuck in her old role for over a decade. She felt burned out, stuck. For two years, she was applying for roles that she thought made sense as the next step in her career. She was a director of operations, so she came to me and she's like, I tried everything in the last two year, applying networking, updating my resume, updating my LinkedIn.

I am not landing a job and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It took one career clarity session. To have the breakthrough that she actually was applying to roles she didn't really want. Within four days, she got crystal clear about her direction and what she wanted to do next. She told me that she didn't think it was possible that she could feel this excited about her job search again.

After two years of not landing anything, it took four days to get crystal clear, and it took one month to get two job offers. She went from miserable and directionless to feeling energized and confident and so excited about a completely new path. And that exactly is the power of clarity work. And the holidays, especially December, are the perfect time to do it.

I know career clearly work isn't always easy, so that's why I'm going to have a very special holiday gift for you. You might already know that I am originally from Germany, I think I just mentioned that. Um, so for me, the holidays means Christmas markets, Christmas markets, Christmas markets. When I was 16 and 17, I worked at a Christmas market selling hot mold wine.

That was my dream job at that time. If you have never had hot mold wine in Germany, we call it Glue vine. You have to try it. It's truly magical in cold weather. I love Advent calendars. I love baking Christmas cookies with my kids, decorating the tree, cozy lights everywhere. And this year, instead of hosting the big event, the 12th Days of Career Goals,

I am launching my career Clarity Advent Calendar, combining my favorite tradition. With the clarity work, I love helping women do. So that's gonna be the vibe of the season. Warm, intentional, reflective with a . Little door to open each day, which each has a one minute or less, 62nd or less career clarity exercise for you so that throughout those 24 days you are gonna get really clear about what you want to do next.

We're gonna make sure to link the website where you can get access to the Advent calendar and it's completely free

so that you have this special something during the holidays where each day you give yourself a little gift of career clarity. Now, moving on to pillar two, holiday networking, and this is for even if you feel like the word networking makes you run the other way, this is for you because this is the easiest networking all year.

Holiday network is truly the least awkward networking that exists. Why? Because in November and December people are more open, the pressure is low, generosity is high, Salza is strong, and no one assumes you're asking for anything. Everyone loves to receive a holiday message and it's also the friendliest window of the year.

And I wanna share with you Tina's story, who I worked with last December before she worked with me. She was definitely overdevelopment and under confident after a very long tenure at her current company. She knew that she needed to make a change, but a whole job search playbook was very much outdated.

She joined my program last year, November. Of course, we didn't wait till January like most people, but we followed simple, actionable steps. We started by getting really clear on her target roles. Then we started sending warm holiday messages, reconnecting with people without any pressure following the templates I give her.

Reached out to people that she hadn't talked to in years. She built her list and she used low stakes December vibes to build and reestablish relationships. By January, she had 26 interviews with eight different companies, multiple referrals to get these interviews, and she ultimately landed a role that she loves.

None of that included hustle. But she was very intentional with what she did, and that is because she started early. This clarity, connection, and confidence. That's the power of holiday outreach. Can you imagine 26 interviews in January? Wouldn't that be a dream come true? I'll tell you a secret. Most of my clients who land 10 plus interviews in January, they follow the exact same pattern.

There are two things that happen when you network in November and December. One, you get referrals for jobs that are gonna be posted in January or February, but two, you are also accessing the hidden job market. Those are the jobs that are posted. Posted, not necessarily because hiring managers want to hide them from you, but because the amount of application they're receiving is overwhelming. So if they know I need to hire a person for X, Y, and Z, and I'm talking to someone who is really good at X, Y, or Z, or someone just told me about a person who is really good at X, Y, and Z, lemme talk to them first to see if they'd be a good fit. Before I post this job, make my recruiter go through thousands of applications rounds and rounds of interviews to find one person that hopefully might work out. Now, if I know someone or have a referral, I'm going to talk to them first. And you wanna be their person.

Who they talk about, who they think about before they open those opportunities. Pillar three is to prep your materials into your pipeline before January, because January comes fast. I always say, the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve is the blink of an eye.

It's over faster than you can count to five. And then by the time we. Turn around. We're in January. Roles are being posted. Applications spike. Recruiters feel really overwhelmed and if this is when you start getting your stuff together, tweaking your resume, updating your LinkedIn, you are going to be behind.

So you want to start in November and December 1st by clarifying your top roles, remember my Advent calendar and your target industries. Then once things slow down a little bit, maybe after Christmas, but before New Year's.

Make sure you optimize your LinkedIn profile and update your resume. And you also want to be really clear on your target companies that you want to network and apply to come January.

So you wanna think about November and December as baking the cake before the party starts. And in January you just put the frosting on top.

Now I'm gonna walk you through my eight week action plan, which is super light, simple and doable, so you know exactly what to do when starting in November. That's what're gonna gonna lay the foundation. You wanna start your clarity work about identifying what roles you want to be targeting in the new year, and then you wanna make a list of warm contacts.

At least 30 to 50 people, but some of my clients go up to 70 or even a hundred people, and you wanna include anyone who could help advise you, help you, refer you, or reconnect you. That can include past coworkers, former managers, classmates, people you took a course with. Mentors, instructors, people that you met through events or volunteering, anyone you interviewed with in the last two years, even if you didn't get the job.

Friends. Friends of friends, acquaintances, your hairdresser, people you admire on LinkedIn. Anyone in your phone book? Anyone you can think of Other parents that you know through your kids. Add them all to a list of people you wanna send a holiday message to. And then around Thanksgiving, keep it super simple.

Just send a message like, hey, your name crossed my mind today, and I wanted to wish you a wonderful holiday season. Hope you and your family are doing well and winding down with some rest. It's been a while and I'd love to hear how you've been. It's as simple as that. Who doesn't love to receive a message like that?

You wanna start your weekly outreach with at least one or two messages a day, and you can use that same template and just adjust depending on the person you send it to. You're gonna continue that into December. In December, you might be using a message that's more like,

hey, I just thought of you and realized it's been forever since we caught up. Really hope everything's going well with you and that you're having a nice holiday season. Just wanted to send a quick note to say hello and wish you a joyful end of the year. Again, very simple.

Just spreading holiday cheer. That's all you are doing with your messages is you are spreading holiday cheer, and the added bonus is that that allows you to reconnect with people you haven't talked with for a while in December. You also wanna finalize your target roles and keep following up on conversations of people who respond.

Now, don't worry about too many of these people responding. This is effective even if none of them respond. Remember, people can be quite busy during the holiday, so it's not about how many responses you receive, but it is about how many messages you send. mid-December, you're gonna continue the same thing.

Sending messages, messages, messages, so you can reconnect with people. You are also gonna be working on your career clarity and finalizing your target company list. In late December, you do the cozy check-ins with people, follow up on conversations. You're not applying frantically. You just let your outreach land with the people who you send it to.

Early January is where you're gonna send up a follow-up message to everyone, so make sure you track everyone you sent us to, and you can send it via LinkedIn dm, via email, any other social media platform, a Facebook message, a Instagram dm, all of that works. So keep track who you send messages to and no matter if they responded or not, early January, you're gonna follow up with a message that might say, Hey, I hope your holidays were wonderful, and that the new year is off to a great start.

e been doing . As I head into: 2026

Wishing you a great start to: 2026

To apply for the roles as they become available. If you see a posting that's interesting, apply this in 24 to 48 hours and the conversation that you started in November and December and followed up on January, you wanna keep all those conversations warm and active and try to get as many referrals and conversations out of those as possible.

And remember, when it comes to informational interviews, it's never asking for a job. It's always asking for advice and building professional friendships. Because that is the way that you are actually gonna get referred in for opportunities ly January it's interview season. You're gonna be lending lots of interviews.

You're gonna hopefully get a lot of referrals. You're gonna do lots of follow-ups, you're gonna do lots of coffee chats, and you're gonna do a lot of more interviews. February is when offers are coming. That's where you might be in the final rounds, where you might go through salary negotiations and you're gonna have options, which is the most beautiful place to be when it comes to a job search.

Now, we covered a lot today. We started by talking about why January's success is actually built in November and December. I shared with you the hiring timeline behind the scenes. We walked through the three pillars of a winter job search. I shared with you Grace's career clarity breakthrough, as well as Tina's 26 interview networking transformation, and I provided you with a week by week action plan.

But what I want you to remember most is that this quiet season right now, that is your advantage. And to make it as easy as possible for you. And if you want messaging templates that actually work, you can get all of my seven network templates to land 10 plus job interviews in January by going to

career Bloom coaching.com/episode 74. The link to that is also in the show notes and that's where you get for free the exact templates My clients use to get interviews, referrals, and intros, many of them during the holidays. Again, the link to that is in the show notes. Thank you so much for spending this time with me here today.

I know that the holidays can feel chaotic, but they can also be a moment of turning inward, of clarity, of reconnecting with what you actually want next, and you deserve that. You deserve direction, you deserve support, and most of all, you deserve to find work that makes you come alive. And I am here cheering for you every step of the way.

And of course, don't forget to join me again next week for another episode full of insights, inspiration, and actionable advice on finding a career you love because you do not have to settle. So go and keep chasing what makes you come alive, and I will see you back here next week on Career Clarity Unlocked.  And that's a wrap for today's episode of Career Clarity Unlocked, if you feeling stuck in that. What's next? Spiral and are ready to finally break free. Let's chat. You can book your free career clarity call where we'll uncover what's really important to you. Tackle any obstacles holding you back and map out your best next step.

Schedule your free 30 minute call today on career bloom coaching.com and before you head out, be sure to follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, so you never miss an episode. If today's conversation gave you new insights and inspiration, please leave a review. It really helps us reach more amazing listeners like you.

And don't forget to share this episode with a friend or on social media. Your support truly means the world. Thanks for hanging out with me and I'll see you next time.