Clark Howard: Seasonal holiday jobs are everywhere, but don’t fall for gimmicks

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In the history of the shopping recreation season — also known as Christmas shopping — I have never seen people looking for workers as desperate to find them. In fact, employers started pleading for workers in the middle of the summer.

That’s because they were anticipating they were never going to be able to get enough people to stock their shelves, work their registers, work in the warehouse, do delivery — anything!

Now is the best time ever to look for a part-time seasonal job

So, if you’re looking for some part time money, this year is your best year ever. So many different companies are offering you part-time bonuses.

That means you want to play hard to get. You want to put yourself out there and see who’s going to offer you the most as far as an hourly wage and other benefits that will get you to come to work there.

There one thing I want you NOT to pay attention to: There are a number of retailers who are trying to attract workers that are saying they’re going to enter you into raffles, and if you win the raffle you might get a $500 shopping spree or something like that. I’m not into “might to.”

I want you to look for things that you know you’re going to get. For instance, if you go to work there, they’re going to give you half-price shopping days so you can check off your Christmas list for the people who’ve been nice and not naughty. It’s what they’re actually going to put in your pocket that counts.

The cool thing that if you start working now somewhere and you hate how they treat you, you still have time to go find somewhere else to pick up holiday hours and make more money.

Don’t wait until you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to pay for Christmas and you’re scrambling to get a job. I want you looking now, early in the season. Get some hours in somewhere and figure out if you like the culture, you like the atmosphere and you like how they’re treating you.

Have you picked up a new job for the holidays? Let us know how you like it in the comments or on Facebook.

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