How to Recruit Seasonal Employees for the Holiday Season

Published On: November 14, 2025Categories: Onboarding, Talent Acquisition

This year’s seasonal hiring “spree” might be better described as a “blip.” According to job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, brands such as Macy’s, Burlington Stores, Aldi, and 1-800-Flowers haven’t made big holiday hiring announcements like they did last year. Spending has cooled, and hiring and wage growth have followed suit.

For recruiters, that means you’re under less pressure. Phew. There’s also a real opportunity to make smarter seasonal hires. It’s a chance to streamline talent acquisition and recruiting automation, focus on quality over quantity, and set up short-term workers for success.

Even with smaller headcount targets, the stakes are just as high. Here’s a step-by-step guide to recruiting and onboarding seasonal workers efficiently.

TL;DR:

Less competition in seasonal hiring is the perfect opportunity to refine your process. Learn how to recruit seasonal employees efficiently with AI hiring tools. Rival Recruit and Rival Workflow can help you do it faster, smarter, and with lasting impact.

Step 1: Plan Ahead for Seasonal Hiring

Smarter seasonal hiring begins with a look at last year’s data:

  • When did demand spike?
  • Average days to hire?
  • How long did it take to get new hires fully trained?

Use the answers to these questions to forecast headcount. With potentially fewer competitors flooding job boards, you can attract stronger candidates by being first and moving quickly. Check out this talent acquisition playbook to learn more.

Pro tip: Rival Recruit allows you to manage job openings at scale—so seasonal postings, candidate outreach, and interview scheduling can be handled efficiently. 

Step 2: Write Clear and Transparent Job Descriptions

With temporary work, details and specificity are key. Seasonal employees need to know exactly what they’re signing up for and for how long. 

Information to include in your job descriptions:

  • Dates: Be clear about start and end dates.
  • Schedule: Outline any peak hours or weekend expectations.
  • Pay and perks: The more specific you are about rates, bonuses, and/or discounts, the more likely you are to improve application rates.
  • Training: Explain how you’ll onboard them quickly.
  • Culture: Including company values and cultural norms can help employees align to the culture quickly.

The more detail you can provide, the higher quality applications you’ll get. 

Pro tip: Rival Recruit makes it easy to create clear, consistent job descriptions across all your channels. Not sure where to start? ROSI (Rival OS Intelligence) can help with AI-generated descriptions based on your specific inputs and keywords.

Step 3: Source Candidates Strategically

Even with fewer total openings, you’re still competing for reliability and readiness with many available candidates.

Here are some places you’ll have the highest chance for success:

  • Rehires: Reach out to last year’s seasonal workers.
  • Referrals: Ask your best employees to tap into their networks. Referrals tend to onboard faster and stay longer.
  • Community connections: Partner with local schools or community organizations to reach students and retirees looking for short-term work.
  • Job boards and social media: Use your company’s social media page to tell your followers you have openings. You can post to job boards specific to seasonal work, such as CoolWorks or seasonaljobs.com, as well as leverage the job board posting service, to boards like Indeed.com provided for free from Rival Recruit. 

Since there’s less movement overall in the job market, you might have to do a bit more outbound sourcing this year. Don’t overlook untapped talent pools like gig workers looking for short-term roles.

Elf Application

Pro tip: Rival Recruit can help here, too. In addition to posting to multiple job boards, ROSI can identify candidates from a database of over 750m profiles and helps you narrow your search to the best fits with AI-powered candidate matching and sourcing. 

Step 4: Streamline Your Hiring Process

From application to day one, seasonal hiring happens in days or weeks, not months. Sorting resumes. Emailing schedules. Tracking applications. Each of these steps can be automated into a repeatable system—moving the right candidates through more quickly.

Try these tips to streamline the process:

  • Use ROSI Source to instantly surface top matches.
  • Automate interview scheduling, allowing candidates to self-select times that work.
  • Standardize offer letter and background checks to eliminate bottlenecks.

With the right tools, you can cut days or even weeks off your hiring cycle.

Step 5: Onboard and Train Quickly and Effectively

The goal is to ramp your seasonal hires quickly so they have a strong start. Rushing can lead to mistakes and early exits.

Here are some things to try:

  • Send digital preboarding materials before day one that answer questions about schedules, dress code, and what to expect.
  • Assign a buddy or shift lead to help your new hire feel comfortable.
  • Break training up into manageable chunks, with learning goals by day or week.

And of course, lean into automation for repetitive tasks like payroll, badge requests, and system access. Rival Workflow makes it easy to create consistent, seamless onboarding that gets seasonal hires the information they need fast.

Step 6: Keep Seasonal Workers Engaged

Many seasonal workers are the face of your brand to customers. They’re joining your team during your busiest season. Keep them engaged and connected and they’ll be motivated to do their best work.

The same best practices apply no matter who is on your team:

  • Give recognition: A quick shout out early on can boost motivation and show others what great looks like.
  • Offer flexibility: Be human. Flexibility goes a long way during the holiday rush.
  • Communicate often: Transparency builds trust.

With Rival Workflow, you can build an automated employee journey that includes these engagement touchpoints so every team member feels seen and supported.

Step 7: Build Long-Term Value from Seasonal Hiring

Treat short-term roles as long-term opportunities so you don’t have to start from scratch every year. Take note of the people who are dependable and learn quickly. Keep their information so you know who to call first next holiday season.

Consider nurturing seasonal hires year round with newsletters that keep your brand top of mind. Even if some move onto permanent positions elsewhere, it’s a smart strategy to keep building on your talent pool. 

Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Hiring Seasonal Employees

Don’t fall into these traps!

  • Hiring too late: Don’t wait until December to hire for the holiday surge. Even in a slower market, the best talent gets hired first.
  • Skipping compliance steps: Cutting corners puts your company at risk, no matter how long the contract. Document everything to protect you and your seasonal hires.
  • Neglecting onboarding: They don’t need a week-long course. Even a half-day session will help set them up for success.

Tools for Recruiting Seasonal Employees Effectively

The right tools won’t just get you through the holiday season—they’ll help you hire and train the right talent faster now and in the future. 

Even as headcount fluctuates, the steps you take to hire seasonal talent don’t change much. Rival Recruit turns those tasks into an automated, repeatable process, from posting jobs and screening resumes to scheduling interviews. And once you’ve got the right talent, Rival Workflow keeps onboarding and engagement running smoothly.

Give your team the gift of efficiency.

Recruit, onboard, and retain seasonal talent with Rival’s all-in-one hiring platform.