Conversation Starter: New Year, New Job, New Career

The start of the new year represents a time for Americans to reset and get reinvigorated. For many American workers, that will mean exploring new job opportunities and figuring out how to advance their careers. Glassdoor data highlights how Americans plan to use the energy they get from the start of the new year to pursue their career goals in 2025.

Job search spikes in January

After the holiday lull when job seeking slows, workers will return with new energy to look for a new job in January. January is typically the strongest month for job search, according to Glassdoor data. In 2025, job seeker activity in January will likely be 11% higher than in a typical month. 

More specifically, the week of January 13 is likely to be the most active job-seeking week of the year, with 19% more job seeker activity than a typical week. The week of January 20, which includes Martin Luther King Jr. Day, will also be active, though job seeking will start to taper off through the end of January.

And according to a recent Glassdoor community survey centered around New Year’s career goals, switching jobs was the most prominent theme. The survey found more than 59% of professionals are focused on finding a new job in 2025. This is coming off a year when many professionals felt stuck in their careers due to a soft job market, but with the economy on the rebound, a wave of revenge quitting may be on the horizon.

Career pivots on the rise

Many workers looking for a new job in the new year will also be looking for a bigger career pivot. A Glassdoor community survey found that 50% of professionals are planning on a career pivot in 2025, with another 32% saying “maybe.”

An analysis of Glassdoor job search data affirms even more clearly that workers are open to trying new things in their careers. 70% of job applications started on Glassdoor go to a different occupation than the job seeker’s current occupation, and similarly 80% go to a different sector. This shows that the vast majority of job seekers are willing to try something new, getting exposure to a new industry or trying a new career path.

Workers are slightly less likely to move to an entirely new job function or department, but even so, a majority (57%) of job applications started on Glassdoor go to a different job function or department, like a job seeker in Engineering looking for a job in Product & Project Management instead.

New year’s resolutions beyond work

As the new year kicks off, Glassdoor community mentions of “resolutions” surge 27% in January. Of course, not all of these New Year’s resolutions are about work. Many Americans also use the opportunity to get healthier with mentions of “marathon” up 67%, “weight lifting” up 261% and “Dry January” up 480%.

Many Americans also get a headstart on their taxes in January, with tax and finance related terms spiking. Mentions of tax forms like the W-2 or 1099 rise 132% and 73% respectively in January. Beyond taxes, the start of the new year is also a good time to do a checkup on finances with mentions of financial advisors and 401(k) plans up 24% and 25% respectively.

Methodology

To find the most active week/month for job seekers, we look at job applications started on Glassdoor from March 2017 through November 2024 and use the prophet package to decompose seasonality from the data. We then aggregate the day-of-year, day-of-week and holiday seasonality components to calculate the usual seasonality without any underlying trend. The percent difference calculated relative to the average activity across the whole year.

These projections are illustrative and not indicative of business performance. They are based solely on seasonal effects and assume no change in the underlying trend, which may or may not hold depending on how the economy evolves.

The career pivot statistics from Glassdoor job search data count apply starts in the 30 days after a user provided an updated job title for their current full-time or part-time job. Occupation and department/job function are identified based on the user’s provided job title. Sector is identified based on the employer. The data only includes apply starts where the occupation, department or sector can be identified for both the user and the job posting. This uses apply starts data from January 1, 2024 through December 15, 2024.

The community poll on career goals for 2025 began on January 6, 205 and data is as of January 8, 2025, with over 700 respondents. Respondents can select from several options (“Finding a new job”, “Getting promoted”, “Negotiating a raise”, “Starting a side hustle”, “Career pivot”) in response to the question: “What's your top career goal for 2025?”.

The community poll on career pivots ran from December 13, 2024 through December 16, 2024 and was answered by over 3,000 U.S. professionals. Respondents could answer with either “Yes”, “No” or “Maybe” to the question, “Are you considering a career pivot or switching industries in 2025? 

For our analysis of community topics in discussion, we count mentions of certain phrases and keywords normalized against the total number of posts within the timeframe. To find trending terms in January, we look at the average month-over-month change in term usage from the preceding December to January for 2023 and 2024.