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The holidays are coming, which means many retailers are gearing up for an influx of shoppers, seasonal specials, and new employees. In the 2024-2025 holiday season, retailers in the US hired nearly 500,000 more seasonal employees to help prepare for increased staffing needs in the last three months of the year. While many of those positions are truly seasonal, some retailers hold on to those employees through the end of the year, such as the almost 30,000 new employees who stayed on after the 2024-2025 holiday season, or rehire them the following season.
When hiring for seasonal positions, retailers may look to move candidates through the application and interview process as quickly as possible. However, verifying a candidate’ s previous employment and experience can be an advantage for seasonal hiring. Temporary roles often have regular touchpoints with customers, inventory, and sensitive systems, yet usually offer little margin for onboarding error. Skipping or rushing the screening process can expose organizations to potential financial, operational, and reputational risks, and can cause retailers to miss out on candidates who have the potential to contribute beyond their initial tenure.
To help improve the quality of their seasonal hires, retailers can use three principles to hire not simply for speed, but to fill open roles with employees they might want to retain past the holidays.
1) Reconsider the false dilemma of speed versus quality In a high-volume hiring environment, filling roles as quickly as possible may be the top priority. Retailers may consider skipping prehire verifications of a candidate’ s previous employment and education because they believe they do not have time. However, while skipping these verifications may seem efficient, it can increase the risk of misrepresented candidate experience. A 2026 Equifax survey found that three in four HR professionals report challenges with fabricated and misleading candidate information, suggesting that it is often essential for hiring managers to back up their decisions with reliable information about a candidate’ s previous employment.
Additionally, hiring quickly does not have to require compromising
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