How to Prepare for Seasonal Hiring Surges with AI Resume Screening

Introduction

When the holiday season approaches, so does one of the biggest hiring challenges of the year.

Between October and January, companies — especially in retail and e-commerce — face an overwhelming spike in hiring needs. It’s not just physical stores looking for in-store sales assistants. E-commerce brands must also quickly scale up their customer support, fulfillment, and logistics teams to keep up with demand.

Suddenly, a company that hires 100–120 people in a typical year needs to hire 800–1,000 temporary workers in just a few short weeks.

And here’s the problem: most recruiting teams aren’t built to handle that kind of volume.

Why Planning Ahead Is Essential

Seasonal hiring isn’t something you can leave for the last minute. It requires:

• Aligning with department heads on needs and timing
• Prepping job descriptions and communication materials
• Setting up scalable recruiting workflows
• Ensuring your ATS can handle the volume
• Most importantly: starting early

The most efficient seasonal hiring teams begin planning at least 3 months in advance — that means starting in August or early September to be fully staffed by November.

And it’s not just about recruiting. You also need to plan ahead for onboarding and training. Hiring 1,000 people is only useful if they’re ramped up and ready to contribute when peak season hits. Training resources, schedules, and content must all be prepared in parallel with recruiting efforts.

The Volume Problem

Even with great planning, high-volume hiring creates a major bottleneck: resume screening.

Imagine receiving 10,000 applications in a month — and having to open, read, and triage each one manually. If you’re still using spreadsheets or just your ATS to do that, you’ll either burn out your team or miss out on quality talent.

That’s where Brainner comes in.

How Brainner Helps with Seasonal Hiring

Brainner is an AI-powered resume screening software that integrates seamlessly with top ATS platforms like Workable, Greenhouse, Lever, and Recruitee. It helps you go from thousands of resumes to a ranked, pre-qualified shortlist in minutes — not days.

Here’s how it works:

1. Define the criteria for the job (automatically extracted from the job description in your ATS)
2. Customize or adjust the criteria with your own weighting and filters
3. Let Brainner analyze all incoming candidates in real time, surfacing the best matches instantly
4. Use automation rules to archive unqualified applicants or advance great ones directly in your ATS

With Brainner, you can reduce resume screening time by up to 90%, allowing your team to focus on interviewing and onboarding instead of drowning in applications.

What to Look for in Customer Support Seasonal Hires

Whether you’re hiring in-store staff or remote support agents, here are some objective resume criteria Brainner can help you analyze:

• ✅ Experience in customer support roles
• ✅ Experience in your industry (e.g., retail, SaaS, logistics)
• ✅ Familiarity with CRMs like Zendesk, HubSpot, or Salesforce
• ✅ Experience using tools like Intercom, Shopify, Gorgias, or Slack
• ✅ Level of education — e.g., currently studying or holding a Bachelor’s degree
• ✅ Location and timezone compatibility for remote roles
• ✅ GPA or academic performance
• ✅ Extracurricular involvement — projects, university clubs, hackathons, or sports teams
• ✅ Responses to pre-application questions, such as:
• Do you have access to a computer?
• Do you have reliable, high-speed internet?
• Are you available to work weekends or evenings?

Brainner evaluates all these parameters in real time and gives your team a prioritized view of the strongest applicants — without lifting a finger.

Final Thoughts: Win the Holiday Hiring Rush with AI

Seasonal hiring is intense. You have limited time, a surge in candidates, and high expectations from internal stakeholders.

But recruiting is just one part of the challenge. Don’t forget to plan for onboarding and training—otherwise, you’ll have people hired, but not ready.

With Brainner, you get a scalable, automated resume screening agent that helps you:

• Move fast without sacrificing quality
• Give fair, consistent treatment to every applicant
• Free up recruiters to focus on interviews and onboarding
• Improve time-to-hire, even at 5x your normal volume

🎯 Ready to make seasonal hiring manageable — and even enjoyable?

Let Brainner do the heavy lifting this holiday season.