Retail expects 265,000-365,000 seasonal hires: a recruiting clip plan

NRF expected retailers to hire between 265,000 and 365,000 seasonal workers in 2025, compared with 442,000 the year before. A store that shows the actual job in 20 seconds gives a candidate something a text listing cannot. On Sume, one hiring clip trimmed from store footage, joined and captioned costs about $0.36.

The hiring picture

NRF's winter holiday FAQ gives the forecast and the comparison point. It also defines the holiday period as November 1 through December 31, which is the window your seasonal hires have to cover.

What a candidate wants to see

A text posting says "seasonal associate." A clip can answer what the shift looks like, where you stand, what you carry, and who you work with. Film three real moments on a phone at the store, with permission from anyone on camera.

• The entrance and the stockroom, 6 seconds.
• A real task, such as pricing or restocking a table, 8 seconds.
• A teammate at work, with no staged lines, 6 seconds.
• A closing still of the pay, hours and how to apply, written as a caption.

Build it on Sume

Import the raw recording, then cut the three moments with video trim at $0.02 per job. Join them with Timeline 1.0 in silence mode and a 20-second audio.duration_seconds, which bills $0.10 for the first output minute.

Finish with video captions using cues: authored text with start and end times and no speech-to-text, so a silent clip works. Put the pay, shift length and application link in cues, since a viewer decides in the last second.

Shoot list and permissions

Ask every person on camera before you film and keep the answer in writing. Film in the hours the shift actually runs, so the lighting and the noise match what a hire will see. If the stockroom is cluttered, show it anyway. Candidates should see the job as it is.

Keep the master recording to a few minutes. Trim accepts sources up to 1800 seconds, but a shorter master is easier to scan for the three moments you want. Write the start second of each moment in a note while you film, then submit the three trims in one pass with a separate idempotency key for each job.

If you hire for more than one role, repeat the exercise per role: a stockroom clip and a register clip are different jobs, and a candidate who clicks on one should see that one.

Keep it honest

Say the pay and the hours in the clip. A recruiting clip that hides them wastes the viewer's time and yours. Make a second cut for each location if the pay differs, using the same trims and different cues, so you pay only for the extra caption job.

The NRF figure is a national forecast from 2025, so check the current season's forecast before quoting a number in a clip.