Tips to help make your seasonal job permanent

CHICAGO (WLS) -- LaSalle Network is a Chicago-based staffing and recruiting firm. Founder and CEO, Tom Gimbel, spoke on holiday hiring this year and how a seasonal job can become more permanent.

The firm said there is a surge in retail employment, back-end roles like administrative and IT positions, sales positions and shippers, like UPS. In fact, LaSalle pulled data showing that customer service and administrative roles are set to increase by 20 percent in Chicago by the end of the year.

With the Affordable Care Act set to launch at the start of the 2015, more companies are enlisting back-end help to ramp up efforts in preparation, which is causing an increase as well.

Tom's tips:

-Don't treat it like "just a temporary job."

The contacts someone meets in a temporary role will prove valuable resources in the future, so they have to be sure to treat every interaction with employers and every hour of your work day as you would a "real" job. Be on time, work hard, be nice, prove to be invaluable to the company.

-It's a test drive.

Remember, the company has to be the right fit for the employee, too. This can be a test drive on whether or not it's a fit. If they don't like the position, they can be done once the assignment is over and search for other opportunities. If they love it and work hard, there may be a job offer at the end, but part-time employees need to remember to ask for it! They can't assume the employer knows.

-Achieve something more.

Employees should consider achieving something more than what is in their job descriptions; whether it's presenting a new process or program to management, creating something to add to the culture, a philanthropic effort, etc. Go above and beyond.

-Make connections.

As assignments come to an end, people should be networking within the company. They should explain that their project within a specific department is coming to an end and see if managers from different units have any work could potentially do.