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How Do You Manage Your Job-Search Info?
bilsaysthis writes "Finding job postings, tips for effective resume writing and social networking tools to overcome the 'who you know' problem are generally available these days, but what about keeping track of all the information (jobs applied for, people contacted, follow ups, etc)? After looking I found people using all sorts of informal means (text files, spreadsheets, email folders, bookmarks) but nothing very organized or focused specifically on the tasks. What do you use?"
An additional thought on this:
When you're unemployed, you may often feel like you have less control over your life and your future. You may feel uncertain, uneasy and stressed. I think that putting a lot of effort into structuring your job hunting and every possible aspect and detail involved is a way for many people to feel that they have more control over their destiny. It gives them a sense of self-control and a way to measure their progress and goals.
It may not be directly productive or useful in some circumstances, but I suspect that for a lot of people (perhaps like the submitter), the benefits come in the form of less anxiety and more confidence.
Some companies send their employees to training seminars that instruct them on creating action plans, lists, lists of plans, plans of lists, lists of lists and plans of plans. The idea is that if you have everything thought out and written down, you have more control and will be more likely to make progress without wavering from that goal.
Hell, some of the corporate career consultants (that also handle executives and CEOs) will start you off with nothing less than a couple dozen pages of self-introspective documentation to fill out. Things that seem ridiculous and pointless as you're filling it out, but build a more accurate and useful picture of yourself and your potential by the time you're done.
That isn't really my kind of thing. It's a bit too "I'm okay you're okay; now let's all hug rather than getting work done" for my taste. But my point is that if billion dollar employers and consultants (these are NOT headhunters) find such detail and consideration to be a highly valuable tool, then it should not be disregarded when it comes to an individual doing this in their job hunts.
With http://indeed.com/ you can search jobs across multiple job sites in one search. The byline is 'one search. all jobs'.