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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?"
I think anything more would be managing the database, instead of managing the job search.
The following steps should'nt be necessary to do more than once per unemployment period. Preferably as early as possible, as it is the most guaranteed way of finding a job you actually like!
Furthermore, these steps should be followed at least once a week:
Concurrently, the following steps must be followed every day
Finally, a tip regarding CV's. It should be honest, to-the-point, and keep mostly only informaton of interest to the potential employer. E.g. If you are applying for a bodyguard job, make sure to cover all your military training in detail, but only briefly mention you PhD's. If you are applying for a job as a rocket scientist, you can do the opposite. If there are holes in your CV, such as periods of sickness, depression, etc, be brutally honest, and explain why.
To keep yourself organized, you need a pen, and two sheets of paper, one with the names of companies you have already applied for, and another with company/address/contact person/date/time/ for interviews you have agreed to meet up for.
If these steps are too complicated, and you feel you need a DBMS to keep track of you job-hunt, you are doing something wrong.
I installed a wiki on my main desktop about a year ago. I manage everything with it, including job-hunting, resumes, contacts, reminders. There are many wikis, but I found Twiki to be the most powerful and flexible with the most features. If you're stuck on Windows, you can even install Apache and Cygwin so that you can use Twiki on it. There's even full instructions on their site walking you through that process.
You have to remember that a lot of geeks spend weeks writing software just to catalogue their DVD collection. It's only natural to feel compelled to extend that to jub hunting (and everywhere for that matter). It's just a quirk.
Please also direct job hunters to talk to HR departments. I hear if you get a post card from them, you are "virtually guaranteed" to get a job. Really!
Thank you.
Yeah, right.
Print out (and save)a copy of the job advertisment that you are applying for. Wwhen I was laid off and searching for a job, I received a call about a position that I had applied for 2 months before. Before going in for the interview I had a chance to research the company refresh myself on the skills thaat they wanted. I ended up getting the job.
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.
I send out my resume... ...no, wait, I fill out yet another dumb form while my resume sits and collects virtual dust... ... and just carefully file all the lack of responses (even automated ones!) in my brain.
So far the only danger of this is that it tends to result in lowered levels of certain vital nuerotransmitters, which manifests as "depression".
To answer your question, I have no idea what people do; I had no idea that people were getting so many offers and interviews they needed special tracking software. My system seems to be working pretty well, at least in the sense that no system could possibly be more useful for me.
(What do you do when even networking fails? I have a network, but it consists of people who have work or know people who have work in the theoretical sense of "Gee, it'd be nice if we could do X", but can't scrape together any money for it.)
With http://indeed.com/ you can search jobs across multiple job sites in one search. The byline is 'one search. all jobs'.
With a simple text editor, I keep track of:
company name
email addy
web site
what part of town they're in
job title
job description (buzz-words)
my approx. degree of fit
dated history of my attempted contacts, including actual text of customized cover letter (I usually make these very short) and the filename of the customized resume
I put them in order of my interest in them.
Leave your computer on when you're home, with that file loaded, so when the phone rings, you can make a mad dash to answer with the phone by the computer, and immediately scroll down to see the goods on the company who's calling, so you don't get something confused and sound like an ass (been there, done that).
I also use a physical notepad, to take to interviews. The first page contains my std list of questions that I ask of every potential employer (sometimes I end up asking slightly more questions in an interview than the interviewer). The following pages contain the answers, one page per company (it probably helps after you've done a couple, and they can see that you've had other interviews/interest in you/competition).
I'll also print out the section for that company from my text file and stuff that in there, to take along and read right before the interview, to make sure my memory is fully refreshed and not partly confused with another company's stuff and my conversation history with them.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
I bought a plain old binder, punched notebook paper, a page that held floppies, and a set of dividers. Label Dividers "Todo", "Open", "Inactive", "Raw Materials".
Each company you're interested in gets a sheet of notebook paper. Glue the ad (or printed online job spec) on the paper. Use that paper to WRITE DOWN every action you take - when you applied, when they called or ding'ed you, etc.
If you need to take action, that company's packet goes in "TODO"; if you're waiting on them, it goes in "OPEN". If they've indicated they're not interested, it goes in "INACTIVE". If you run across a good article on cover letters, a new search site, or whatever, it goes in "Raw Materials".
Make a copy of everything you create on a set of floppies. Use those floppies as templates so you're not starting from scratch each time.
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
After going through the process myself, I would advise using a CRM software solution. Keeping track of opportunities, leads and contacts is essential in a good job search. This class of software lends itself to that.
I will admit that it doesn't do it perfectly, but it is a whole lot better than using a wiki to keep track of every bit of information that you can think of.
Sugar Sales is a great place to start. I like it and have found it very useful! (It's a OSS project)