
Ask HN: Job seekers – How do you track your applications? - deepGem
I&#x27;ve started applying to jobs and I am finding it daunting to track the applications and schedule interviews. For scheduling, I&#x27;ve tried Calendly but that&#x27;s not working. I often don&#x27;t get a response when I send a Calendly URL. For tracking, I routinely scan my inbox to keep track of what jobs I had applied for. There has to be a better way of managing this. Are you guys aware of any tools that can help manage this process ? Something like a tuned down CRM ?
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mead5432
Trello has been amazing for this.

I have different columns for the state of the application:

\- Unsubmitted/Interested \- Submitted/In Process \- Recruiter Contact \-
Phone Interview \- In Person Interview \- Offer \- Lost: Denied \- Lost: No
Response

In each card, I attach the resume and cover letter (if applicable) that I
sent. I have checklists to help prepare for different parts of the
interview(s) and use the discussion comments to keep track of communication I
have with different people. I've even used the discussion to track interview
questions to help better prepare for other interviews (lots of coding screens
use similar questions...).

If you wanted to keep contact information with the card, you could use a power
up to attach a note from Evernote with contact information if you wanted. I
usually just put the name in the discussion though.

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mead5432
Also, you could in theory, save the emails as files and attach them to the
cards. I haven't done that but it could be a thing.

~~~
noir_lord
You can give a Trello board an email addresses and simply forward the emails
(manually or with a filter) to the board, details and attachments are kept
intact.

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itronitron
I just search my inbox by company or recruiter name when I need to review
correspondence and details for a particular application, I only apply to about
one position a month, I use the same resume for every application, and my
'cover letters' are never more than three sentences long.

I don't recommend tracking your applications, just track your email
correspondence with the recruiters.

~~~
nceheil
Treat them like UDP packets

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rudimental
It can definitely be overwhelming. Try a spreadsheet for tracking, and a
calendar app for scheduling. Figure out when you have time to offer, and
suggest 2 or 3 times that work for you when scheduling. Don't offer the same
times to others until you hear back. Religiously update and follow your
calendar app.

For the spreadsheet, similar to mead5432's Trello suggestion, the columns
could be:

Date applied | Date last contacted | Company name & role | Screen or interest
| Challenge or coffee | Onsite | Offer | Accepted | Notes | Person contacted |
Resume & cover letter links

Screen or interest, challenge or coffee, onsite, and offer are binary for me
(X or empty), and can help you see if you're getting stuck on a stage. It can
help clarify where you can focus your energy to get further. For example,
tracking these things might help you realize you get few or no offers but many
onsite interviews, and with that awareness you can focus on getting better at
onsite interviews.

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dhruvkar
I used streak.com a few years ago, which is a Gmail add-on.

Create a pipeline for job applications with relevant stages - applied, heard
back, interviewing, offer/no-offer.

Each application is a box. Each box can contain emails, notes, phone calls,
tasks etc.

The free version was more than enough for tracking my 100+ applications at the
time.

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shakkhar
Just came here to say that I have struggled with this in the past too. I used
plain text for tracking, and reduced the number of parallel application to
something managable as a workaround. I would have loved a sort of CRM that not
only keeps track of application and interviews, but also store my homework and
personal notes for the interview and similar resources.

EDIT: I also create slightly customized resumes for each type of job I apply
to. (E. g. backend, system development.) To keep track of which resume I sent
to a particular company, I just keep multiple PDF. The process is tedious,
especially when I need to update something in the base resume, like adding an
experience or a technology.

~~~
deepGem
I use customised resumes too and not having a desktop MS office license makes
this process even harder.

~~~
matt_the_bass
Why does not having MS office make this harder? What do you use for word
processing?

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Endy
In honesty, I use the least-effort solution - Fire-And-Forget. Then again, I'm
not applying to a group of highly technical jobs. I do various types of office
work, management, and training mostly and I'm near NYC. When I'm in full
"search" mode, I can send out 200 resumes/CV applications a day. It's not
always the best method, but I find that 2 weeks of that, I usually get a few
phone interviews (yep, that's 1K+ sends for 5 or so contacts). Usually one or
two of those will turn into something real - I don't call a recruiter "real".

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kqr
When it's important, I plug it into an Org file with custom states for
"Interested", "Submitted", "Responded", "Interview" and so on. Easy to set
scheduled times, deadlines, add notes, get overview and all the things Org
does so well. I integrate my email with Org as well, so for each step I can
paste a link to the email connected to that step.

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ddlec
I'm using jobhound.io for my latest round of applications, and it's worked
well as an alternative to a spreadsheet. Jobs are broken up into stages in the
pipeline (Plan to Apply, Applied, Interviewing, etc.), and features include
attaching notes, setting deadlines, and viewing job hunt metrics. I use my
usual calendar app to schedule interviews.

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gadders
I used to use CapsuleCRM as it had a free tier for people that use google
apps, and it synced to my phone.

//edit//And I could also bcc: it in on emails to recruiters and it would keep
the emails against the contact for reference.

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JSeymourATL
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