What to Organize in your Job Search

You might know I designed JibberJobber.com as a tool to manage and organize your job search.

What does that mean?  What do you organize in a job search?

There are three main things I was keeping track of on my job search spreadsheet:

1. Contacts, because networking is such a big part of the job search
2. Target Companies, which I came across daily
3. Jobs applied to

Managing information about those three things was not to bad… what was hard was the communications and interaction between any of the three.

For example, if a recruiter called about 3 different jobs with 2 companies, where do I make that note on my job search spreadsheet?

What if I had that kind of conversation every day? It gets hairy.

Now multiply that by five days a week for, let’s say three months.  You have A LOT of data you are trying to keep track of!  That’s why JibberJobber makes so much more sense than a spreadsheet, which isn’t meant to handle that level of complexity.

Back to the what… what do we track?  Here’s a list.  What am I missing?

1. Contacts
2. Companies
3. Jobs
4. Notes and log entries: when you have a conversation, send a resume, have an interview, etc.
5. Action items: when to follow up with someone
6. Expenses: many job search expenses (like getting a new resume) might be tax deductible
7. Resumes and other marketing documentation like cover letters: you will likely use different resumes and customize resumes for different positions, or customize them for different companies (It helps to know what documents you use where and when)
8. Your past accomplishments: as you prepare for interviews, and network, you’ll be reminded of past accomplishments that can make up your story and show your value proposition – track these somewhere (yes, JibberJobber has a Job Journal to track these)
9. Interview statements: 30 second pitches, responses to questions, etc – don’t recreate the wheel each time you interview, save your great answers
10. Links and resources: you’ll come across great resources as you research companies, industries, people, etc., and you’ll want to keep track of those

Those are things I’ve learned to keep track of during a job search.  A huge bonus is that these things remain valuable to you after your job search (now we’re talking about “career management”).

What else do YOU keep track of?

Jason Alba posts for Career Resumes.  Jason is CEO of JibberJobber.com.