How to organise your job applications in 5 easy steps

Looking for a new job is a tedious process. It takes a lot of effort and mind space to get your dream job. You may have to apply to multiple companies, attend several interviews, send a few hundred emails before you can land your dream job. Here are a few simple tips that will help you stay organised and ace your interview.

1. Be clear on what do you want to do

There are tons of opportunity out there, but the time is limited to explore them all. Before start applying for companies, figure out what you want to do first.

• Where do you want to work?
• What kind role do you want to play?
• What kind of company do you want to work with ?

This is just a guideline, not a comprehensive list. You should list down your priorities based on your personal preference.

2. Have multiple versions of your resume

Sometimes, you’ll apply for companies with different focus areas, so the stellar resume that you’ve prepared may not fit this company. You’ll have to create multiple versions of your resume highlighting various skills and experiences.

If you’re a developer, an example would be to create separate profiles highlighting your tech prowess or products that you’ve built.

3. Bucket specific time for taking interviews/ solving assignments

Usually any company that you’re interviewing with has an assignment for you to solve on the spot or offline. These tasks take anywhere between a few hours or days to complete. It is overwhelming to handle your day job and still solving these problems.

One simple exercise that helps, is to bucket specific time of the day, where you only focus on applying for new jobs/ clearing the ones in your current pipeline.

If a company is inviting you for a face-to-face interview, understand the intent, what activities you’re going to do when you’re there, and how much time you’ll spend there. In most cases you’ll find that a lot of these could be done with a simple phone/Skype call, saving a lot of time on the commute.

4. Use calendar heavily

When interviewing for multiple companies, it is very difficult to remember upcoming events. Make it a point to add these events to your calendar and enable reminders. This will help you avoid any potential conflicts and make sure you never miss an interview.

Now, we don’t want to miss out on a great offer because of bad memory, do we.

5. Phase your applications

Again this boils down to managing your time well. If you’re applying for 5 jobs at the same time and all of them want you to submit a task, it’s very impossible to complete all of them on time with good quality.

So, it is important to focus your applications to a specific set of companies and keep a tab on the progress. Before applying for another company, try to figure out their interview process and understand how much time you’d have to spend. Apply only if you’ve enough bandwidth now, else bookmark it and revisit when you have more time.

Job search is hard. It takes immense patience and perseverance to get through and staying organized will help you remain in control.

I’d love to hear your take on this. How do you organize your applications? How many companies do you interview with at the same time? Please join us in the comments section.

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