Tracking–Job Search Lessons Learned: 12 Key Take-Aways (07)

That was a lot of prep work. Now it is time to get organized and release your inner OCD-ness in tracking your efforts! You should notate where you are at in the process for each role you are interested in. But how?

I am glad you asked. Microsoft Excel (or Google Sheet) and Microsoft OneNote (maybe Google Keep) are going to be your support tools in this endeavor. The following is what I have implemented for myself. As always, tweak it and make it your own.

Microsoft Excel Tracking

There are three tabs on my Excel tracking sheet: Tracking, LinkedIn, and Charts.

Tracking Sheet

Tracking is just that, tracking every application or contact you do. You need to stay on top of this even though it is hard. You also need to come back and use it, which I find harder. I am guilty of applying and tracking it really well, but then not returning to carry out the proper follow-ups between the application and first interview process. The following are column headers. You might not use all of them, and you might have additional ones. Make it your own. The sub-bullets describe the choices that are within that cell. You can then take those columns with the choices and track them via a pivot table and/or chart on the Charts tab. I will have an example as well.

Tracking Sheet Columns

• Company Name
• Position / Job Title (I link to the OneNote page in this cell.)
• Employment
  • FTE (Full-Time Employee)
  • PTE (Part-Time Employee)
  • 6-month Contract
  • 6-12 month Contract
  • 12+ month Contract
• Movement
  • Lateral
  • Lateral+Raise
  • Demotion
  • Promotion
• Excitement Level
  • 1 – Not
  • 2 – Not Thrilled
  • 3 – Satisfied
  • 4 – Excited
  • 5 – Cannot Wait
• Listing
  • Direct Contact
  • Website
  • LinkedIn
  • Monster
  • CareerBuilder
  • Indeed
  • Dice
  • Other
• Contact Name, Title, Number, Email
• Application Date
• Application Login URL, Username, Password (If you have a password manager, the InfoSec experience in me to says to use that instead.)
• Cover Letter (I sync this folder with OneDrive, so I will paste the URL for that document in this cell.)
• Resume (I sync this folder with OneDrive, so I will paste the URL for that document in this cell.)
• Company References
• Personal References
• Initial Follow-Up Date
• Phone Interview Date
• Phone Interviewer
• Thank You Follow-Up Date
• In-Person Interview
• In-Person Interviewer
• Status
  1. Job Search
  2. Contacted Connection
  3. Contacted Employee
  4. Joined Job Network
  5. Applied
  6. Sent Initial Follow-Up
  7. Interview Scheduled
  8. Interviewed
  9. Sent Interview Thank You
  10. Offer Received
  11. Offer Accepted
  12. Offer Rejected
  13. Application Rejected
• Notes

LinkedIn

I performed an export of all of my LinkedIn contacts and saved them on the LinkedIn tab of the Excel spreadsheet. This ties into the first Networking article and the second. I use this to keep track of my efforts specifically to my network’s companies’ opportunities or lack thereof. You will have a higher probability of moving through the process with these individuals’ assistance. If an application specifically comes out of this effort, that information is then tracked on the Tracking tab.

LinkedIn Columns

• First Name
• Last Name
• Company (sorted A-Z)
• Searched Date
• Notes
  • Not Local
  • No Roles
  • Messaged
  • Asked for Referral

Microsoft OneNote Tracking

One of my earliest Job Search Lessons Learned was not having the Job Description handy. I would just save the job description URL from the site in my tracking. Not thinking this through, by the time I got to the interview, more than likely it was taken down. So, I started copying and pasting the full position listing into its own OneNote page in my Job Search notebook. You can then go above and beyond and color (green, yellow, red) highlight each bullet point (for your eyes only) on your experience level with that specifically. Then, you could even make a sub-bullet point to have examples ready for the interview on that specific item. You can then use a OneNote URL to link back to the Position/Job Title cell in your Excel tracking.

As sub-pages to the specific role, I would have a separate note page for each interview interaction and take the appropriate notes there.

If you don’t want to use OneNote at all, you could do the same thing in Excel on separate tabs and still link to it in the specific cell on the Tracking tab.

So here is a question to the community:

“What is your technique for keeping track of your job search activities?”

Thank you for your time,