The short answer
- One line per application, with date, role, company, channel and status.
- A follow-up date for every application - not a reminder to think about it, a date to send something.
- Two lines of notes: who you spoke to, and what you said you would send.
- A weekly review that takes ten minutes and ends with three concrete actions.
- After a fortnight of silence, one polite follow-up. Then let it go and keep applying.
Set it up in fifteen minutes
- Make the columns: date applied, company, role, where you found it, status, follow-up date, notes.
- Enter everything you have already done, from your inbox and your own memory of last week.
- Sort by date and set a follow-up date on every open one - five working days after applying, then two weeks.
- Write the two lines of notes for anything where a human replied. Name, role, and what was promised.
- Decide your weekly slot now, and put it in your calendar.
The part people skip
Most applications are never followed up, which is why a short, specific follow-up stands out. Keep it to three lines: the role, the date you applied, and one thing you would bring.
The same notes file is what you use before an interview: what they asked, what you said, what they said they would do next. Walking in with that is worth more than a rehearse-and-hope approach.
Where this goes wrong
- Applying to anything that moves, then having no idea what you applied for when someone calls.
- Tracking only the interesting applications, so the pile of forgotten ones grows.
- Following up with a paragraph. Anything over four lines reads as pressure.
- Stopping the search after a promising interview before there is an offer in writing.
The free tool for this
There is no calculator that answers this one honestly, so here is the free set: eight calculators for rates, quotes, invoices, splits, prices and fees. They run in the page and send nothing anywhere.
If you would rather not build it yourself
Job Hunt Command is the tracker, the follow-up dates and the interview notes in one file, plus a weekly review tab that ends in three actions. Job Hunt Command is $15. See it on the shop, and there is a plain page about it here: what it holds.
Questions people actually ask
How many applications is reasonable?
As many as you can write a tailored line or two for. Volume with no tailoring performs worse than half the volume with it.
Should I track rejections?
Yes, with the reason if you were given one. Two or three similar reasons is a fact about your applications you can act on.
Read next
Interview prep: what to do in the three days before, How long to wait before following up on a job application.