Keep a record

Life isn’t neat and simple and easy to keep a track on – and neither is job hunting.  We’re going to have a quick look at how you can make things just that little bit easier.

The last three or four times when I have kicked off a job-hunt, either through choice or necessity, I have had the exact same things happen every time.

It all starts when I put my CV live on a number of the online jobsites.  Within 24 hours I am being pretty much deluged with calls, I do not say that as a boast as I think it is much more to do with suddenly appearing at the top of searches made by recruitment agencies, marking me out as a new job-seeker.

So I can get 20-30 calls from agencies within a day, some of which I have answered, others which I miss and they leave voicemails.  Even when unemployed it is quite difficult to keep up with such a quantity, and when still employed it becomes completely unmanageable.

So things get missed out, I fail to call some people back, give up on others if I don’t get hold of them when returning their calls.  Basically potential jobs have slipped through my fingers.  And even the ones I speak to I lose track of where in the process I am (has my CV been sent? Are they waiting for the client? Has my CV been passed to someone else in the agency?)

So what I have done is created a simple page that can be printed out and used to keep track of these job calls.  It is a first draft and I appreciate your comments in fine-tuning it.  I have tried to focus on giving space for multiple contacts about jobs, over just listing all different agency contacts, as a reminder to work out what is next in that job app – and possible give a nudge to chase agencies if they haven’t gotten back to you in the time they suggested.

This form can also be useful for those receiving JSA as the data can be easily copied over to the form they use.

I hope it is useful for you and that it helps you keep track of your job-hunt.

Download the Application Record