When you're actively job searching online, it's very important to be organized. How many of you have applied at the same company twice without realizing you already did? How about a company contacting you weeks or months later and offering you a position you couldn't remember applying for? Have you forgotten or lost the employer's name and contact information? This wouldn't have happened if you kept proper track of your job searches.
There are several systems you can use to manage and stay organized during your job searching online. Many use spreadsheets created in Excel; use Word or a notebook with handwritten notes which can become messy, unreadable and time consuming. If these are your choices make sure you keep adequate information on them and keep them updated.
First, have all versions of your resumes, cover letters and follow up letters organized in a folder on your computer and have them backed up on a CD, external hard drive or on a web backup system like Mozy.com. You may have to make several folders and sub folders to keep track of all job posting ads from the different companies. It'll be easier if you had sub folders labeled with the job position details you applied for. For example customer service, article writer and so on. You can copy and paste the job description on Notepad and use this as a reference or reminder of what the job entailed. This is especially helpful when the company takes weeks or months to get back to you.
Other information necessary to be inputted into your spreadsheet are as follows and you can tweak it to suit your needs.
* Contact info - Company's name, contact person's name, email, fax, phone number, physical location, website, social networks
* Date
* Job title and reference number
* Deadline
* Action - Follow up letter, include date sent
* Names and titles of people you spoke with, person who interviewed you
* Feedback you've received, experience you had in the interview, anything that was different
* Duration - How long it took for a company to respond to you, whether you got an autoresponder message etc.
It's also important to manage the people you have networked with online and offline. Excel may not be comprehensive enough to meet your growing job searching needs and a good, free web database to use is JibberJobber.com. This system is much more feature rich and powerful than Excel where you can keep track together of all the information, status, action, follow up etc. for each company/position you applied for.
Using a web database is also safer as it's not on your computer so you won't accidentally lose your information.
How you manage and organize your job searching online is essential in obtaining a job. Job hunting can be overwhelming, but being organized will create less work for you and let you focus on networking, researching, applying and finding your ideal job.
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