Tips for Organizing your Job Search

Good morning world!

On this day, I am two weeks away from my last day of undergraduate studies at UIC. It's exciting!! It's also scary and nerve-wracking. Soon I will have to enter the reality of The Adult World- something I've strolled through but was also able to run away from when necessary.

As advised by practically everyone I know, I've been scrounging around for jobs since February. The experience has been like window-shopping, with years of experience and sets of skills as my choice of payment.

Now that the end is near, I've reached a point where every time I turn my laptop on, I spend every minute online looking through job sites. These are deep black holes that take up time and battery, and kill my priorities.

To avoid this problem and all of the issues that come with it, I've come up with a few strategies to organize my job search and stop window shopping. Some, you've probably heard of and apply in your own search and some, I hope will help make it easier (at least less stressful).

1. Make a Job Folder

If you haven't already, make a folder on your computer and label it something along the lines of "Resumes and Cover Letters" or "Job Stuff". Basically something that tells you that this is the place where all of your job stuff (resumes, cover letters, references, recommendation letters, samples etc.) lives.

2. Complete your Resume

Duh, Joan. But hey, listen for a second. I have a lot of interests- from writing/editing, marketing/pr and web design to sales (if I really, really have to). Up until a few months ago, I had one resume that I updated every month or so and sent it off when necessary.

When I really hankered down on submitting my resume, I had to keep going back and editing unnecessary/unrelated information for each job I applied to. It was tedious and it made me procrastinate submitting my resume.

So recently, I revamped my entire resume. I wasn't thinking about format or length, I just listed everything that I've done, been involved in, and accomplished, and what I can do in one Word doc. I listed all of the tasks I've had to perform for the jobs/activities I named. I am pleased to say, I kicked out like five pages of information :D.

Make this resume and save it as "General Resume" or "OG Resume", so you know that it's not one you want to send to anyone. Then gather all of the similar and relevant information together and save those as separate files like: "Marketing Resume", "Administrative Assistant Resume", "Writing/Editing Resume", "Web Design Resume", or whatever job interest you have.

This will make you life a lot easier as you're not constantly going back to your resume and changing it to fit every single description on the job board. Having the general resume also helps if you do need to edit things around because then you're not starting from scratch or trying to remember how you described that one thing you did that one time.

3. Do the Same Thing for your Cover Letters

Cover letters are hard and I despise them. Unfortunately, they are a necessary evil. People always say *in a wise, deep voice*, "You can make one cover letter and just change the name of the company." NO YOU CAN'T, THAT'S BS. It may work sometimes but they do typically need to be personalized and when you're applying to different industries, sometimes it just doesn't make any sense. To make them easier to deal with, do the same thing you did with your resumes and make a general cover letter and from there branch out into more specialized letters.

4. Make an Excel Document of all the Jobs you Applied for

If you're like me and do the Linkedin Apply, you've probably applied to 10 random jobs without realizing it. Then one day, you get 2 calls from companies you've never heard of before to talk to you about the one position you vaguely remember clicking apply for.

Make an Excel doc with headers like Company, City, Job Title, Job Description, Date Applied, Date Employer Called, Date You Followed Up, Date of Interview, Notes/Notifications etc. You can also highlight jobs by the type of response your received.

One, you can keep track of what you've applied for so far; two, you can keep track of who you need to follow-up with; three, you get to practice using Excel and you can add it to your resume!

5. Make a Schedule

Like I said, applying for jobs is a black hole of lost time. It's nice to say that you're going to get on the computer and apply for at least one job a day. BUT you have to find the job you want to apply for, you may have to adjust your resume, you will need to adjust your cover letter, and you may want to scream into a pillow because you're stressed out.

Instead schedule a time in your day to look for jobs and apply to them. I usually spend three hours a day at night during the week and in the morning on the weekends. It seems like a chunk but remember **black hole**. In that span of time, I can apply for one job or 4- it's more than what I had the day before and I can begin or end my day knowing that I accomplished at least one thing.

If these tips seem redundant of what you have heard or already know, it's because they are. This is just a reminder that they work! It makes your job search easier and more efficient and when you get that interview, you can boast about how incredibly organized you are.

What do you think: are these tips inventive or old news? What other tips might you have about organizing your job search? Let me know!

#JobSearch #Organization