Systematization of the Search: Your Personal CRM

Chaos management

When you're actively looking for a job, it's easy to lose control. Sending out 50 resumes in a week without a registration system inevitably leads to embarrassing mistakes: sending a cover letter addressed to "Company A" to the recruiter of "Company B", forgetting the name of the interviewer, or applying twice for the same position. Chaos management is not a luxury, it is an operational necessity.

To avoid this, the candidate must treat his job search as if it were a sales business project, where he is the product and the companies are the potential customers. This implies centralizing all information.

One should not rely on memory or the "sent items" tray of the e-mail.

It requires a centralized system that acts as a "control tower", allowing to know at all times in what state each process is and what is the next step to be taken.

Tracking tools

Implementing a personal CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can be as simple as a well-structured spreadsheet or as visual as a dashboard in project management tools such as Trello or Notion. The tool is the least important thing; the important thing is the data that is recorded.

Each entry in this system should contain: the name of the company, the link to the original offer (as they often delete them), the specific position, the date sent, the exact version of the resume that was sent (so as not to contradict yourself in the interview), the name of the contact person and, crucially, the date to follow up.

Having a "Status" column (Sent, Interview, Rejected, Offer) allows you to visualize your personal sales pipeline and know where to concentrate your efforts.

Personal metrics

What you don't measure, you can't improve. A tracking system allows the candidate to analyze their own conversion metrics and adjust their strategy accordingly.

If 100 resumes have been sent out and no interviews have been obtained, the problem probably lies in the design or content of the resume.

If you get a lot of first interviews but don't make it to the second stage, the flaw may be in your verbal communication skills or interview preparation.

Analyzing these ratios (submissions vs. interviews, interviews vs. offers) provides an objective view of reality, taking away the feeling of personal failure and approaching it as a process problem.

If the response rate is low, it may be time to review the portf