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Establish Timetable to Log the Progress

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Establish a specific timetable for each step in your job search campaign

I suggest you establish a specific date for each phase of your job campaign. If you haven't already completed a draft of your resume, what date will you have this done by? When will your stationery be ordered? Be ready to be picked up? When will your resume be mailed to recruiters? And so on. There are so many "little" things that you have to do to get the job you want-from stamps to lists to ordering newspapers, etc.-that unless you make yourself a schedule, it would be possible to overlook the one thing that could make the difference between landing an offer and just missing it.

Log your progress every day without fail

Even though it may seem like an inordinate pain in the neck, keeping records regularly will actually save you time and help you to make critical campaign decisions. Keep records of professional recruiting firms you've written to, responses received, interviews you've set up. Names of people you've interviewed, particularly if you've spoken to more than one individual at the same company. Position of each person you've interviewed. Mistakes you think you've made along the way. Dates of job offers, if and when you get them, and turn downs, too. Ads you've answered. And the time to record these items is when they happen. It is almost impossible to reconstruct the progress of your job search by writing down key events and names a month later. Most people and dates are long forgotten by then. Although keeping records is, admittedly, a pain, in the end you'll find doing so is worth it for several reasons:


  1. There's nothing more flattering to a person who calls than to recognize instantly the organization he's with, how long ago you met him, and the place you both met, if it was outside the office. (I'll confess that in the past there were times when I received calls from possible bosses whom I had met just days or weeks before, and whose names sounded totally unfamiliar to me. After a few goofs, I kept a handy list by the phone; it included everyone I talked to during my search, and the company each represented. When someone called, he knew he was important to me.)
  2. Knowing exactly when you saw a company last can help you determine its interest in you, help you determine whether you are still a live prospect in its eyes. If, for example, you've had three interviews spaced within two weeks, and then two weeks go by without a call, you had better believe the company has some doubts. Perhaps the job has been redefined. Perhaps a newly met candidate interests the company more. Knowing you are no longer a prime candidate may result in your redirecting your efforts. It's better to know than to live with false hope.
  3. You give yourself the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of each element of your campaign at any point in time. Take letters, for example. Six years ago, a job-seeker sent out two different letters, each to fifty companies he thought he'd like to work for. The first letter yielded seven interview opportunities, the second, two. His first letter apparently worked better than his second. Not surprisingly, he used the first letter exclusively in subsequent correspondence. If you keep records, you can change your program at any time to make it more effective.

Sometimes I'm asked if there's a best way to keep records during a job search. I suspect each person has his own favorite way of doing this. If you're open to suggestions, however, why not consider using a three-ring binder exclusively for your job search. If you do use a binder, it's a great place for everything concerning your job search, particularly if you organize your notebook with tabs.

What should you include in each section? Some possibilities:

a. Your objectives

The ones I suggested you write out in the introduction. Keep them up front where you can look at them once in a while to hold yourself on target.

b. Your Resume

Keep each of the drafts you make. Many a job-seeker has decided that his latest version wasn't as effective as an earlier one. Keeping copies in a notebook can help you backtrack if you have to.

c. Your Worth points

If you've spent a few days developing lists of what you have to sell, keep them in one section. You may have items on your list you didn't include in your resume. Keep the list handy for revising your resume and for studying prior to an interview. You never know what obscure experience you've had might mean in a particular interview.

d. Your Interviews

A record of who you met, the dates, and most important, how things went. Record the tough questions so that you don't forget to develop good answers for them. Jot down reactions people had to your worth points, so you know whether to reintroduce them at another interview, or how to describe them differently to get greater impact. If you've persuaded a friend, or friend of a friend, to interview you, this is a good place to note his reaction.

e. Your Job-Search correspondence

Keep a copy of each of the drafts you make of answers to ads. You'll probably find that the way you state one particular worth point in one letter appeals to you more than the way you state it in another. Go over your drafts and pick out the "ideal" phrases and paragraphs every so often. No sense writing every response to an ad from scratch when you have "models" to work from in copies of previous responses. This section of your notebook is also a good place to keep the actual ads you respond to. Many of my clients clip the' ad they've answered along with a Xerox or carbon copy of their reply. That way, if the letter results in an offer of an interview, they know exactly what the advertiser was looking for in hiring someone, and exactly what was said by the candidate in his letter that secured the interview.

f. Your Cold-Turkey Campaign

This section of your notebook is the place to keep copies of each of your letters to potential employers, particularly if you are testing one against another. Unfortunately, I've known some job-seekers who have tested several letters, then discovered they didn't have a copy of the winning letter on file, and had to reconstruct it in expanding their cold-turkey campaign. It's never the same! This section of your notebook is a good place for recording the names and addresses of each potential employer you come up with. Keep them all together and note whether they reply to your cold-turkey letter, and who, and how many invite you to interviews, so you can see how well your letter-writing campaign is working.

g. Your Sources of Supply

As you uncover printers, stationers, typists, etc., why not jot down their prices and phone numbers in this section of your job-search notebook? It's a lot easier to get in touch with people who can help speed your job search if you know where you've recorded information about them, than to search through scraps of paper in your wallet, hoping you can retrieve the information you jotted down.

h. Your Timetable

This is the place for the schedule of specific dates you established, and a good section to look at once a week to determine if you have kept to your original timetable, or whether it needs revising.

In suggesting that you develop a job-search notebook, keep in mind that it is by no means mandatory to the success of your job campaign. A notebook is a simple way of making sure you have all the information at your fingertips that is needed to conduct a businesslike job search. Undoubtedly there are other ways. Some people use calendars only, and file other important papers. So be it. The important thing to keep in mind is that you develop a comprehensive, easy-to-use system that helps you run your search efficiently. It may take a little extra effort to set up, but in the long run it should save you time and energy, and help you to make more realistic decisions as you pursue your goal of landing a better job.
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