Hello, welcome to Cracking the Career Code with Matt and Kierra, where we provide candidates the keys to success in their job search. Yeah. So this is episode 20. Can you believe it, Kierra? No, 20? It’s crazy. Yeah. And so we’ve been thinking we’ve never had a guest on our show. So if you’re interested, you’re a job seeker, you’re a hiring manager, you’re in the talent acquisition and recruiting space at all, and you want to join us for a show and share your perspective, we’d love to have you on. So please send us a message on LinkedIn and let’s chat about what a collaboration might look like.
Yeah, absolutely. I think it would be a great way to just get exposure into what other people are seeing in the job market and build some connections with people that are in the same industry as us. So, let’s get into episode 20. So today, we’re going to be talking about keeping track of your job search and how to go about doing that. We know it’s going to be an exhausting process for some people. And, it’s a job itself looking for a job. So we’re going to try to help you keep track of your job search, make it a little bit easier, and how to do that.
So Matt, do you want to start us off? Where would you start from if you were about to do a job search there. Well, I would say 2024 is really an employer market rather than a candidate market. So, you know, when you’re going into that job search, you probably have to cater your expectations a little bit, and you’re probably not going to have, you know, five competing offers from different companies to choose from.
So where I would start is doing some research. A good way is to set up job alerts on LinkedIn for companies that you’re interested in. And you can customize those where, you know, it’s all the jobs in the United States or location specific or for specific titles. And then it doesn’t also have to be tied to a specific company, it can be by job title. And then you’ll get an email every day and it’ll say, you know, new customer success manager roles in the Chicago land area or something like that. So really setting those job alerts would be a good way to start kind of narrowing down where you want to apply to. And then of course, after you apply, if you’re applying on LinkedIn, there’s a little button to save a job as well.
And that way you can go back and, you know, see if that job’s still posted or, you know, you can see how many applicants have come through on LinkedIn. And you won’t always receive a rejection letter or notice via email. So, you know, if you see that role is closed, you know, maybe you can move on and realize that you’re probably not going to get an interview for that position.
Yeah. And like you said, narrowing your search is so important. I think it can be way more overwhelming when you are looking for a variety of different roles. So start off with one title or one type of job that you’re looking to get into or maybe transition out of your current career for. And that will help a lot with not only keeping track of your job but just narrowing it down so that you’ve got less jobs to keep in mind. How else would you keep track of your jobs, any suggestions for that, Kierra?
Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s really important to stay organized so many times. I have seen people like Answer the phone and be like, oh, like what job is this again? Or like, can you tell me what I applied to? I think it’s really important to keep track maybe use an excel spreadsheet or a google sheet and just keep track of the company that you’ve applied to. And there’s a lot of different ways that I would go about keeping that information or what information I would include.
I would include the job title, a short brief smary of the responsibilities. If they have a salary range, mark that down. When you applied, and then follow ups. So if you followed up with anybody, or connected with someone on LinkedIn. Yeah. Keep track of all of that. It will just make your process a lot easier. But also if someone does reach out to you it will show that you are really interested in that position and it wasn’t just one of the hundreds of jobs that you applied to. But what else? What else am I missing?
Yeah. Yeah. Well when I was doing some research on this episode, just with a quick Google search, I found a couple templates that were like job application tracking Google Sheets, so you don’t even need Microsoft Office. And it’s all built for you with those different fields, job title company name, you know, type of application, whether a cover letter was required in addition to a resume. And then even like, you know, some interesting suggestions of like the source of the lead. So did you apply on LinkedIn or Indeed, or did you get referred by someone, or did you find it on a company career page for a company that you were really interested in? And it’s always good to, you know, track the status as well, you know, did you apply? Did you get an initial phone screen? Did that move on to whatever step? And then, you know, it’s really important to continue to follow up. Like you said, if you’ve gotten in an interview process, you know, then you have some contacts, but, you know, maybe you haven’t gotten an interview and you’re really interested in that role, send out some connection requests to people that could be on that team with similar titles, maybe the manager of that team, someone that you can find on LinkedIn or people in talent acquisition and recruiting internally and say, “Hey, you know, I applied for this role…” Wondering if my- if you’re interested. Yeah, what’s the status of my application?
I’d love to chat about how my skills can make an impact on this team. So, all good to keep yourself organized and remember, you know, what you’ve done when you’re spending a few hours, you know, applying on LinkedIn and other sites. Yeah. And that itself, just the connection request and short message or note can lead to an interview.
So you never know what an effort like that could bring. But also I think it’s important to make sure that when you are applying that you are labeling your resume correctly, first and last name, cover letters, just make sure that you don’t have the previous company’s name in the cover letter.
I’ve seen that a bunch. I’ve seen that a lot. And it just shows that you’re not paying attention to the small details. And, I think that could also hurt your chances of you getting an interview if someone sees a different company’s name on there because it just shows that you’re not paying attention.
So that’s something I would definitely suggest. And then as far as just the type of application. There are a lot of different requirements for applications. So if you are applying to a role and it asks you specific questions to fill out, make sure you take the time to fill those out, they do read them. And I think it really does show your interest level. A lot of places will ask you about their specific platform or technology and what your knowledge is about it. So make sure you do a little bit of research as you’re applying to show that you are genuinely interested in their product and their mission and it just goes a little bit further. So spending time on those applications is going to be important too and not just trying to fill out a quick response Yeah. And maybe you can, you know, even rank your options of jobs that you’re applying to and companies that you’re most interested in.
You know, I don’t know if that’s like ordering your spreadsheet or color coding it either, you know, when you’re first applying or after you get interviews. I know also a lot of applications, maybe they, in some states they would advertise the salary range. That’d be good to add to your tracker.
And also I know some applications, they ask you what are your salary expectations? You might want to put in whatever, you know, range you provided. You know, sometimes I suggest when there are that like open ended question just to put zero, or to put like a really wide range, just so you don’t, you know, screen yourself out for asking for too much money, especially when it’s, you know, not public what the compensation budgeted is for that position, you know, so. Yeah, and if it is a commission type role you could also put ote And then it kind of leaves it up for interpretation as far as like what the base would look like, so I think that’s a great way to do it as well. I think it’s also important that you are, if you do know the salary range, you mark it down so that you’re not asking again later on what it is because It just shows that like you weren’t paying attention originally when they offered up that range so definitely keep track of that as well.
We’ve had many people be like, so what was the range for this again? And yeah, it’s just-
it just doesn’t show as much interest level as you would hope from someone that’s looking for a role. Sometimes I get questions like midway to the end of the process, even though we’re talking about compensation early and often, they’re like, what did you submit me at again?
You know, what was the range for this role? So, always good to keep track of that. And also after interviews, not a lot of people are doing this anymore, but send a thank you note, whether it’s to the recruiter or to the hiring manager. I think, you know, that little gesture can kind of just set you apart.
Maybe if they were on the fence and then you know, kind of recap what you talked about, show again, why your skills could make an impact. And then just, you know, a simple compliment and thank you for your time could go a long way. Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s so important and I do think it makes a difference.
I think we’ve said this in the past. I know folks who have gotten the job because it was a close call between two folks and one person followed up and one person did not, so always important to do. Yeah, show them you’re interested. Exactly, exactly. Anything else you want to add before we conclude this episode? No, I think that’s all. So thanks for joining us today on Cracking the Career Code, go check out talentinsights.hirewell.com for more content and follow us on LinkedIn if you aren’t already. Thanks.
