A job search with no routine takes all day and produces three applications. A job search with a routine takes two hours a day and produces ten. The routine is five time boxes, the same each week, and a Friday hour that reads four numbers: applications sent, replies, interviews, offers. Everything else is optional.
Key points
- Time boxes, not to-do lists. The box ends when the clock says so.
- Mornings for the work that needs a clear head: tailoring and sending. Afternoons for reading alerts and writing follow-ups.
- Four numbers on Friday. The ratios between them say what to change.
- One change per week. Two changes and you cannot tell which one worked.
- Sunday is off. A search that runs seven days runs out by week three.
Why a routine and not a list
A list grows. Every posting you see adds to it, and by Wednesday the list is the problem. A time box does not grow. When the hour for applications ends, it ends, and what did not get sent waits until tomorrow.
The other reason is the bad days. There are more of them than good days in a search. On a bad day a list says you failed at twelve things. A routine says you did your two hours.
Keep the routine on the bad days. That is what it is for.
The week
| Day | Morning box, 60 to 90 minutes | Afternoon box, 30 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Read the weekend's alerts. Shortlist five postings. | Tailor one. |
| Tuesday | Tailor and send two. | Follow up on anything at day seven. |
| Wednesday | Tailor and send two. | Message one person you know. |
| Thursday | Tailor and send two. | Read alerts. Shortlist for next week. |
| Friday | Tailor and send one, or none. | The review hour. |
| Saturday | A screening call practice, 20 minutes. | Off. |
| Sunday | Off. | Off. |
That is eight applications a week on the plan, and ten with a good Monday. Each one is tailored, because the box is long enough to tailor and too short to tailor three. The guide on tailoring has the fifteen minute method.
The Monday shortlist
Monday morning is the only time you read postings. Alerts collect them over the week. On Monday you open them all, keep five, and close the rest.
A posting makes the shortlist when it meets your target and you can name the one thing on your resume that answers its first requirement. If you cannot name it in ten seconds, close the posting. It was going to be a weak application and a quiet row in the tracker.
Tailor and send, then stop
The morning box is tailor and send. Open the shortlist, copy the master resume, do the fifteen minutes, send, log the row in the tracker. Then the next one. Then stop when the box ends, even with a posting half done.
Do not read new postings in this box. Reading is Monday's work. A tailoring hour that becomes a reading hour produces zero applications and a longer list.
Follow-ups and people, in the afternoon
The afternoon box is small, and it is for the two things people skip. The first is the follow-up. The tracker says which rows reached day seven with no reply. One message each, three sentences, then back to the tracker to mark it done.
The second is one person a week. Not a request. A note that says what you are looking for, in the four lines of your target, and asks nothing. People who know you are looking send you postings. People who do not know cannot.
The Friday hour
Friday afternoon is the hour the week was for. Open the tracker and count four things.
| Number | What it is |
|---|---|
| Sent | Applications with a date this week, and in total |
| Replies | Rows that reached Replied or further |
| Interviews | Rows that reached Interviewing or further |
| Offers | Rows at Offer |
Then the ratios. Replies over sent is the resume and the target. Interviews over replies is the screening call. Offers over interviews is the interview. The lowest one is the stage that is failing. Change one thing there next week.
If no ratio is low and the only problem is that nothing has happened yet, the answer is more weeks. Under thirty applications the ratios do not mean anything, and a search that is three weeks old is not a search that failed.
When the routine breaks
It will. A week with an interview on Tuesday and a sick child on Wednesday produces two applications. Log it. Friday reads a low week, and the next week starts the routine again from Monday.
The failure is not the low week. The failure is the week after it, when the routine is gone and the search becomes a thing you feel bad about at night. The routine is what you go back to.
On this site
The alerts do Monday's collecting. Set one per title in your target, and Monday's reading takes twenty minutes. Track holds the rows and counts the four numbers for you, so the Friday hour is reading, not arithmetic.
Questions
Two hours a day is not enough when I have no job
It is enough for the applications. Add a box for learning, a box for building the thing you put on the resume, or a box for the part-time work that pays the rent. Do not add a second applications box. The reply rate falls when the tailoring gets thin, and tailoring gets thin after the fourth application in a day.
What if the alerts bring nothing worth the shortlist?
Widen the target one line at a time. A second title, then a wider place, then a lower floor. Change the alert, not the standard for the shortlist.
When do I apply outside the routine?
When someone sends you a posting with a name attached. A referral is worth the box it breaks.
How many weeks before the numbers say anything?
Thirty applications. At eight a week, that is four weeks. Until then, the Friday hour checks that the routine held, and nothing else.
Does the routine change once I have interviews?
Interviews take the morning box of the day they fall on, plus the afternoon before for preparation. The rest of the week stays. A search that stops for one interview restarts from zero when the interview does not land.