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If you're applying to multiple roles — which you should be — things get chaotic
fast. Which companies have you heard back from? Who needs a follow-up? Which
application was that promising one you submitted two weeks ago? Without a
system, applications fall through cracks, follow-ups get forgotten, and
opportunities disappear. Today, we build the system that prevents all of that.
Think of your job search like a sales pipeline. Every application moves through
stages: Researched, Applied, Follow-Up Sent, Screening, Interviewing, Offer, and
Closed. At any given time, you should have applications at different stages
across this pipeline.
The power of this framework is visibility. You can look at your pipeline on
Sunday evening and know exactly where everything stands. You can see that you
have four applications in the researched stage, three in applied, two in
follow-up, and one in screening. You can immediately identify that the follow-up
stage needs attention because those applications have been sitting for ten days
without outreach.
Set up a spreadsheet or database with these fields. Company, role, date applied,
how you found the role, your contact person, the current pipeline stage, your
next action, when it needs to happen, notes, and outcome. The tool doesn't
matter — Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, even a simple spreadsheet works. What
matters is consistency.
Then schedule a fifteen-minute weekly review. Every Sunday evening, update all
your pipeline stages. Identify any overdue follow-ups. Plan which new
applications you'll submit this week. And — this is important — review your
rejection patterns. If you're consistently getting rejected at the screening
stage, your resume might be strong but your phone screen skills need work. If
you're getting rejections after final rounds, you might need interview coaching.
Data reveals patterns that feelings can't.
Your application tracking system is the command center of your job search. Set
it up today, migrate your current applications into it, and schedule your weekly
review. Module Five is complete. You now have a full application strategy —
targeted applications, compelling cover letters, ATS optimization, and a
tracking system. Module Six takes us into the interview room.