Managing Your Applications
This blog post was written by Peer Career Ambassador, Shun Ping Huang ’17.
As Babson students, applying to one internship or job application is never enough; we like to apply to multiple opportunities.
How do you keep track of all the opportunities you apply to? Most job boards, like Career Connections, keep a record of your submissions. However, if you use multiple job boards to apply to opportunities, which is what you should be doing, it can be hard to remember through which job board you used. It is more convenient and organized to consolidate all applications into one spreadsheet.
This blog will give you tips (and a free spreadsheet template) to help manage, organize, and consolidate your many applications.
The best way to manage your applications is to utilize a spreadsheet that allows you to filter for relevant information. If you are looking for a specific company or position, it is easy to search for it.
Download this example spreadsheet and template that I use to keep track of my applications.
Feel free to keep what’s relevant to you, delete what’s not relevant, and add more columns. Here is a breakdown of each column and it’s purpose:
- Deadline – application due date
- You want to submit your application before this due date. This column will help you prioritize which applications to work on first
- Company Name – the organization you are applying to
- Position – official name of the position you are applying to
- Location – location of the position (if it’s multiple locations, note all of the locations you are willing to work in)
- I personally do not use this column because all the positions I apply to are in New York City
- Date Applied – the date you submitted your application
- Status – Offer, Rejected, Waiting to Hear Back, Second Round Interview, Accepted, Withdrawal
- This column is useful to track which applications you are still waiting to hear back from.
- Application Link, Job ID, Username, Password – include the Link to the official position description for future reference. It is a good idea to study up on the job description before an interview.
- Many companies have applicants apply through a job board that requires an username and password; this is a good space to jot them down.
- If you applied through Career Connections, LinkedIn, and/or other job portals, indicate that as well.
- Application Summary – indicate what materials you submitted: a cover letter, resume, and any additional materials, like a portfolio or reference list. If you have multiple versions of a resume, you should indicate which version.
- Interview Date – when your interview is scheduled
- Follow Up Date – when do you expect to hear back from the company? This will help you remember to ask about the timeline of the process during your interview.
- Notes – any other additional information, contact info, and/or whether you sent a thank you email, etc
Step 1: The first step is to backtrack. Fill out the spreadsheet with applications that you’ve already submitted. Enter all the relevant information. If you do not remember exact submission dates, look back on Career Connections (or whichever job board you used to apply) because they usually have a record of your submission. Consolidate all of those dates, resumes and job descriptions into this one spreadsheet.
Step 2: The next step is to look for new opportunities. Look through Career Connections, LinkedIn, WayUp, other job boards, and the career sites of companies that you are interested in working for. If you see any opportunities that you are interested in, add them to your spreadsheet. Sort the spreadsheet by deadline date to help you prioritize which applications to submit next.
Step 3: In order to maintain this system and method of managing your applications, you must be committed to updating this spreadsheet with any new opportunities and status updates.
Step 4: You can create a new tab for each application season. For example, I labeled this tab as “Summer 2017.” For next summer, I can copy this tab and enter new information for Summer 2018, and so on.
Searching for a job/internship is stressful in itself, so keeping organized will help decrease that stress. After implementing this system, I felt a lot better about my job search process and hopefully, this blog and spreadsheet template will also help you.
Best of luck with the internship/job search process!
P.S. I realize this system requires some excel skills, but don’t worry, all shortcuts and excel filtering skills can be found on Google. This is also a great way to build up your excel skills!