How to keep your Resumes and Cover LEtters organized on the job search

Job Search

Aug 1

Episode 413 | Author: Emilie Aries

Drowning in your job search materials?

You’re not alone.

Job-searching today often involves submitting more applications than ever before, and that can make for an overwhelming job search process. If you’re drowning in different versions of cover letters and resumes, you’re not alone.

According to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it can take between 1 and 100 (or more!🙃) applications to get a job offer. Job-seekers who apply to between 21 and 80 jobs have the best chances of getting an offer, at 30.89%. Meanwhile, job seekers who apply for 11 to 20 jobs have a 29.48% chance of receiving a job offer, and those who apply for more than 81 jobs have a 20.36% chance of receiving a job offer.

If you’re submitting upwards of 100 job applications, half the battle is just staying organized. In today’s post, I’m sharing how to keep track of your job search assets, while still customizing your materials for each application you submit.

First, develop a job search tracker.

This could be something you track with the help of project management software like Asana or something as simple as a spreadsheet. I like using GoogleDrive to keep job search materials organized and accessible wherever I go.

Whatever tool you use, the purpose of your job search tracker is to give a high-level overview of the jobs you’ve applied to and the jobs you’ve identified that you’d like to apply to.

Be sure to include these key data points for each job:

A link to the job description
Date the job was posted & closing date (if available)
Salary range
The organization's website
Any contacts you might have there
And finally, the status of your application process: not yet started, in progress, date submitted, response.

By keeping track of your job search history, you’ll have a birds-eye view of all the progress you’ve made to move yourself forward, and focus on what you can control in a volatile and uncertain process: consistently submitting high-quality applications.

Then, develop a template version of your resume & cover letter

This template version of your resume and cover letter might be the longest iterations you have, spanning many pages. They’re not designed to be ready to submit as-is, but rather, to be comprehensive. This is the version of your resume that includes all your possible experiences and skill sets, everything you’ve written about what you have to offer your future employer.

If you have a multi-disciplinary background, say in business banking and real estate financing, and you find yourself primarily applying to two kinds of jobs - either in business banking or mortgage lending - then you might have a primary version of your resume for the business banking jobs and another primary version for mortgage lending jobs.

The idea here is that you want a template, of sorts, from which to start from when sitting down to customize your resume for a particular job application.

create a new folder for each job application

When you identify a job you’d like to apply to, create a new folder with the name of the employer and job title. In this folder, you should then upload these 3 items:

A saved version of the job description from the employer website. This can be especially helpful down the road if the job description is taken down, let’s say, by the time you’re offered an interview.

Clone a version of your template resume and rename the file. Update the file name with the name of this employer and job title so you can keep tabs on the different versions you create over time. From there, start editing this new version of your resume by eliminating whatever’s in your template resume version that isn’t relevant to this specific job, and match keywords from the job posting to improve your odds of getting through applicant tracking system (ATS) screeners.

Clone a version of your template cover letter and rename the file. Again, you’ll want to rename the file with this specific employer name and job title for the sake of version control. Then, start customizing. You might want to adjust your lead-in to mention the organization and/or position by name, adjust your illustrating stories or key skills you’re highlighting to match the skills deemed most critical to the success of this position, and eliminate anything from your template that seems irrelevant.

The unfortunate reality is, the modern job search process can be an overwhelming and messy process. So it’s imperative you develop a system that works for you to stay organized, keep moving forward, and submit high-quality, customized applications.

If you’d like even more support to land the best next job for you, check out our HIRED job search accelerator, open for enrollment now.