How I use Trello to Manage My Job Search

[#1]

Trello is a great ally when it comes to organizing big and small projects. Personally, I’m finding it extremely helpful during this job hunting phase of my life. I tried all sorts of detailed board set-ups during the last few months, but I recently reorganized it and I discovered that keeping it very simple is the way to go, at least for me.

In my job hunting board, I only have 4 lists:

• Info: this is where I bookmark useful information and job offer pages.
• To Do: where I usually send the job offers I find around to review in a second moment and decide whether to apply for them or not. I use the Chrome extension to simplify the process.
• Pending: when I apply for a job, I move the card over this list so I can keep track of how many positions I applied for.
• Archived: this is where I move the cards that become outdated since most of the time you won’t hear back from recruiters, or when I receive a rejection replies (in this case I would add an emoji cross next to the job title).

Labels:

• To be approved: this is mostly used for the applications sent via my University website since they need to be approved before getting sent to companies.
• Job interview: I like to keep track of the interviews I do and I add notes about them in the back of the cards.
• CV: I have 2 or 3 different kinds of CVs that I like to send, personalized according to the job offer, so I like to use labels to remember what CV I sent for each application.

Power-Ups:

• Map: this is extremely useful for jobs I apply for locally because I can easily plan my itinerary if I get an interview request.
• Custom Fields (Optional): when my board was extremely detailed and complicated, I used the Custom Fields Power-Up to keep track of all the details of each job application (deadline, payment, job title,etc.). I like to keep things simpler now, but this is a great Power-Up if you’re trying to log as many details as possible.

Finally, I use the due dates to keep track of when a job application expires or when I applied to a job.

[Erica Moss]

@Alice Love the simplicity — thanks for sharing, Alice!

[Esme Crutchley]

Wow @Alice you and are are so in-sync!

I had a 'jobs' board as well! It had lists like 'applied' and 'interview' and things like that.

When I didn't get one, I had a 'feedback' list where I put all the feedback that I got after the interview for the next time

I used custom fields a LOT, everything from salary to hours to team/department!

I use Google Drive to attach all the files of the CVs, applications, job descriptions and information about the company/department that I submitted as well, so that I could always get to the documents that I needed!

Thank you for sharing!

[Sri Kumar]

@Alice ,

Wow, A Great way to use Trello :) 

-Sri

[Alison]

Thanks for sharing this @Alice , the map power up is one of my favorites too. I love that you can see a map view of the card locations.

Best of luck with your job search - it looks like you might be looking to join Atlassian??

[Alice]

@Esme Crutchley thank you! The Google Drive POwer-Up is a lifesaver for sure and Custom Fields are always extremely useful.

@Sri Kumar thanks! And great use of GIFs 😏

@Alison thank you! Yes, I love that the Map Power-Up works on mobile too. It's incredibly useful. I'm very passionate about the company and this community 😃

[Mo Beigi]

Awesome stuff @Alice ! Very creative usage of Trello, definitely beats using a single document to track everything.

Out of curiosity do you also attach a lot of files to cards (or use external storage services)?

[Alice]

@Mo Beigi thank you! I'm glad you find it useful. I don't have many files attached to cards because my CVs and presentation letters are stored in Google Drive, but some job applications I stumbled upon provided further information on PDF files so I attached them to the corresponding Trello cards for future reference.

[Jessica]

This is awesome @Alice ! Great use case, super creative way to use Trello. Thanks for sharing!

[Alice]

@Jessica thank you so much!

[Emily Koch]

Thanks for sharing your board, and best of luck in the job search!

[Alice]

@Emily Koch thank you!