I have mentioned it before in some blog posts that I’m out looking for a job. In my job searching process, there is a couple of nice tools that I am missing. Maybe if I describe one of them, someone will say that it already exists over there -> or something.
Tool 1. Tracking of data related to a job application.
For each such application I send I have a set of data, some pieces only for some applications:
- Contact data for company
- The open position I’m applying for on the web
- The web form I submitted a application thru
- The email I used to submit my application
- Further emailing with the company
- Further chat logs (jabber or irc) with the company
- My jotting down during or after a (phone) interview
- Other data I’ve gathered about the company
- …
I would like one simple way of browsing all this information for a given position.
Does this exist? preferably something that can interact with Konqueror, KMail, KAddressbook, KJots, Kopete and irssi on a remote machine.
Tool 2: Tracking of tasks with states
There is – at least – the following steps in a job searching process:
- Interesting company found
- Initial contact
- More information sent
- Phone interview
- First interview
- Second interview
- First draft contract
- Signed contract
A job application might go thru some or all of these steps or even more steps, and from each step it can end prematurely with a ‘rejection’.
Here, I’m missing a tool to track my applications and in which state they are currently in. My first thought here is a bug tracking system, but I’m wondering if there is something nicer. Currently I’m tracking it manually in a KJots notebook.
Comments are open. And no, I haven’t yet found a job.
I suppose you can use “Getting things done” philosophy for tracking that information.
I use ThinkingRock, and it’s perfect for me (http://www.trgtd.com.au/).
Good luck in your search process :)
http://trello.com or http://agilezen ? Or, a big old kanban board on your wall.
Tool 1.
Simple textfile plus some screenshots of that web form.
Emacs org-mode will do most or all of what you describe. For Tool 2, you can define a set of states for your job applications, and change from one to another with a single key stroke. For Tool 1 you can define hyperlinks to other documents on the same machine or on web sites, and include text which can be hidden and unhidden as required.
Good luck with your job hunt!
Hi. I have somewhat symmilar requirements but for project management.
For your first set I would use nepomuk. A tag per job application. tage every item with that tag. Right now you can tag almost everithing, from files to e-mails, web pages. I haven’t found a way to tag irc conversations but with telepathy-kde it might be just a matter of pinging the devs. I don’t know a way to put all that in one view but it might exist.
For your second set of requirements I tend to use the to-do list of korganizer and more recently zanshin. One main todo per job application/project with completion dates and all the tasks as sub-todo’s.
I hope this helps.
Cheers
Hi,
actually, we developed a software doing nearly all of the points you mentioned. It was developed for Duden Verlag in Germany and is called “Duden Bewerbungstrainer”, see:
http://www.duden.de/produkt/Duden-Bewerbungstrainer-2-0-06896-8
It is in German though, an english version is (not) available and not yet planned. The software is installed locally but can also be started and used in a server mode (access by a browser).
HTH, cheers
Jürgen
I use Tellico with a custom made layout. It works quite nicely IMHO.
It should be fairly straightforward to create this as a web frontend to a database, using a web framework like Django or similar. Granted, not ideal – web browsers aren’t ideal for text editing, but one can use one of those editor plugins like edit with emacs (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ljobjlafonikaiipfkggjbhkghgicgoh) or similar.
Ha, the answer is simple: this is a job for Nepomuk. Some of these things you can already do now with a combination of Dolphin, the Nepomuk extensions to Konqueror which live in the “nepomukannotation” project, Ginkgo – the generic resource manager which can be found in the KDE git repo of the same name, and some manual querying.
However, we are still missing some essential GUI elements to make all this comfortable. Brainstorms are welcome.
And hey, what about this: if my fundraiser goes well AND I find a new sponsor for Nepomuk I will do a Nepomuk workshop. You will come and we will start implementing this!
Hmm, I think Joel Spolsky’s latest product/service ‘trello.com’ night be useful for this sort of ad-hoc organization. Haven’t used it, just saw the launch pitch and thought it looked interesting.
I think Evernote would do the trick nicely. A notebook for “Job Search”, sub notebooks for each opportunity. Web-clip the job app and any other company/contact info. You can BCC any email you send to Evernote and then file it appropriately. Notes would be easy. IRC logs are just text files so that would be easy to paste in. For Tool 2 you could just set up tags with those.
The cloud bonus is that you can manage this from your smartphone, tablet, notebook, or any internet coffee-shop PC.
Thank you for posting this because it coalesced exactly what I need to do :-)