| Notes: | README Creator of Sean's Job Tracker (really I adapted it from an AirTable CRM template).
Read this LinkedIn article I wrote further explaining how to use this tool in your search:
<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deliberate-targeting-your-job-search-here-tool-can-help-sean-o-neill-3tfhe%3FtrackingId=BNYnAxwnSGe5TrP%252BvFNY5A%253D%253D/?trackingId=BNYnAxwnSGe5TrP%2BvFNY5A%3D%3D>
1. I have a bunch of example records in here to show you how it works. The most useful views once you populate them are:
1. Activities > Open Aging. Each day this is your starting point for where to spend your time on the current activities. Use the aging field to see where you need to ping people to get a response. Assign yourself Tasks for research, review briefs, etc.
2. Activities > Group by Open Opportunities. This groups all activities together in chronological order for each of your open opportunities. Useful to see the entire engagement and the currently open activities. If there is no open next step on an opportunity, then this shows you where you need to follow up.
3. Opportunities > Open Opportunities. This is the Opportunity view of just the active ones. Use the scoring criteria 1-5 to start rating the opportunities. If unsure, start at a 3 and then rescore after each interaction as you gather more info. Use the Notes field for each score to clarify the + and - points that are driving your score. Use the Pros and Cons field to summarise the most important + and - points. Use the Additional Questions field for what questions you can ask next that would clarify or mitigate the biggest risks or concerns you have with the role. You can change the weights of the Scoring formula.
2. Make your own copy of this. There should be a Copy button at the top center of the browser to allow you to copy this Airtable into your own account. Then you can customize it in what ever way works for you. Many of the fields have description notes to explain how to populate that field. Once you see the example records to clarify how the tables and formulas work, purge my example records in your copy and start to build your own records. Airtable allows you up to 1000 records on the free plan across your saved space.
3. Make it yours. Don't like the column titles? Change them. Want to add new fields and delete others? Go ahead. Need new tables? Add them. Pay attention to any formulas to ensure they are still valid after your edits. Many of the fields have descriptions embedded to explain the intent and how to use them, look for the small 'i' in a circle icons.
4. Log all of your activities, and keep updating the status for the conversation threads. Start scoring the Opportunities as they arrive and continually revise the scoring and notes as you learn more with every conversation. Install the Airtable app on your phone to make updates on the go. Create entries for all the Contacts that are involved and their Companies. Not every one will have an explicit Job Opportunity at the start, but keep networking and pushing outreach to build your pipeline. I find it useful to group all of the cold call outreach activities into a catch all Outreach opportunity (in Role Title field). And the same for the general networking activities in a catch all Networking opportunity. Then all of my activities are grouped and appear in the Activities: Open Opportunities view.
5. "Why didn't you build cool automations or dashboards for this Job Tracker?" The free version of Airtable limits most of these fancier capabilities, but ultimately I didn't need them. I built aging logic into the views of each table so that I could easily see the most important actions to do next.
6. If you value this tool, drop me a note on LinkedIn to let me know how you are using it. Note that I freely share this tool, but do not have time for customer support. Do some AirTable research and figure it out for yourself. The community is pretty robust.
Good luck with your search
Sean
January 2024
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