As you may have gathered from the previous post, I am a big fan of organisation. Lists, stationary and overview make me breathe easier. When I was told that the average time it takes a graduate to find a job after finishing uni was 6 months, I thought I should probably get a system going sooner rather than later. Also seeing my partner, who had been doing the job hunt some months prior to myself, and the amount of cover letters and applications he sent out, I figured a document folder would not suffice.
This is why I have wholly embraced the beauty of jreepad. It is a really simple, small programme that allows you to easily organise your thoughts, applications, informations in a no-frills database layout. You can only save text in it and you cannot format anything in the programme, but it is a great place to have it all saved together. This way you can arrange it in folders and sub-folders and save any bit of information you might need for later.
I have arranged my jreepad into sources for job search, advice, etc, as well as actual applications and job descriptions. I have a folder for each month and within that I save each job I’ve applied for with the individual job descriptions, cover letters, CVs and application forms.
Word processing
I still write my cover letters and CVs in a word processor, but I save a copy in jreepad so I can easily go back and see which version I attached or what I wrote in the email I sent with the application. I also use it to keep track of deadlines and see the progress I’ve made each month.
With an increasing amount of applications written you’ll see that it gets easier with time. I truly hate sitting down with a new cover letter or CV, but with time I’ve saved phrases or CV versions that have worked and I only need to do a little tweaking each time rather than start all over again.
Jreepad is a freeware for Macs, while Windows machines do Treepad. The latter comes in paid versions and as freeware.
It’s worth a look if you feel like doing a bit constructive yet procrastinating organisation!
Screenshot from jreepad
recession graduate 