I’m in the middle of applying for jobs at the moment, and I’ve developed a simple system for keeping track of my applications using Org mode, which I thought I’d share. When making a lot of job applications, it’s important to make note of things like when you applied, which version of your CV you sent to which employer, and upcoming interviews. Org mode provides the tools to do this all easily.
Outline Layout
The basic idea is to create a new headline/section for each job application, optionally grouped by company or recruiter. Any information about the position can go within that section, including important details like the expected salary, location, and the type of work. This also lets me use the wide variety of metadata features associated with Org headlines. These can include tags for job sectors and technologies, application deadlines, and scheduled times for interviews.
Org mode lets you change the set of TODO keywords within a file using a header entry. This is my set of keywords for job applications:
#+TODO: UNSENT(u!) SENT(s!) INTERVIEW(i!) OFFERED(o!) | ACCEPTED(a!) DECLINED(d!) REJECTED(r!) CLOSED(c!)
Each keyword has a single-letter shortcut that I can use to switch a
heading directly to it, and the ! flag, which causes Org to record
when a heading switches to a given state. The bar separates “incomplete”
keywords from “complete” ones.
Attachments
Attachments are a feature of Org I hadn’t found a good use for until
now. When you run org-attach on a headline, you can add a file as an
attachment of that heading. The attachments for each heading are stored
in a separate, automatically-generated directory. This means that when I
send an application off, I can attach the relevant version of my CV to
the corresponding heading. When I need that version of the CV again, I
can just look in the attachment folder. This will also be useful for
storing job descriptions or any other files I receive relating to a
given application.
Agenda and Sparse Tree
Since I’m using standard Org metadata features to manage my applications, I can use built-in facilities like Agenda and Sparse Tree to get an efficient overview of my applications, that integrates with everything else I use Org for.
Closing Thoughts
Org mode certainly isn’t the only way to do these things: a spreadsheet would be adequate for a lot of things, and I’m sure many specialised tools exist for this purpose, but this is a good example of the flexibility and power of Emacs and Org mode.