A job search fails far more often from exhaustion and disorganisation than from a bad CV. Treat it as a process with a fixed daily budget, not an open-ended emergency.
Quality beats volume — up to a point
Five properly tailored applications a week to well-matched roles will outperform forty copy-pasted ones. But five per week is also too slow if your matches are thin. A reasonable target for a full-time search is eight to twelve tailored applications a week, plus deliberate outreach.
Track everything in one place
- Company, role, link, and the date you applied.
- Which CV and letter version you sent — so an interview call does not catch you out.
- Stage: saved, applied, interview, offer, rejected, withdrawn.
- The follow-up date, set at the moment you apply.
Follow up once, properly
Ten to fourteen days after applying, send one short message to the hiring manager or recruiter: restate the role, add one new relevant detail, ask about timelines. One follow-up. Silence after that is an answer.
Protect the rest of your life
- Two focused blocks a day, not eight hours of tab-flipping.
- Separate the tasks: sourcing, tailoring, and outreach are different modes and should not be interleaved.
- Keep a “done” log. Rejections dominate the feeling of a search; the log is the counterweight.
- One full day a week off from it entirely.