The Job Search Tracker (Free) with Careers with Apurva

Most people can't tell you why their job search isn't working.

They can tell you it isn't. They can tell you how long it's been. They can't tell you which part is broken — because they've never counted.

I know, because I did exactly this. Fourteen years in recruiting at Gartner, MongoDB and SoftwareOne, over 1000 people hired, and when it was my own search I applied at midnight, refreshed my inbox, felt terrible, and applied again. For four months.

Then I started counting. That was the month it turned.

What the counting tells you

There are only three real problems in a job search, and the numbers say which one you have.

→ 40 applications and 2 screens — nobody's reading past your CV. That's a paper problem.

→ 10 screens and no second rounds — your CV works. You're losing it in the room.

→ Second rounds and no offers — you're getting in front of people and not converting. Usually salary, notice period, or never actually asking for the job.

Three completely different problems. Three completely different fixes. And spending three months rewriting your CV when your actual problem is the recruiter screen is how people lose half a year.

What's in it

Five tabs, mapped to how a project actually runs.

→ Target companies — 30 of them, written down. Not "whatever comes up on LinkedIn at 11pm."

→ People — 15 humans you need to speak to, named, with what you're asking each one.

→ Applications — the log. Every application, the day you send it. This feeds everything else.

→ Your numbers — conversion rates calculated automatically, and a plain-English line telling you which of the three problems you've got. This is the part that does the work.

→ Friday review — thirty minutes, once a week, with three questions to answer.

It also has the benchmarks

10–15% application-to-screen is normal. 30–50% screen-to-interview. 20–30% interview-to-offer. Most people have never seen those numbers, so they either panic at a normal week or ignore a genuinely broken funnel for months. Senior and niche roles convert slower — that's in there too, so nobody reads a slow month as failure.

How long it takes

Twenty minutes to set up. Two minutes a day after that. Thirty minutes on a Friday.

That's it. If it takes longer than that you'll stop doing it, and a tracker you update once a fortnight is a diary a diary can't diagnose anything.

Who this is for

→ Mid-to-senior professionals who are used to running projects properly and somehow aren't running this one that way

→ Anyone three months in who can't answer "how many applications have you actually sent?"

→ People who've been told to "just keep applying" and can feel that isn't a strategy

Who it isn't for

→ Anyone hoping a spreadsheet will apply to jobs for them. It won't. It'll just make it impossible to keep lying to yourself about the numbers.

What it costs

Nothing. It's an Excel file. Download it, use it, send it to the friend who's been quietly struggling and not telling anyone.

If you fill it in and the diagnosis says something you'd like help fixing, book a discovery call fifteen minutes, and I'll tell you what I'd do with your numbers.

— Apurva 14 years recruiting · 1000+ hires · Ex-Gartner, MongoDB, SoftwareOne @careerswithapurva