Lance Haun » Organization

Organizing your job hunt

Lance Haun — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:21:30 +0000

Whenever I looked for my last job, I used a notepad on my laptop to make notes of the contacts I had made, the jobs I had applied for, what kind of custom resumes and cover letters I was using and all kinds of good stuff. Managing a job hunt as a professional is like being an account representative, salesperson, researcher and administrative assistant rolled into one. No wonder very few people do a decent job at it.

There are a handful of tools out there to manage your daily tasks but how about your job hunt? Myjobtips.com is a good start. Since so much of the job hunt has moved online, so moves your tools.

Are there any other tools that you use (or used) to manage your job hunt?

Side Job Track

Lance Haun — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:35:15 +0000

Side Job Track is easily one of the coolest utilities created for the indy contractor. I used to just keep everything jumbled in my personal calendar but whenever you have more than one project at a time, it becomes a real hassle. Now it is incredibly easy to keep track of all the projects I have going, making sure that I am billing things accurately, that I get all of my materials costs passed on and that I am invoicing in a timely manner.

It looks as though they are going to be launching a paid service sometime this summer. Maybe if you were using it for more than one person, that would be a little bit easier.

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BIS provides employment background checks worldwide.

How do you spend your Sunday nights?

Lance Haun — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 04:22:11 +0000

I have a ritual that might sound familiar to some and foreign to others. About 9:00pm, I start preparing for Monday morning. I started this ritual after finding that Mondays were, by far, one of the worst, most busy days. I often stayed at the office past seven on Mondays (pushing my hours to 12-14 on that day). I would come in at six or seven in the morning and have no prep work, no idea as far as applicant flow is concerned and what I needed to schedule. So, I started checking my e-mail and going over reports on Sunday night and setting my to-do list for the day including setting my first tasks for the day. I could do some of this on Friday but a lot of my work depends on weekend activity. When I get in on Monday, I don’t open e-mails. I check my voicemails and unless there is anything urgent, I usually schedule those calls for late morning. Then, I start working on my first task of the day.

Now I come home at my usual time. I get everything done that I need to and often more, simply by making my priorities before I get wrapped up in the craziness of Monday.

What sorts of things do you do to start your day off right? I would be interested in seeing those in either separate posts or in my comments section.