Job Application Tracker: Organise Your Search

The file is an Excel workbook we made ourselves. There’s no sign-up and no email address to hand over: the download link goes straight to the file. It has two tabs. “Tracker” is empty and ready for your applications. “Example” has three made-up rows so you can see how a filled-in tracker looks.

Why bother tracking your applications?

Once you’ve sent more than a handful, they start to blur. A store calls you two weeks later and you can’t remember which ad it was, what it asked for or which version of your resume you sent. A list fixes that in a few seconds.

It also helps you:

• follow up on the day you planned to, instead of when you happen to remember;
• avoid applying twice for the same job when it’s posted on more than one site;
• spot patterns, such as one type of role that keeps leading to interviews while another never gets a reply.

Start with the next job you apply for. Add the row before you close the ad, while the details are still in front of you.

What goes in each column?

• Company: the employer’s name. If you applied through a recruitment agency, write both, for example “Agency name for a supermarket”.
• Role: the job title exactly as the ad shows it, plus casual, part-time or full-time if the ad says so.
• Ad link: paste the web address of the ad. Ads often disappear once they close, so save a screenshot or PDF as well.
• Date applied: the day you sent it. The column is set to show dates as day/month/year.
• Status: pick one of Applied, Interview, Offer, Unsuccessful or Withdrawn. In most spreadsheet apps the cell shows a drop-down list. If yours doesn’t, type the word.
• Next step: one short action, written so you could do it without thinking, such as “Call the store and ask for the manager”.
• Follow-up date: when you’ll do that next step.
• Notes: anything you’ll want later, like who you spoke to, which resume version you sent or what they asked at the interview.

Use “Withdrawn” when you pull out yourself, for example because you accepted another job. Keep the row anyway. If the same company advertises again, you’ll see what happened last time.

What does a filled-in tracker look like?

Notice that every row has a next step, even the unsuccessful one. A row with no next step and no follow-up date is a job you’ve stopped thinking about, which is fine, but make that a decision.

How do I use it on my phone?

1. Install the free Google Sheets app or the free Microsoft Excel app from your phone’s app store, if you don’t have one already. Either app may ask you to sign in to an account before you can edit.
2. Tap the download button above. Depending on your phone, the file goes to your downloads or opens in a preview.
3. Open the file from your downloads or your Files app and choose Sheets or Excel to open it with. If you only see a preview, tap the Share button and pick the app from there.
4. Switch between the “Tracker” and “Example” tabs at the bottom of the screen.

Turning your phone sideways shows more columns at once. The heading row is frozen, so it stays at the top while you scroll down.

How do I open it on a computer?

Google Sheets

1. Go to Google Drive, choose New, then File upload, and pick the downloaded file.
2. Double-click it. If Drive shows a preview, choose Open with, then Google Sheets. You can edit it as an Excel file straight away.
3. If you’d rather keep it as a Google Sheet, choose File, then Save as Google Sheets. That makes a copy in Google’s format.

If a date you type stays on the left of the cell as plain text, Sheets is reading dates in another country’s order. Check File, then Settings, and set the locale to Australia.

Microsoft Excel

Double-click the file. Because it came from the internet, Excel may open it in Protected View with a yellow bar at the top; choose Enable Editing to start typing. To sort by follow-up date, click any cell in your list and use Sort on the Data tab.

LibreOffice Calc

LibreOffice is free. Open the file with File, then Open. When you save, Calc may ask which format to keep. Choose the Excel format if you’ll also open the file in Excel or Google Sheets, or the ODF format if you’ll only use LibreOffice.

A 10-minute weekly check

Pick a regular time, such as Sunday evening, and go through this list.

If you’re getting few replies, the resume is a good place to look first. Our retail resume example walks through a one-page resume section by section, with a free template. For background on the jobs themselves, see our guides to job roles.

What shouldn’t go in the tracker?

The file is yours and stays wherever you save it. We never see what you type. Even so, keep passwords for job sites, your tax file number and bank details out of it. A tracker gets emailed, shared or left open on a library computer more often than you’d expect.