I’m trying to get a full time job, and it’s pretty tough to motivate myself to apply given that it feels like there aren’t that many job postings at the moment
So I’ve decided to apply to ALL THE JOBS.
Joke aside, I really created a goal of sending 6.43 resumes every day.
Why 6.43? Because I’ve only applied to 10 jobs… and I want to get to 100 by the end of the month!
And for extra commitment, if I do not apply to 100 jobs by October 1st GMT, I’ll change my twitter/github/facebook/linkedin profile pictures to Beeminder’s logo until the end of the year.
(Exception to the above is “I get a job offer in the meantime”).
Curious if it also might be useful to you to have an additional Beeminder goal for reaching out to people in or on the periphery of your network? My understanding is that a large percentage of jobs are gotten that way.
Yep, I should definitely reach out to people in my network.
1st idea: add a “cold email” goal to measure every 1st time I reach out to someone for a job. 2nd idea: when reaching out, if I end up sending them my resume, it counts for the 6.43 goal?
I’ve used Beeminder to encourage myself into finding two jobs! I developed a fairly arbitrary point system, and had to earn a certain number of points a day. 1-5 points per application, depending on difficulty, 5 points for a recruiter call, 10 points for a phone interview, and 20 points for an in-person interview. (And 1000 points for signing an employment contract!)
Update: first day was successful with seven resumes.
Second day was a complete mess, one company is asking me to write a one page essay and do slides, and instead of doing anything I’m completely overwhelmed with everything I need to do, so much that I cheated, driving a ice-cream truck through my goal by adding 6 FAKE TRELLO CARDS to not derail tonight
not sure if i should a) completely give up, b) change to like one resume per week day c) keep going and actually apply to six jobs in the 3h30 I have before midnight.
because it seems impossible, but i don’t want to change my LinkedIn picture to the beeminder logo, and I also don’t want to give up and break my word, aaah
Yeah, sounds like a pinch. These days I tend to try to start out all my new goals with a rate that I know is well below what I could do, and then slowly ramp it up.
If it weren’t for the Beeminder logo, would you be willing to eat the stakes and use the mercy days to make goal changes? You could either reduce your rate significantly, or replace the goal with one that’s time-based instead of finished-resumes-based, like “spend x hours / day actively working on resumes”
Yep I also try to do that for habits I want to build long-term, but for things that I really need to do now (like applying for jobs while it’s still the good time, aka September) having a small goal feels silly somehow? I was thinking about Nick Winter’s Beeminder goal in his book “The Motivation Hacker” where he needs to finish a book so he bets lots of money to write many pages.
Anyhow, you’re right that if there was no logo I think I would just go slowly and readjust goals the right way. And actually even if I have a simple goal (eg 1 resume per day) I will probably do more anyway, and applications will be higher quality. So I think I’m going to break my word and do that
Yeah, I second @narthur – a small goal that you can reliably achieve is WAY better than an ambitious goal that’s gonna make you depressed when you inevitably fail. And 7 job applications a day is DEFINITELY an ambitious goal!
Personally, I like time-based goals for amorphous things like finding a job, but I can see the benefit to having a progress-based goal. That being said, you probably want to explicitly include a quasi-points system like @n54843 did, because as you progress on the hiring pipeline, things take more and more time (but are obviously good!). So definitely doing a follow-up project after an application should count as at LEAST one resume submitted, if not two. And a full day of interviews, even more (don’t forget to count time preparing for the interview!).
Interesting, I definitely should aim for less ambitious and try something point-based where things higher in the hiring pipeline give more points!
So maybe like 1 point per hour of work, 1 point per resume, 2 points per cover letter, 4 point per interview , 10 point per home assignment. And maybe start with one point a day?
Yeah, sounds like a pinch. These days I tend to try to start out all my new goals with a rate that I know is well below what I could do, and then slowly ramp it up.