Ask HN: How do you manage job interviews with many companies | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you manage job interviews with many companies

9 pointswreath3 comments

Hi HN!

I know that companies use services like Lever, Greenhouse and other to manage candidates where you see their resumes, notes and feedback from other engineers/colleagues who are in the hiring loop, schedule etc. As a candidate, I feel all this is all over the place from my side. I apply for jobs and then I forget where did I apply and what was the job post (i eventually can hunt it down but it's kinda painful). I want to be able to keep track of what questions i asked and answers I got, schedule, interview process, assignments, and other notes in a concise way. Is there a system/method or a service that you worked for?

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Good question. I typically keep an excel with a row for each application it contains job title, company, people spoken with/interviewed with, notes etc…

Also a folder with the cv I submitted and any other docs.

If you’re searching for a while it can be useful to have this kind of record.

I once considered an app would be a good idea but didn’t build it.. I guess the biggest question is how do you make money providing it to people looking for a job.

Would be ideal to have some sort of Google sheets or Excel free template... I've seen people tackling this issue and having all sorts of columns in their spreadsheets like: "Signing bonus", "Vacations", "Salary", etc, etc... When I had this problem, I just used a note taking app to just write some things about the company, and tracked all the interviews...my approach sucked and I was always confused about what the status of my interview process was and had a hard time remembering who I was interviewing with when I was entering interview meetings... I have a lot of interest in productivity and organization but I'm the worst at implementing these things in my life.

Just set up a spreadsheet to track interviews. Take 5 min after every interview to write down their answers to your questions, next steps, etc. in the spreadsheet. Use it to track where you are in the interview pipeline for each company. Don't bother writing down jobs you applied to. Only start a record if you hear back from them and they want to set up an interview.

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