Stage 4 · Lesson 2 of 7

Track every application

Keep a simple table in Notion, a spreadsheet or on paper: company, role, date applied, how you applied (portal, referral, recruiter), stage reached and outcome. It takes two minutes per application and gives you facts instead of mood. After 20 or 30 entries, patterns show up: maybe referrals get replies and portals do not, or you get first calls but never pass the technical round.

The tracker also stops you forgetting follow-ups, and on a bad day it reminds you that one rejection is one row out of many.

Common trapapplying from memory, losing track and then feeling that "nothing ever works" without any way to check.

A question to check yourself come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it

Resources for this stage

Start with· follow one of these

RoadmapFree
Sefism Job Search Roadmap
Sefism
The full job search as stages, for fixing whichever one is losing you applications
VideoFree
What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection (Jia Jiang, TEDxMtHood)
Jia Jiang (TEDxMtHood)
What 100 days of asking for things taught one founder about the fear of no

Practise

Sefism Your First Tech Job Roadmap
A plan for your first tech job, if you are still waiting for a first yes

Keep handy

LinkedIn Jobs
Set alerts so new roles keep arriving while you wait on others
ADPList
Free mentors who can look at your approach and tell you what they see

Struggling right now? If you are in danger or thinking about harming yourself, contact local emergency services or a crisis line: Find a helpline (any country), Umang (Pakistan), Tele-MANAS, 14416 (India).