Job Search Metrics - Know Your Score

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How's the job search going? Don't you just hate that question? As long as you are still looking, it's not going well enough, right? Since the goal of a job search is to get a job, it's simple: it's either going or it isn't.

Not very useful, I know.

But how is it really going?

What's your score?

Unless you know how well your actions lead to results, you have no idea where to improve.

Your job search is a sales effort. Sales, or the efficiency of a sales person, is all about the numbers. An effective salesperson knows exactly how many cold calls it takes to get an appointment, how many appointments it takes to get the opportunity to ask for the business and how many closes it takes it takes to get a sale. You should also know these numbers.

Keep a journal or a spreadsheet and track every element of your job search.

Your method of tracking success and stats might look like this:

Your tracking should help you answer these four questions:

  1. What is my ratio of resumes (or applications) to interviews?
  2. What is my ratio of interviews to offers?
  3. Which source yields the best results?
  4. What percentage of interviews result in a job offer?

As an example, let's use these data:

  • 12 resumes
  • 4 first interviews
  • 2 second interviews
  • 1 job offer

Your ratio of resumes to interviews is 12:4, which means every resume you submit is 1/3 of a interview, and each first interview is 25% of a job.

And here's where the most important number comes in. Not to get too heavy with the math, but using the fictitious data above, every resume is 8.3% of a job. Even the resumes that don't result in an interview are getting you closer to a job.

 

Track your progress and results with every job opportunity. To help you focus your efforts in the future, track your interview score, using the ratio of resumes to interviews, by source. Spend more time using the websites that result in more interviews. I realize that sounds obvious, but unless you are keeping score, you won't actually know, objectively, how you're doing.

So, what's your score?