I Built a System to Run My Job Search Like a Pipeline

Description and use

The "trajecktory" system turns a chaotic job search into a structured pipeline with stages, scoring, and scheduled follow‑ups, revealing bottlenecks and improving focus.

Problem

Job searches often become chaotic to-do lists that hide where effort is wasted, leading to missed opportunities and wasted time.

Outcome

The pipeline reduced missed follow‑ups, provided clear visibility into where roles stalled, and enabled learning from each outcome, leading to a more efficient and focused job search.

Workflow

• 1. Identify a role and move it to the "Sourced" stage.
• 2. Evaluate the role against personal criteria and score it; strong matches move to "Evaluated".
• 3. Apply to the role, moving it to "Applied" and starting a follow‑up timer.
• 4. After ~1 week of business days, send a follow‑up if no response, moving to "Follow‑up".
• 5. If a response leads to an interview, move to "Interview"; otherwise, record outcome as "No response", "Closed", or "Discarded".
• 6. Track outcomes and calculate reply rate based on furthest stage reached.
• 7. Use insights to adjust scoring criteria and focus on stages where loss occurs.

Evidence

I built this into a tool called trajecktory because I wanted it for myself. It is open source, and I write about building it as I go.

Source

The payoff is not really about efficiency. It is about spending less time agonizing over where to put your energy, and more time actually putting it there.

Source