• A way to keep track of all the job applications and follow-ups you have already done in your job search, and
• A way to keep track of follow-up tasks you must perform in the future in order to keep your job search moving and effective.

If your image of a job search involves filing online applications and waiting for responses, you are sorely mistaken and you will wait a long time for a job interview. A successful job search involves not only the initial activity of filing an application, but also the critically important follow-up activities that will make the difference between success and failure.

During this course, you will learn the various types of follow-up activities essential to your job search. To be effective in your job search, you will need to follow-up on every job application at least four times at appropriate moments in the future.

At Fastest Job Search, we want to stress the importance of giving each potential employer your greatest devotion, as if it were the only company for which you want to work. Demonstrating dedication and enthusiasm will be the key to getting you hired.

The core of this program is the creation of a system that tells you:

• When to perform these follow-ups,
• What the follow-ups should consist of, and
• Empowers you with all the tools you will need to follow-up effectively.
• Enables you to keep track of job applications and follow-ups

iTickleMe Job Search Management System
When you think of a Job Search Management System, you probably envision spending $100 or more on software, or filling filing cabinets with file folders with colored tabs and labels. This is NOT what iTickleMe Job Search Management System is about.

Rather, iTickleMe uses the most commonly used business tool – your own email system – as the basic, fundamental tool of your Job Search Management System. Because specially configured job search follow-up emails are used to fuel your job search, you will never forget to follow up because follow-up tasks will be waiting for you in your inbox on the exact day you need to perform them.

What is a Job Search Follow-up Email?
A Job Search Follow-up Email is an email that you will send to yourself, but it doesn’t arrive until you need it. It will carry all the information you will need to perform a well-timed, effective follow-up in your job search. The Job Search Follow-up Email will contain:

• The job posting
• Company name, address, phone, contact name
• Copy of your resume and cover letter
• Dates list of all previous activities
• Dates and tasks for future follow-ups

Imagine sitting down at your computer in the morning, finding twenty or thirty Job Search Follow-up Emails in your inbox, each carrying your follow-up tasks for the day. When you open one, it immediately dishes up all the prior history of that job application. In seconds, you are up to speed. You remember the company, the job posting and your previous communications in seconds.


Then you look at the follow-up task you have assigned yourself for that day. If your tasks is to make a phone call, go ahead and do it. The contact name and phone number are there in your Job Search Follow-up Email. If your task is to send a letter, go ahead and do it. Everything you need to accomplish the task is in front of you.

Click the “Forward” button for your Job Search Follow-up Email, but don’t send it yet! The email is now ready to be updated with today’s activity.

Whatever follow-up task you performed, whether it was a phone call or sending a letter, record it in the forwarded version of the Job Search Follow-up Email. If nobody answered, write “Left message, will call next week”. If you sent a letter, write “Sent letter below. Follow in 2 weeks”. Then paste a copy of that letter right in the Job Search Follow-up Email so it will be there ready for you the next time a task is required.

When you have performed the follow-up task and recorded it along with your plan for a next follow-up, send your Job Search Follow-up Email to yourself so that it arrives at the right time in the future for your next continue follow up task.

Q: Huh? How can I send an email “so that it arrives at the right time in the future?”

A:Here’s the beauty and simplicity of iTickleMe Job Search Management System. Only iTickleMe allows you to send yourself emails so that they arrive exactly when you need them, enabling you to follow-up in a well-timed, well equipped way.

Q:How can I tell iTickleMe to send my Job Search Follow-up Email back to me in, say, 2 weeks?

A: Simple! Address your email to 2w@iTickleMe.com. Your email will return to you as a Job Search Follow-up Reminder in 2 weeks. It works for days(d), weeks(w) and months(m), too.

Q: How do I start a Job Search Management System?

A: Sign up for a free trial at iTickleMe Email Reminders.

In our next post, “Build a Job Search Follow-up Email” we will discuss how to build a powerful Job Search Follow-up Email.

iTickleMe Job Search GUARANTEE:

Follow this plan for 4 months, initiating at least 10 new contacts every day (this is easy once you get the hang of it). If you don’t have a job at the end of 4 months of implementing this program and you wish to discontinue service, simply notify us at support@iTickleMe.com and we will refund your $19.95 in full! You have nothing to lose, and a lifetime of rewarding employment to gain. You owe it to yourself and your family to sign up right now!

The most powerful tool you can have in your job search is iTickleMe Email Reminders.You can try it for free.

• You know how to create a Job Search Follow-up Email. You know that it contains everything you will need to perform an effective job search follow-up.
• You know how to send Job Search Follow-up Emails to yourself using iTickleMe.
• You have placed “template” copies of your resume, cover letter, follow-up letter and thank you letter in a folder entitled “$$-MasterTemplates”
• You know how to launch any of your master templates with 3-key shortcuts.

There is one more piece of the infrastructure you should now do. Create a folder entitled “$$-JobSearch“. This will house all of your ongoing job search correspondences including customized resumes, cover letters, follow-ups and thank yous.

When you are online looking for prospects and you find a likely company, read their job posting carefully. Open a new Job Search Follow-up Email and paste the posting into the email. You will keep this email open until you have populated it with all the info you will need in the future to perform an effective job search follow-up.

In Subject Line of Job Search Follow-up Email, enter:     Job Search: CompanyName

Open your Resume template by pressing Control+Alt+R together.
Open your Cover letter template by pressing Control+Alt+C together.

IMPORTANT: Immediately rename template files using the naming system described below
and save them in the $$-JobSearch folder

You now have both files and your Job Search Follow-up Email open. Soon you will modify the resume and cover letter so that they fulfill the requirements of the job posting as much as possible. But first (and then again when you are finished with the mods) it is time to save them in a way that it will be easy to find and use in the future.

Efficient work flow – File naming for maximum advantage
Modify the file names as follows before saving them in the $$-JobSearch folder. Do NOT save them on top of your original templates. (Keep a backup of original templates just in case).

Rename resume file thus:        yymmdd-MyNameResume-CompanyName
Rename cover letter file thus:     yymmdd-MyNameCover-CompanyName

Save both of them in the $$-JobSearch folder.

Use this date format: YYMMDD
YYMMDD means the date, represented as follows:

Force yourself to prefix all files with this date format. When you open the folder, all entries will be chronologically ordered. This will become very handy when files accumulate. It will also tell you when you first initiated the first contact with a new prospect.

Also, when you rename your resume and cover, put the company name at the end, where we show “CompanyName”. Thus, if Joe Smith were to file a resume and cover letter with Kraft Foods on March 19, 2010, the file names would be:

100319-JoeSmithResume-Kraft
100319-JoeSmithCover-Kraft

You have now loaded the file name with great info that will help you in your future work flow. The file name is professional enough that you will have no problem emailing the file with this exact file name to your Target Hiring Person. The reason your own name is embedded in the file name is for the benefit of the Target Hiring Person. It will help them locate your resume in the future if needed.

When you are asked in an online job application, to attach your resume, you will easily be able to browse to the correct file and attach it, because you will see the current date and the company name.

Modify the resume and cover letter to match, as closely as possible, the requirements of the job posting. See Step 1: Successful Online Job Application for more on this topic. If you are planning to file a pdf instead of a doc file, now is the time to convert the doc to pdf. Save the pdf to the same folder ($$-JobSearch), using the same file name as the original. When you do this, they will stay adjacent to one another in Windows Explorer and be easier to find and modify if necessary.

The home stretch
Add your cover letter and resume to your Job Search Follow-up Email, either as attachments, or simply pasted-in, your choice. The job posting should already be in the email as discussed above. Do some research to find the Target Hiring Person and add that person’s name, address and phone number to the top of the Job Search Follow-up Email. Select your next task, such as “Phone call in 2w” (2 weeks), and enter that at the top of the email. Then send the email to iTickleMe for return to you in the interval you want. In this case the email address would be “2w@iTickleMe.com”

You have now initiated two important job search activities. You have entered your job application in the way everyone else does, through the Internet. You have also programmed a follow-up aimed at the Target Hiring Person. This second path will lead you to places the rest of your competition does not dare to go: the alternate paths of communication that build relationships and ultimately get you a job!

iTickleMe Job Search GUARANTEE:
Follow this plan for 4 months, initiating at least 10 new contacts every day (this is easy once you get the hang of it). If you don’t have a job at the end of 4 months of implementing this program and you wish to discontinue service, simply notify us at support@iTickleMe.com and we will refund your $19.95 in full! You have nothing to lose, and a lifetime of rewarding employment to gain. You owe it to yourself and your family to sign up right now!