The organizational, planning and management skills you are developing will serve you well your entire career as you encounter – and flawlessly manage – task after task in your professional life. If you continue using the work concepts presented here in your future work life, you will pull ahead of the pack with your superior skills, and co-workers will wonder how you can accomplish so much, and how you never forget to follow-up at just the right time.

But there is a way you can be even more efficient! Here comes a shameless plug for another productivity tool from the same folks (us) that brought you iTickleMe Email Reminders and Fastest Job Search. It’s called XP Shortcut. This same software is also known as Lightning Navigator.

XP Shortcut is an amazingly useful application. (Sorry,it only works with Windows XP). It allows you to easily associate a wide variety of tasks with programmable 3-key shortcuts. By using an intuitive setup screen you can program shortcuts such as:

• Shortcut to folders
• Launch a new email
• Shortcut to websites
• Shortcut to FTP sites
• Shortcut to individual files
• Shortcut to launch applications
• Launch a new email pre-loaded with content
• Capture any part of your screen as an image
• Save any image and paste it any time with a shortcut
• Save any text and and paste it any time with a shortcut

Using XP Shortcut in your job search
The most potent use of XP Shortcut for job hunters is the ability of XP Shortcut to open a file or generate text with a 3-key shortcut. Fasten your seat belt – you are going to like this!

Question: What document-related activities do job-searchers perform most often?
Answer: Revise and send resumes, revise and send cover letters, and write follow-up emails and letters.

Question: What do these tasks have in common?
Answer: They usually involve the revision or customization of something that was already written or created.

Question: How can the customization of these words or documents be made more efficient?
Answers:

• By creating master templates.
• By creating shortcuts to the master templates.
• By creating an an efficient document work-flow.

Creating master templates
This part you probably already do in some fashion. Here is our method.

1. Create a folder in your computer entitled “$$-MasterTemplates”. The purpose of the dollar signs is to signify importance, as well as to drive this folder to the top of the list when displayed.
2. Move the latest copy of your resume into that folder and name it “MyNameResume”. Substitute your full name for “MyName”.
3. Move the latest copy of your cover letter into that folder and name it “MyNameCover”. Substitute your full name for “MyName”.
4. Move the latest copy of your follow-up letter into that folder and name it “MyNameFollowup”. Substitute your full name for “MyName”.
5. Move the latest copy of your thank you letter into that folder and name it “MyNameThankYou”. Substitute your full name for “MyName”.
6. You now have an arsenal of job search follow-up weapons in the folder. Now it’s time to create 3-key shortcuts to them.

What is a 3-Key Shortcut?
A 3-key shortcut is a computer task that automatically executes when you press 3 keys simultaneously. In XP Shortcut, the first two keys are always Control and Alt, so you only need to program and remember a single key for each shortcut.

Creating 3-key shortcuts to templates

1. First, be sure XP Shortcut is running. You should see a lightning bolt in the system tray at the bottom right of your screen. If not, start the program by clicking on the desktop icon.
2. Right-click the system tray icon and select “Open”. This invokes the Setup Screen.
3. From the drop-down menu, select the shortcut key you want. For this example, we will select C, for Cover Letter.
4. Click the “File Browse” button. In the drop-down screen, navigate to the cover letter file.
5. Click “Open” to select.
6. Click “Accept” to confirm the shortcut. That’s it!
7. Whenever you want to launch your cover letter, press Control+Alt+C simultaneously.
8. Program the other files similarly. You will not only have an arsenal of job search weapons, but you will also now have a means for rapid deployment.

Our next step will show you how to integrate the speed of Job Search Shortcuts into a powerful and efficient job search workflow.

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!
 

• 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!