Scheduling yourself during a job search
Being laid off was an incredibly disorienting experience. I’ve been ruled by my calendar as long as I’ve been a professional. For years, I’ve look at my calendar every night, and dedicate a substantial chunk of time at the end of the week to color code and reorganize the week ahead. (I do manage to have fun with it in a session I call Cleanup and Cocktails - more on that later!)
During my job hunt I would open up my calendar on Sunday nights and would feel panic in my whole body. Looking at my calendar at the end of the week would reveal a fairly lean schedule. But that would (thankfully) change as the week got underway. As the weeks progressed, developing a little playbook for and a rhythm for my week, assuaged my panic.
If you’d like a playbook, I’d recommend this one (it worked for my 101 leads and finding a job in 42 days)
My tools
The flow of my week
Weekend + Mondays : Research and Prep
In all my years of customer service, Mondays would typically be the most frantic day. Everyone is trying to tackle that urgent thing they thought of over the weekend! Instead of adding to the noise and ending up at the bottom of people’s to do lists, I would use Mondays to set myself up for success.
This included researching companies and roles, adding them to my spreadsheet (linked above), putting blocks on my calendar to tackle time sensitive tasks etc.
💡 Helpful tip: Assign priority to the companies and roles you’re interested in. The act of doing this allowed me to prioritize and focus my outreaches and applications to companies I cared about most. Plus, you can always change the priority as you start conversations.
Weekdays : Network, Outreach, Interview
Since job hunting is now your full time job, you have to treat it as such. I certainly had Netflix binge days, but my most productive days went something like:
8 - 10 am : Protected self time (taking the kid to school, getting in a workout, doing morning pages all happened in this time)
10 am - 4 pm : Reserved for phone calls
this is the slot I allowed booking through calendly and would typically take any interviews. I would also make it a point to try to catch up with friend while taking a walk (hello squad!)4 - 5 pm : End of day wrap up and prep
Jot down any notes from my notebook into my job tracker. Update the stage of any prospects based on the emails, Linkedin messages etc. that came in through the day.
As much as I tried to draw boundaries, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t doom scroll or reach out to people outside of the core working hours. However, having this structure and scheduling things for myself definitely ensured that I was being my most productive self during normal “work hours”.
Thursdays + Fridays: Final Rounds
I noticed a lot of my manager and final interview rounds tended to be on Thursdays and Fridays. Whenever possible, I’d front load my week with recruiter screens, so that there were big blocks of time for end of week “onsites”
I hope some of this is helpful and adds a sense of calm to your search.
I’d love to hear if you found this framework helpful or if you’d add anything to this list.
