Reduce job search overwhelm with a task batching schedule

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:00:38]: Today, I have a really practical tip that is going to help you be more strategic and save a ton of time in your job search and, hopefully, be a little less stressed. So how are you going to do that? It’s called batching. Now I’m gonna give you some really practical tips for how to batch things in your job search. However, before we dive into this, I wanna remind you that these are just examples, and you kind of have to take this approach that I’m giving you and figure out how to adapt it so it works best for you. Because the truth is, with any tips, any advice that you receive, you really have to ask yourself, okay, how do I take the spirit of what this person is telling me and adapt it to how I know I work best, how my brain works, etcetera. So batching. What the heck is batching? If you’re not familiar with it, batching is essentially taking tasks that you need to do and grouping a bunch of similar tasks so you do them all at once. And the spirit behind that is that if you focus on a set of similar tasks all at once, that’s going to help you stay focused and build momentum for that specific thing you are doing.

Sarah Doody [00:02:22]: Right? Because we know that when we switch between tasks, there is a lot of context shifting that causes us to potentially be distracted, to lose momentum, to lose motivation. And so that is batching in a nutshell. Now if we think of all of the tasks in a job search, and, of course, there are many, what are some of the big ones? Right? Well, there’s the process of, first of all, like, updating all of your, what I call, career career materials, your resume, your LinkedIn, etcetera. Right? That is one type of task. Then there is the task of finding jobs to apply to. After that, there is the applying to jobs. And if you’re strategic, you are tailoring your resume for every job you apply to. Cover letter too, if you have a cover letter.

Sarah Doody [00:03:29]: Then, of course, there is the task of following up after you apply. Right? There’s also tasks of trying to do activities that increase your visibility, specifically on LinkedIn because that’s where a lot of people who are involved in hiring hang out. And so if we were to take just those tasks, and, of course, there are many others, but let’s focus on these ones. Batching might look like the following. So maybe Mondays are your days for finding jobs, and maybe Wednesdays are your days to tailor your resume, your cover letter, etcetera to that set of jobs that you want to apply to, say, that week. Then maybe Thursday is your day that you are applying for jobs. And then maybe Friday is a day when you’re dedicating it to networking or engaging. That might mean messaging people on LinkedIn or replying to comments or posting your own posts, etcetera.

Sarah Doody [00:04:49]: That is just kind of one schedule that you could follow for batching your tasks in your job search. Of course this does not have to be a weekly thing. You could adapt this so it’s more looking at things from a monthly cadence. So maybe the 1st week of every month you’re focusing on finding jobs and you’re focusing on tailoring your resume and cover letter to those jobs. Maybe the 2nd week of the month, you are applying to those jobs. Maybe the 3rd week of the month, you’re really focusing on engaging on LinkedIn. And maybe the 4th week of the month, you’re dedicating to strategic follow-up on jobs you applied to, you know, earlier that month and potentially the month prior to that. So the benefits of job searching are, like I said, helps you stay focused, it helps you keep momentum, and it helps you get less distracted.

Sarah Doody [00:05:53]: Right? Because if you find a job you want to apply to, and then you spend time updating your resume for that job, and then you apply to that job, and then you follow-up about that job. That’s one way to do it. But then, let’s say tomorrow or the next day, you find another job. It’s very easy for all of those additional tasks beyond just applying to those jobs. It’s very easy for you to get distracted because if you’re writing, say, 5 cover letters in a row or tailoring 5 of your resumes all in one sit down, chances are you are gonna be more strategic in creating more effective resumes and cover letters, because you’re kind of, like, in the zone of doing that. Right? And what you do for one job, you might think, okay. I just wrote x y z 20 minutes ago. I can reuse that for the cover letter I’m tailoring now.

Sarah Doody [00:07:00]: So that’s the beauty of batching. It gets you in the zone, keeps you focused, etcetera. So if you’ve not tried batching, I really recommend that you try this for your job search. And and like I said, this could mean you’re making a weekly schedule or a monthly schedule. But here is the thing. If you really want to stick to this schedule, you have to get it on your calendar. So I recommend literally creating meetings on your calendar that are serving as reminders to yourself so that you don’t allow other things to get scheduled over these very important tasks in your job search. Right? So if you’re creating these meeting invites for yourself to batch certain tasks, and in essence, you’re really protecting your calendar, so you don’t let other things take priority.

Sarah Doody [00:08:00]: This is gonna help you be more accountable to yourself, which I know everyone wants more accountability in their job search because everyone asks me if I’ll hold them accountable. And this is one way you can hold yourself accountable by taking ownership of your calendar and batching out these tasks in your job search. The other reason it’s really great to put this on your calendar is that it helps remind you of these very impactful things that can make a difference. Right? Such as tailoring that resume, tailoring the cover letter, scheduling time to remember to follow-up, etcetera. And I promise you, if you commit to this and just try it for 30 days, I think you’re going to feel some of this overwhelm, some of this hopelessness, some of this despair, and kinda out of control feeling that you have about your job search. I think this is going to help turn the volume down on all of those feelings because you’re gonna have clarity about what to do, when to do it. And like I said, if you are sitting down and tailoring 5 resumes in a row or 5 cover letters in a row, you’re gonna be in the groove of resumes and cover letters. And so, you can borrow what you did for, like, cover letter 12 when you get to 45.

Sarah Doody [00:09:32]: Right? So batching, super effective, and, of course, this applies to many scenarios outside of your job search too. When you are in a role, whether that’s next week, next month, you can apply this concept of batching to how you approach your day to day role, whatever you’re doing. So I hope this gives you some really actionable things you can do to take control of your job search and maybe do this. If you have a friend who is constantly asking you for advice about their job search or complaining about how hard it is, hit pause right now, copy the link to this episode, and send it to them. Because I betcha they are not batching their job search, which is one of the reasons why it might be stressing them out and taking longer than it needs to. Alright. That’s all for today. Hope you found this helpful.

Sarah Doody [00:10:30]: And one more thing, if you enjoy these episodes, let me know. The best way to do that is let me know on social media or give this podcast a rating. Hit pause and whether you’re in Spotify or Apple or anywhere else, give us a quick rating and that helps us know you appreciate this content and it helps other people hear about this because the more ratings we have, the more, we get visibility in the charts and things. And that’s how more people hear about the podcast. Alright. That’s all for today, my friend. I will talk to you next week. See you later.

Sarah Doody [00:11:09]: Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.