Job application tracker template

Twelve columns, a fixed set of status values and a next-follow-up date. It is a plain CSV, so it opens in Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers, and there is no email form in front of it.

The columns are the ones the two template pages ranking for this search both treat as the core of the sheet, plus the follow-up date that the one with a follow-up tab treats as its point. Below: how to set it up, how to keep it honest, and where a sheet stops helping.

How do I track my job applications?

One row per application, written the day you send it. That is the whole method, and both template pages that rank for this search are built on it: a sheet you fill in, and a short page explaining the columns.

The row is worth more than it looks. Postings get taken down, portals go quiet, and a month in you will not remember whether you applied to a company or only meant to. The sheet is the one record of your search that you own; each applicant tracking system you apply through keeps its own, and none of them shows you all of it.

Fill in the row before you close the tab: company, role, the posting address, the date, and a follow-up date. The rest can wait for the reply.

Which columns should a job application tracker have?

The template page with the longest column discussion calls eight essential: company, job title, job link, salary, contact, status, date applied and deadline. It lists six more as optional: employment type, location, interview stage, notes, whether you are interested, and whether it is a good match. Google’s own summary of the topic reduces it to five things: basic info, links, status, contacts, notes.

Our twelve are the eight essentials, two of the optional ones that earn their place (location and notes), and two dates: the next interview and the next follow-up. The three we dropped — interested, good match, employment type — are judgments you make once and never sort by. Columns you never sort by are columns you stop filling in.

If you add anything, add the field you find yourself typing into Notes twice.

How do I make a job search spreadsheet in Google Sheets?

From the CSV, three steps. Open a blank Google Sheet, choose File, then Import, and upload the file; Sheets accepts .csv and offers to create a new spreadsheet or replace the current sheet.

Then make Status a dropdown. Select the Status column, choose Insert, then Dropdown (or Data, then Data validation, then Add rule), and enter the seven values: Saved, Applied, In review, Interviewing, Offer, Rejected, Withdrawn. A dropdown is what lets you filter to everything still open, which is the view you will use most.

Last, make overdue follow-ups visible. That is the next question.

How do I track interview dates and follow-ups in a sheet?

Two date columns do different jobs. Interview date is a fact someone else gave you. Next follow-up is a promise to yourself: the day you will write, or move the row to Withdrawn, if nothing has happened.

To make the overdue ones stand out, select the Next follow-up column, choose Format, then Conditional formatting, pick Custom formula, and enter =AND($I2<>"", $I2<TODAY()) (column I is Next follow-up if you kept the CSV’s order). Rows whose follow-up date has passed change colour; rows with no date do not.

Sort the sheet by that column each morning and the top of it is the day’s list. When you act on a row, move the date forward or change its status; a follow-up date in the past with an open status is the one state the sheet should never be in overnight.

How can I track my job application status?

Your Status column is a copy of what the employer’s system shows you, plus the two states it never will: before you applied, and after you walked away. That is why the seven values are Saved, Applied, In review, Interviewing, Offer, Rejected and Withdrawn. Applied, In review, Interviewing and Offer are the words Greenhouse shows candidates in its own portal, so a row can be updated straight from the screen; Rejected stands where Greenhouse shows “Application closed”. Saved and Withdrawn are ours.

What a portal’s status word actually means depends on which system the employer runs and what that employer chose to show. The guide to ATS application status by system covers how to tell Workday, Greenhouse and Lever apart from the address bar and what each one’s words are worth. Copy the status into the sheet; do not read more into it than that page says you can.

Is there a free job tracker available?

Yes, and you should not have to give an email address for one. The CSV at the top of this page is free, and so are the two Google Sheets templates that ranked alongside it when we checked: both link straight to a shared Google Sheet, no form in front. The one template page we found behind an email form ranked below both of them.

A spreadsheet is free in the other sense too: nothing in the twelve columns needs a formula beyond the one conditional-formatting rule above.

When does a spreadsheet stop being enough?

When the row is no longer the record. A sheet records that you applied; it does not record what you answered, and the same screening question comes back on the next form. A pace that fills the sheet quickly also raises the question the sheet cannot answer, which is whether more rows are helping — see how many jobs to apply for for what has been measured on that.

RoleInbox is an AI job application assistant that keeps that record for you. Each application it prepares is drawn from facts you entered, and each one it sends leaves a receipt in an append-only ledger: when it went, to which employer, and what was submitted. It submits to Greenhouse. There are three modes — Self serve, AI assist and Auto — and in the first two nothing is sent until you press submit; that is what supervised auto-apply means here. Auto-apply vs supervised sets out the difference; how it works covers the rest.