With five applications, everything fits in your head. With thirty, the trouble starts: a recruiter writes "we spoke last week" and you remember neither the company nor the salary you named. A tracker solves exactly that. It doesn't find you a job; it stops you from losing the one you've almost got.
This is part 3 of the series. In part 2 we set up job sources; now they need a home. How the tracker fits into a weekly search rhythm is covered in the article on automating the job search.
What every tracker needs
Whatever tool you use, the minimum set of fields is the same:
- company, role, link to the posting (plus a copy of the text, because postings disappear);
- date applied and source (Djinni, LinkedIn, referral);
- status: saved, applied, screening, technical, final, offer, rejected;
- contact (recruiter, name, channel);
- the salary you named;
- which CV version you sent;
- next step and its date.
The last two matter most. The CV version lets you talk in the interview about what you actually sent. The next-step date keeps an application from quietly dying.
A spreadsheet: Google Sheets or Notion
For most people this is the best start. Free, flexible, no limits.
- Google Sheets. Columns for the fields above, a dropdown for status, conditional formatting on the next-step date. Bonus: a sheet is easy to connect to an AI assistant, see part 7.
- Notion. A database with a kanban view by status. The Notion gallery has plenty of "job tracker" templates, but building your own takes 15 minutes and is easier than learning someone else's.
- Trello. Columns as statuses, cards as jobs. It works, but fields and filters are weaker.
The downside of a spreadsheet: it is all manual. Copy the posting, paste the link, change the status.
Dedicated trackers
| Tool | What it does | Price (November 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Huntr | Application kanban, one-click save extension, AI tailoring of CVs and letters | Free: up to 100 jobs, 2 tailored CVs. Paid: 40 dollars a month, 90 for 3 months, 160 for 6 months |
| Teal | Tracker, CV builder, CV-to-job matching, Chrome extension | Tracker and basic builder are free. Teal+ is paid, check the current price on the vendor's site |
| Simplify | Copilot extension autofills application forms and logs them to a tracker | Copilot is free. Simplify+ is paid, check the current price on the vendor's site |
| Careerflow | Tracker, AI tools for CV and LinkedIn | Free plan, Premium is paid, check the current price on the vendor's site |
A few honest notes:
- The main value of these tools is the browser extension. Open a job on LinkedIn or a company site, click a button, and the posting with its text is in your tracker. That genuinely saves time.
- Form autofill (Simplify) is useful for the boring fields: name, GitHub link, experience. But write answers to questions like "why do you want to work here" yourself. Template answers are obvious.
- "Auto-apply" features in some paid plans are something we don't recommend. We explain why in part 1 and part 7.
- Pay only for the active search period. Look at weekly and quarterly plans, and remember to cancel when you get the job.
- All these tools are English-first and built around the US market. Their extensions may work worse with Djinni and DOU than with LinkedIn. Test on the free plan.
Pipeline hygiene
A tracker only works if you use it. A few habits that make the difference:
- A 10-minute daily review. What has a next step today? Who do you owe a reply?
- Follow up after 5 to 7 working days of silence after an application or interview. One short, polite message, two at most.
- Close dead applications. No reply in 3 to 4 weeks, mark it "no response". The pipeline should show reality, not hope.
- Write down interview questions right after the call. A week later you won't remember them. Those questions become your prep plan: test yourself on ShortLesson interview questions and open the matching cheat sheet.
- Look at the numbers once a week. How many applications, how many replies, how many technical rounds. If 30 applications got zero replies, the problem is your CV or your choice of jobs, and part 4 is for you.
Our advice
Start with a spreadsheet. If after two weeks copying postings by hand annoys you, install the free plan of Huntr or Teal for the extension. Pay only when a specific paid feature saves you hours every week.
