The Job Search That Existed Mostly in Google Docs

Angela Ferraro, thirty eight, Providence, Rhode Island, got laid off in the spring and spent the next four months doing what she called "job searching," which upon closer inspection consisted of eight different versions of her resume, three different templates for a cover letter she never sent, and one truly beautiful color coded spreadsheet tracking companies she was "interested in," a spreadsheet with forty seven rows and two actual applications submitted. She had, in effect, built the infrastructure of a job search without doing the job search.

Her desire was straightforward, get hired somewhere that didn't make her want to cry in the parking lot. The external problem was forty seven prospects and two applications in four months, a conversion rate that would get anyone fired from an actual sales job. The internal problem was fear dressed up as preparation, every hour spent perfecting font choices on a resume was an hour not spent risking an actual rejection, and rejection, it turned out, was the real thing Angela was avoiding, not unemployment. Philosophically it frustrated her because she'd spent fifteen years telling other people, as a manager, to just submit the work and iterate, and here she was hiding behind a spreadsheet like it was a fortress. The villain was perfectionism wearing a productivity costume, convincing her that one more resume tweak was progress when it was actually just a very organized form of hiding.

Her coach spotted it in the first conversation. Not a resume problem, an avoidance problem with excellent formatting. The coach asked how many actual "submit" buttons she'd clicked that month, and when the answer was one, there was no mercy about the eight resume drafts anymore, that just became evidence of the avoidance, not proof of effort.

The plan required five applications a week, no exceptions, using whichever resume version was sitting open at the time, because the coach banned further "improvements" until the volume caught up. Daily check-ins asked for a number, not a feeling, how many submitted today, and Angela couldn't hide behind "I'm working on my materials" past week one.

Ten weeks later Angela had submitted sixty two applications, landed nine interviews, and accepted an offer that pays better than her old job. She kept exactly one version of that resume. The other seven live in a folder she says she'll "clean up eventually," which, given her history, everyone including Angela finds extremely funny.

If your job search has more spreadsheets than submissions, a coach that demands the number instead of the polish is the fastest way back to work.