The Ultimate Guide to Landing Your First Software Engineering Job at a Tech Startup: Update Your Jobs Database

Update your Jobs Database to make it your assistant through the hiring process.

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In my previous post, we discussed how to start creating your Jobs Database.

Your Jobs Database is the place where you can store your job applications. With that, you can organize all the information about companies, roles, and everything you need for your interview preparation. This is essential to get to the interview ready and, possibly, transform a *yes* into a *strong yes*.

But that’s not the only purpose of your Jobs Database.

Your Jobs Database should always be up-to-date and be your main resource for the entire hiring process with a company. As already mentioned, each page represents a single job application, which should be updated as the hiring process proceeds. 

In this post, I will explain how to update your Jobs Database during the hiring process.

Update Structure

After each hiring process step, you should also update the related page of your Jobs Database.

Each step is different, and every company has a different hiring process. Each step has its characteristics and will give you various information. For this reason, it is important to structure your updates using a simple schema.

I like to keep it as simple as possible; here is the structure I used in my last job search:

• Current Step Number / Total Steps Number

• Status

• Date

• Name of the step

• Questions And Answers

• Action Items

Current Step Number / Total Steps Number

This is essential information to track your progress in that application.

It is crucial to know the exact number of steps necessary to finish the hiring process. If the entire process consists of four steps and you have completed the first interview, you would write 1/4. This will also give you an idea of progress during the process.

After the last step of the process, this field should be 4/4.

Status

This field is essential for dividing the applications depending on their situation.

In your job search, you will see multiple applications with different statuses. An application can be in one of the following statuses:

• Sent: Since you sent the application, no interview has been conducted, and we are waiting for a response.

• In Progress: You are in the middle of interviews. I will also use this status when the first interview is scheduled.

• Rejected: When the application was rejected, if I did some steps and was rejected after some interviews, or if my application was rejected. I also consider an application rejected after a month with no answers.

Searching for active applications and dividing them from the others is crucial.

Date

Once again, tracking dates is essential to understand how long your hiring process lasts.

Dates are an essential tool during your [[job search]]. After a while, you will collect multiple job applications, and tracking them using dates for each step will help you understand the timing of the entire process. Waiting for an answer can give you the wrong impression of time passing; dates can help you avoid this.

Save the dates of every step of the hiring process.

Name Of Step

Give the step a name or a short description to clarify who you spoke with.

An HR representative? An engineer? An engineering manager or a C-level?

Each has different characteristics and might lead to a completely different interview. I will write a dedicated post on the basic interview process.

Questions And Answers

Interviews are about questions and answers.

You want to save your answers to check later if they were correct. After each interview, especially the technical ones, I like to search the web to ensure I give the most complete answers. This is useful for learning and improving. Interviews are a learning opportunity.

Save their answers to your questions.

When you ask questions, you need to save their answers. This will create a basic profile of the company and the role itself. All their answers will give you a better idea of the company’s culture.

When you need to make a decision, you’ll want to have as much information as possible.

Action Items

What happens next?

At the end of the interview, ensure you leave with some action items. Ask about the next step and write down how to prepare for that. You can’t leave the interview without a clear idea of what will happen next.

Understand the next steps and what you should do before the next step.

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