Using a Kanban Board for Your Job Search

Kanban is a visual workflow system originally developed in Japanese manufacturing. Cards represent units of work and move through columns representing stages of completion. Software teams use it to ship features. You can use it to ship job applications.

Create a column for each stage of your job search: Saved, Applied, Phone Screen, Interview, Offer. Each job application is a card. Move it right as you progress. At a glance, you can see where everything stands and what needs attention.

Kanban forces you to confront bottlenecks. If you have 40 applications in "Applied" and nothing in "Phone Screen", that's a signal your resume or cover letter needs work, not more applications. The visual format makes patterns visible that a list never would.