A job search that works: the week by week version
7 minute read · Updated 2026-09-01
The most common job search is fifty applications a week, no replies, and a slow loss of confidence. Volume feels like effort, which is why people do it, and it produces the worst results of any approach. Here is what actually works, in the order to do it.
Week one: decide what you are applying for
Write down the job title you want, two you would also take, and the maximum commute you will actually do in February. Vagueness is what makes a search feel endless. If you can only describe what you want as "anything", every advert is a maybe and none of them gets a proper application.
Then build the CV once, properly: the guide is here. One good CV that you tailor slightly beats six templates.
Week one: set the traps
Do the work once and let it run:
- Job alerts on this board and one or two others, for your titles and your town. Ours are free and stop with one click.
- A list of fifteen local employers you would work for, whether or not they are advertising. In driving, care, construction and hospitality, a lot of hiring never reaches an advert.
- Tell people. The single highest yielding action in most searches is telling twenty people you know that you are looking, and being specific about what for.
Every week: the ratio that matters
Aim for five to eight properly targeted applications a week, not fifty. Targeted means you have read the advert, your covering note refers to something in it, and your CV puts the thing they asked for near the top. A well aimed application is perhaps ten times more likely to get a reply than a copied one, and it takes about fifteen minutes.
Track them on one sheet: job, employer, date, and what happened. Not for tidiness, but so that in week four you can see which sort of application gets answered, and do more of that.
Week two: follow up once
Five to seven working days after applying, one short email to the person named on the advert. "I applied for the X role on Tuesday, I'm still very interested, and I'm available for an interview any afternoon this week." Once. Not three times. It moves your name to the top of the pile at the moment a shortlist is being drawn up, and a surprising number of interviews come from it.
Week four: change one thing, not everything
If you have had no replies at all after twenty targeted applications, the problem is nearly always one of three things, and they are easy to test one at a time:
- The CV is not passing the first ten seconds. Move the licences, tickets and headline experience to the top third of page one.
- You are aiming a level too high. Apply to five roles one step below your target and see whether the response rate changes.
- The job title you are searching is not the one employers use. Try the alternatives: warehouse operative and picker, care assistant and support worker, HGV and LGV and Class 1.
Protect yourself while you look
No legitimate UK employer asks a candidate to pay a fee for work finding services, for training before a job starts, or for a DBS check up front. Charging a work seeker is unlawful. Nobody needs your bank details or your passport before an offer. If you see it in an advert on this site, report it and it comes down the same working day.
And the part nobody writes down
Looking for work is tiring in a way the hours do not explain, because most of the feedback is silence. Set a finish time. Two focused hours a day beats eight distracted ones, and it leaves you able to be good in an interview when one comes. If money is the immediate problem, check what you are entitled to at gov.uk and speak to Citizens Advice, free, before things tighten further.
Search the board, or set an alert and let the adverts come to you.