I just finished my job search, and I'd agree with this strongly. I started used Trello for organizing my job applications, but I soon realized there was no point. Companies that wanted to talk to me responded to my initial application with a week or two, while companies that didn't weren't influenced by any kind of followup communication.
After sending out about a hundred applications, I found I had no control over the process, so there was no reason to track it. Instead, I spent that time working on my own projects and going to meetups to find out about live job openings and show off my stuff. The job application system at most places is badly broken and HR and recruiters don't seem to know or care enough to fix it, so it's better to circumvent through some kind of personal connection.
I strongly agree with the comments about doing your own projects and going to meetups. When I began to just submit applications and then stop thinking about them, it freed up much more time to actually do programming. This in turn made me feel more productive and allowed me to learn new things, which is a big source of happiness for me. The compounding positive effects from sort of tuning out the noisy signals from HR staff and recruiters and putting energy into what I love (programming and math) has made me feel much more positive about my job search overall.
Any time I have a day where there's just nothing good to apply to, or I don't hear back from anyone, I just tune it all out and write some code and it helps me feel much better.
I can agree with this too. Recently found a job after 50+ applications. I started with heavily tracking them, but in the end I lost the care in doing it. When a potential lead called me up it was to arrange an interview and so as soon as I got their details, a quick search of the company name in my Gmail revealed what I'd actually applied for.
If you're planning on writing something like this, perhaps a tool for the flip side would be better, i.e. an applicant tracker for organisations (although these do already exist).
Ditto. I'm in the midst of my own longer-than-expected job search and was elaborately tracking until I realized that past a 1 week horizon was a waste of effort.
After sending out about a hundred applications, I found I had no control over the process, so there was no reason to track it. Instead, I spent that time working on my own projects and going to meetups to find out about live job openings and show off my stuff. The job application system at most places is badly broken and HR and recruiters don't seem to know or care enough to fix it, so it's better to circumvent through some kind of personal connection.