The Hidden Cost of Manual Job Applications and How to Reclaim Your Time
If applying to jobs feels like a second full-time job, you’re not imagining it.
According to a 2023 survey by Jobvite, the average job seeker spends between 7 to 10 hours per week on applications alone. That doesn’t include time spent prepping for interviews, scrolling through job boards, or updating documents. That’s nearly 40 hours a month of repetitive admin tasks: copying and pasting information, uploading the same resume over and over, resetting passwords, and re-answering “What makes you a good fit for this role?”
We don’t talk enough about how much this wears people down. The mental fatigue is real. The productivity loss is measurable. And the opportunity cost? Huge.
Let’s break it down
- Repetition eats time. Filling out the same forms across different platforms doesn’t make you more strategic — it just drains your energy.
- Burnout sets in early. Most people don’t stop job searching because they aren’t qualified — they stop because they’re exhausted from the process.
- Tracking becomes chaos. When you’re applying manually, it’s easy to lose track of where you’ve applied, when you applied, or what version of your resume you used. That leads to missed opportunities and duplicate applications.
So how do you reclaim your time?
- Create a complete job profile with your resume, work history, and preferences — and even build multiple profiles to tailor your applications for different roles (e.g., marketing manager, analyst, educator)
- Apply to jobs with a single click on platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed. Our Multapply Chrome Extension takes this a step further by applying to multiple jobs in a single click with our auto-apply feature.
- Track every application through a clean dashboard, where you can update your status as things progress — interviewed, rejected, waiting, etc.You can use a google doc or spreadsheet for this.
Why this matters
Time is the one thing you can’t afford to waste — especially when you’re trying to change your life. Every hour you save applying to jobs manually is an hour you can use to:
- Prep for interviews
- Connect with people who can refer you
- Research the companies that are the right fit
- Take care of your mental health
- Spend time doing something that makes you feel like yourself again
You don’t get hired for being the fastest copy-paster. You get hired when you’re the most prepared, the most consistent, and the most visible.
If you’re still job searching the hard way, maybe it’s time to try out job automation tools.