This is the detail page behind the free job tracker. It covers why a board beats a spreadsheet, every field and stage, how to use it day to day, and how to pair it with tailored resumes.
Free account for downloads. No credit card. No watermark.
A spreadsheet is a fine place to start. Company, role, date applied, status, a link. For the first handful of applications it works, and there is no shortage of free Google Sheets templates for it. The trouble starts somewhere around application twenty or thirty, which is exactly when people go looking for something else. As of September 2026, threads with titles like How do you keep track of 30+ job applications without losing your mind? on r/jobsearch and How do people keep track of 30 to 50 job applications? on r/resumes keep appearing.
The problem is not the sheet, it is that a sheet is a list. To know what needs doing today you have to read every row. A board answers that at a glance: what is waiting on you, what is waiting on them, and what is finished. A follow-up belongs on the job itself, not in a separate calendar. The recruiter's name belongs next to the role, not in an email search. And the resume you actually sent should be one click from the card, so you can reread it before the phone screen.
That is what the SmoothApply tracker does. It is a small, focused tool rather than a CRM, and it is free because it is part of the same account that holds your resumes and cover letters.
Everything below is on the free plan. There is no premium tier of the tracker.
Drag cards between columns on the board, or switch to the list view when you want to scan many jobs at once. Both views show the same data.
Seven default stages: Bookmarked, Saved, Applied, Phone Screen, Interview, Offer and Rejected. Rename any of them, change the color, or add your own, such as Take-home Test or Final Round.
Company, role, the posting link and where you found it, a salary range marked yearly, monthly or hourly, location plus remote, hybrid or on-site, a contact name and email, the date you applied, and free-form notes.
Add a date, a time and a message to any job. Open the job and the reminder is listed on its detail panel until you delete it.
Choose which saved resume and cover letter you sent for each job. When the recruiter calls, the exact version they are reading is one click away, not buried in a downloads folder.
Select several jobs at once to archive or delete them. Archived jobs leave the board but stay in your account, and you can restore any of them later.
See how many jobs sit in each stage, how many you added each week over the last 8 weeks, and your response rate, meaning the share of applied jobs that have moved to another stage since you applied.
Download every job as a CSV for Excel or Google Sheets, including the current stage and applied date. Each job also keeps a log of when it was created, moved or archived.
| Stage | What goes here |
|---|---|
| Bookmarked | A posting you spotted and might apply to. No commitment yet. |
| Saved | You have decided to apply and are preparing a resume for it. |
| Applied | Submitted. Set the applied date here so the stats page can count it in your response rate. |
| Phone Screen | A recruiter call is booked or done. Put the recruiter's name and email on the card. |
| Interview | Any round after the screen. Use notes for interviewer names and questions they asked. |
| Offer | A written or verbal offer. Record the numbers in the salary fields so you can compare. |
| Rejected | Closed. Archive these after a while to keep the board readable. |
Sign up, verify your email, then go to smoothapply.com/my/tracker. The seven default stages are created for you on the first visit. Nothing to install and no card to enter.
Company and role are the only required fields. Paste the posting link and note the source, whether that was LinkedIn, a referral or the company site, so later you remember where it came from.
Drag from Saved to Applied when you submit and set the applied date. Drag to Phone Screen when the recruiter writes back. Each move is logged on the job, so you can see how long each step took.
Open the job, add a reminder for about a week after you applied with a message like "nudge the recruiter". Open the job and the reminder sits on its detail panel. Delete it once you have sent the email.
In the job's detail panel, pick the resume and cover letter from your account that went with this application. Interviewers ask about the document in front of them, so you want to be looking at the same one.
Open the stats page, look at the weekly count and the response rate, archive applications that have gone quiet, and export a CSV if you want a backup or a chart of your own.
A tracker earns its keep when the resume attached to each card is the one you actually tailored for that job. SmoothApply is a resume builder first, so the two are connected: every resume saved in your account shows up in a dropdown on every job.
Import what you already have. Upload a PDF, a DOCX or even a photo of a printed resume at the import page and the builder turns it into an editable document. There are separate guides for LinkedIn profile PDFs, Indeed resumes and PDFs you need back in Word.
Tailor it per job. The free plan includes 25 AI credits for actions such as tailor to job and job match analysis. Paste the posting, get a version that speaks to it, save it as its own resume (you can keep up to 20 per account), and link it to the card.
Download without a watermark. PDF and DOCX downloads are unlimited and free, so the version you link is also the file you send. If an application form wants pasted text instead, there is a plain text export too.
Write the cover letter in the same place. The cover letter builder is free, and the tracker lets you link a cover letter next to the resume on each job.
Check it before you send. The free ATS checker runs an 11-point scan on any resume, no account needed.