Fit a Job Search Into the Hours You Have Beside a Full-Time Job — Free
Searching for work while employed is a scheduling problem that everyone solves badly: 14 hours of tasks are planned into a week with five, the applications slip, and by Friday the search has become a source of guilt rather than progress. This card takes the tasks and the hours you actually have, scales every block proportionally, prints the start offset for each, and shows the trimming you are agreeing to before the week starts.
The proof surface
Free path: the card computes locally in the browser with no key and no account. Where an AI step helps, any free chat assistant works — Google AI Studio's free tier and Groq's free tier were both no-card and rate-limited when this page was reviewed on 2026-09-13 (limits change; check before you rely on them).
Why the flat version breaks
A job-search to-do list has no clock in it, so 'apply to three roles' sits beside 'rework the CV' as if they cost the same. Attaching minutes to each task and dividing by the hours you actually have turns a list into a week, and shows immediately which task is the one that will not happen.
How to use the job search week card in four passes
A tailored application is 45 to 60 minutes, a networking message with a real line in it is 10, a portfolio case study is 90. The card can only scale what you measure honestly.
Six hours across a working week is realistic. Plan against that and the week succeeds; plan against twelve and by Thursday the whole search feels like a failure.
A search that consumes every evening stops by week three. Give the rest a row and a number so the scaling protects it along with everything else.
A deadline at work, a sick child or an interview changes the budget. Change the minutes and re-file — a plan you revise weekly is a search that keeps going.
SAMPLE DATA, NOT A VERIFIED CLAIM: Week of 5 Oct 2026 · 470 minutes of tasks against 360 available · three applications at 50 minutes each · portfolio case study 90 · four networking messages 40. Replace these values with your own source before you rely on anything.
What breaks first
Listing applications as one row
Three applications at 50 minutes each is 150, and writing 'apply to jobs' as a single 30-minute row is how the week fails. One row per application, or one row with the real total.
Planning the search around motivation
Motivation is not a resource with a number attached. Minutes are. A block that has been scaled to fit an evening you actually have gets done; one that needs an energy you do not have does not.
Leaving out the follow-up
Logging applications and chasing the ones that went quiet is 20 to 45 minutes a week and it is where the interviews come from. It belongs on the card, not in your head.
What you pay otherwise
| The usual route | What it leaves out | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A job-search coach | They build the same week plan with you, on their hourly rate | a session fee per fortnight |
| A premium job-board subscription | Alerts and a featured profile, not a schedule | a monthly fee |
| An unplanned search alongside full-time work | Applications drift, follow-ups lapse and the search quietly stops by week three | months of runway |
| This page + the free job search week card | Computed in your tab, result on screen before you type anything | $0 |
Try the free job search week card
Seven job-search tasks totalling 470 minutes are already scaled into a 360-minute week, with the trimming percentage printed on the tab. Raise the budget to 480 and every block returns to its full length.
Open the free job search week card →Keep the work if you will use it again
Every block, the scaling, the start offsets and the trimming figure, plus copy and share-link, with no account.
The on-screen result is free and repeatable forever. The one-time tier adds a tangible file you keep and the saved history that comes with it; it never removes or degrades the free result.
Boundary: This plans the minutes you enter; it is not careers advice, it cannot tell you which roles to apply for, and it does not guarantee an outcome. Check any recruiter's or employer's process against their own published information, and take regulated careers advice for a decision that changes your finances.