Copy And Paste Your Information Before Submitting A Job Application

The worst part of job hunting is an online application that requires you to re-enter your information — after you’ve already uploaded your damn resume. It’s a waste of time, and yet, you’re expected to spend half an hour writing down information that’s already available to those employers.

Before you fill out your next application, let Redditor u/aerdon offer a simple piece of advice for your sanity: On any form that requires you to write several long answers, always copy that text and paste it elsewhere in the event you hit the “back” button by accident, the “submit” option doesn’t work or your internet just gives out.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/10/craft-the-perfect-business-resume-with-this-cheat-sheet-infographic/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/11/ResumeCreator-410×231.jpg” title=”Improve Your Resume With This Online Cheat Sheet” excerpt=”A good resume should be able to fit your work history, education and contact details onto a single page (two pages max.) Despite the brevity, there’s still a lot that can go wrong. This infographic from job seeker site Eapplicants looks at some common pitfalls to avoid along with suggested action verbs to help your resume stand out from the crowd.”]

“I had an online job application form,” u/pandrewbear22 writes of his experience. “Didn’t copy and paste it to a Word doc. Webpage crashed, lost everything. This happened twice before I copied it… I’m an idiot for not learning faster.”

I, too, have learned this the hard way. Aside from saving you in a bind, copying and pasting your text elsewhere also gives you the chance to take a second-look at your responses that you might have been rushing through just to get the application out of the way.

On the thread, u/londonsystem88 recommends copying your text and pasting your text to a cloud-document system like Google Docs, so your text will automatically be saved (and so it’s accessible from other places, in case your computer is the issue). Otherwise, if you’re less concerned, just copy and paste your text to Word or even Grammarly, if you want to look out for any misspellings or punctuation issues, too.

Better yet, and by recommendation of Lifehacker staff writer Nick, give Typio Form Recovery a try; it’s a Chrome Extension, and when enabled, it will save any answers you complete within an online survey or form. When you lose your text, just click on Typio’s icon. It will offer you the option of restoring part or all of your answers you’ve lost⁠ — trust us when we say it will come in handy.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/09/the-elon-musk-resume-proof-that-nodody-needs-more-than-a-single-page/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/04/ElonMusk-410×231.jpg” title=”Elon Musk’s Resume: Proof That Nobody Needs More Than One Page” excerpt=”Elon Musk is an engineer, inventor and investor who helped to build some of the world’s most recognised companies including Tesla Motors, SpaceX and PayPal. Despite these achievements and many others, it’s possible to fit his resume on a single page. (Yes, this means you’re probably waffling too much on your own resume.)”]