The best day to apply for a job: electing an application

Electing a job application: the moment it goes out

The best day to apply for a job, by astrology, is not one auspicious day for everyone but a window you choose: the hour an application, a resume or a first letter to an employer leaves your hands. Electional astrology, al-ikhtiyārāt, “the choices”, held that a matter takes on the character of the sky at its beginning, so the astrologer looked ahead for a moment that suited it. For an application the beginning is the sending; Canopy’s own guide to this purpose says, “Time the sending.”

Job Applications & Resumes, Ṭalab al-ʿAmal, sits under Authority & Work in Canopy’s Elections; the interview, in the app’s words, “is a separate purpose with its own time and place”. An election improves the conditions of a beginning. It does not decide who is hired, and Canopy does not forecast it: a window’s score rates the sky, and “It is not the chance of a good outcome.”

The best time to apply for a job in astrology: Mercury and the Sun

Every purpose rests on significators, the planets whose condition stands for the matter. For an application Canopy takes Mercury, in the tradition the planet of writing, letters and messengers, and the Sun, signifier of rulers and those in authority, to whom an application is addressed. The Authority & Work family takes the Sun and Jupiter; this purpose puts Mercury first, in Jupiter’s place.

Each significator’s condition shows under Why this time?: strong in domicile or exaltation, weak in detriment or fall. Mercury is strong in Gemini and Virgo, weak in Sagittarius and Pisces, and counts against a window when combust, too near the Sun. The Sun is strong in Leo and Aries, weak in Aquarius and Libra, and changes sign once a month, so his row, where he has one, holds for about a month.

Canopy weighs the lords of four houses, shown on the House Ruler Analysis cards in this order: the first, for you; the tenth, “Career, reputation, and authority”; the third, “Travel, siblings, and messages”; and the sixth, “Illness, service, and daily work”, in place of the family’s eleventh. The tenth is the matter’s house: when the lord of the Ascendant does not overpower its lord, the window is held back from the highest scores.

The Moon is measured against Mercury: a Moon applying to him counts for the window, more the closer she is, and if the two are in mutual reception a row adds “the application is received”.

Mercury retrograde and the application

A retrograde significator, in the rule Canopy draws from Sahl ibn Bishr and the Picatrix, spoils an election. Mercury turns retrograde three or four times a year for about three weeks; while he is, the Job Applications & Resumes search sets aside every window. His retrogrades begin roughly every four months, so a six-month range always takes in part of one. The modern habit of waiting for Mercury to turn direct agrees with the search: the planet of the letter is going backward.

The Sun never turns retrograde, and Jupiter is no significator here, so his retrograde months, about four a year, cost application windows a little and set aside only those with Gemini or Pisces rising, where he rules the tenth; the interview and approval searches, which take him as a significator, find none. A combust Mercury costs a window without refusing it, unless Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius rises and he rules the Ascendant or the tenth: a combust lord of either, outside cazimi, sets the window aside.

What sets an application window aside

The Authority & Work family adds two refusals: the Sun in the sixth, eighth or twelfth whole-sign house, and the lord of the tenth retrograde or combust, unless that lord is the Sun or the Moon.

In whole-sign houses the twelfth is the sign just above the eastern horizon, the eighth the sign just above the western and the sixth the sign just below it, so the Sun rule tends to remove a stretch after sunrise, another before sunset and another after it, shifting with season and place. Midday and most of the night stay open.

Mars or Saturn in the tenth, “the ruler’s house”, only counts against a window, and unlike the interview this purpose does not refuse them in the first sign unless one is within 3° of the Ascendant, a rule every purpose shares. Every purpose also refuses the Moon combust unless cazimi, void of course, in the burnt path, the via combusta, from 19° Libra to 15° Scorpio, or joined to the South Node, and a malefic star such as Algol on the Ascendant or Midheaven; see how Canopy reads an election. No refusal is shown on screen; the window is simply absent.

The best planetary hour to apply for a job

Among the windows that pass, the hour counts. An application favors the hours of Mercury, the Sun and Jupiter, each with its own row; Mercury’s is the application’s addition to the family’s two, and the interview lacks it. The old associations fit: Mercury’s hour suited writing, the Sun’s dealings with rulers and Jupiter’s petitions, as what each hour was used for sets out.

Each of the three also earns the general hour row every purpose gives, and Jupiter’s, the greater benefic’s, weighs the most. The hours of Mars and Saturn count against any window. The hour is scored, not the weekday: Wednesday belongs to Mercury, Thursday to Jupiter and Sunday to the Sun, but a Mercury hour on a Monday counts in full. The free planetary hours calculator shows the hour ruling now in the city you choose.

The Moon for an auspicious day to apply for a job

The Moon comes first in any election, and an application wants her in Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Capricorn or Aquarius, the six earth and air signs, each counted in a window’s favor. In Libra only her first nineteen degrees help, since from 19° she is in the burnt path.

Two lunar mansions count for an application, and both lie in Mercury’s signs: al-Dhirāʿ, the Forearm, from 17°09′ Gemini to the end of the sign, and al-ʿAwwāʾ, the Howler, from 4°17′ to 17°09′ Virgo, where a Moon earns a mansion row and a sign row together. al-Iklīl, the Crown, is forbidden here but never decides an application window: it runs from 25°43′ Libra to 8°34′ Scorpio, wholly inside the burnt path. These are this purpose’s rules, not verdicts on the mansions; see what each mansion favors.

Regulus and Sirius are sought, each counted for a window when its degree falls within a degree of the Ascendant, Midheaven or Descendant.

Application, interview and request: three elections

The three Authority & Work purposes share the family’s two refusals, the caution against Mars or Saturn in the tenth, and Regulus and Sirius.

An application is a message sent ahead, leaning on Mercury and the houses of messages and service; the job interview is a meeting with its own hour and place, and a request for a promotion or an approval goes straight to the Sun and Jupiter.

How to find the best day to apply for a job in Canopy

In the app, open Elections, choose Events, and under “What are you electing for?” pick Job Applications & Resumes, under Authority & Work. Set From and To, up to 183 days, about six months, and set the Location card to where you will send from, since the hours and the rising sign are worked out for that place. Then tap Find Best Moments.

The results list shows the windows that reach 50% or more, sorted by Soonest or Best Quality. Each card gives the time, the Ascendant, the Midheaven, the hour’s ruler, up to three factors in its favor and the score; open one for House Ruler Analysis, Why this time?, Save to Calendar and Set Reminder. Outside working hours, you can schedule the email for the window.

Your chart and the application

Windows are ranked by the election chart alone. With your birth data entered, your nativity adds a bounded adjustment, never more than ten points either way, and Your Chart at Election Time sets the moment’s planets around your own. An election rising in the sign of your natal tenth house counts for a window as the authority channel, unless your natal Mars or Saturn stands in that sign.

Keep the two sixth houses apart. In the election chart the sixth is service and daily work, and its lord is weighed for an application; but an election rising in the sign of your natal sixth, eighth or twelfth house counts against a window, as does a rising degree or Moon within the rays of your natal Mars or Saturn. Canopy reads your nativity, not the employer’s.

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