
Show HN: A Webapp to Auto Apply for Jobs - taietel
https://www.jobgen.io/
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smt88
I actually really disagree that it's a numbers game. Yes, it is a numbers game
if all you do is send a generic application.

But it's not at all a numbers game if you only apply to companies where you
have some human connection. For privileged people, that means a relative,
family friend, or friend.

For others, who have no useful connections, it's possible to make these
connections by cold-messaging people on LinkedIn, especially alumni from your
school. I have friends who have done this right out of college and only
applied to 3 or 4 companies before landing a job they loved.

I'd argue that a tool like this encourages and facilitates a dead-end method
of applications.

EDIT: Let me rephrase this a different way. Sometimes, when you're not finding
success, it's not because of too few attempts. It's because your conversion
rate needs to be increased. In this case, the conversion rate of "send generic
app" is very low, whereas the conversation rate of "tailor your app to the
specific opportunity" is much, much higher.

~~~
taietel
Thanks for the feedback. I built this as a senior in college, when my
classmates and I didn't really have any useful connections to people in the
industry. I did try cold-emailing and cold LinkedIn messaging people, but
received few to no replies. It's definitely something that can be integrated
into this webapp though, adding support for emailing/reaching out directly to
hiring managers.

~~~
smt88
I know you worked hard on this and it solves a perceived need. All I'm saying
is that optimizing for quantity won't get the best result.

There's no substitute for meeting people and creating genuine relationships,
and there's no way to "hack" or speed up that process. _That_ really is a
numbers game: you may make 20 friends, and only one of them results in a job.
But each friend requires genuine time and effort.

As far as being a senior in college, what about talking to alumni, especially
recent ones? What about connections from internships?

Machines can't do the most important part of finding a job, which is to
increase the number of people in the world who know your name and like you.

~~~
antisthenes
I don't know about you, but making _real_ friends takes years.

> That really is a numbers game: you may make 20 friends, and only one of them
> results in a job.

Comparing the difficulty and social capital required to maintain 20 friends to
having an app send out job applications is...not even in the same ballpark?
People seem to have vastly different interpretations for the word friend, but
making 20 friends certainly isn't trivial.

Having to wait that long for a better job shouldn't be necessary. Keep in
mind, the goal isn't to get the best result, it's to get a better result than
where you currently are.

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taietel
Hi guys, I built this after spending over 2 months applying to 100+ jobs on
all the job boards and managing everything through a spreadsheet as a senior
in college. I want to make the job seeking process easier for everyone so I
built JobGen, a way to auto-apply to hundreds of jobs in 2 minutes. It's built
with Rails on Heroku, and on the backend uses image recognition and DOM
parsing to identify fields to submit your applications (name, email, resume,
etc). All feedback is welcome, you can also email me here: admin@jobgen.io

~~~
midgetjones
Well done on building this, it's an interesting idea. Where did the numbers
come from on the homepage?

I only ask because your personal account of 100+ jobs, at 5 mins per
application, doesn't seem like the best approach to me. When I was jobseeking,
I'd research every job description & company thoroughly first, and if it
seemed like somewhere I'd want to work then I'd spend probably 20 minutes or
so writing a cover letter that came across as personal.

I'm sure our experiences aren't apples-to-apples, but I definitely got a very
high response rate from taking this approach.

~~~
taietel
Thanks! The numbers are from a beta test I did with around 200 users. I came
up with this idea as a college student, when my classmates and I would apply
to dozens and even hundreds of jobs to get any opportunity available.

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jorgemf
I really hate when a recruiter sends a predefined message to me for a job.
Most of the time my CV and the job description matches in a couple of keywords
but I do not match for the job position at all. I see this tool as a way of
fighting the recruiters spamming, now we can spam back them!

I also see this tool for first-time job application, I doubt it will work with
a person with a lot of experience. Once you get experience in a field you know
where to apply and it is not a numbers game anymore.

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quaunaut
On the one hand, this is super cool and I know some people/fields this would
be great.

On the other, I worry that without knowing exactly who and how these are
getting sent out, that I'll seriously consider one of these companies soon
after using this, and then be in the unfortunate position of having one low-
quality application, and a followup high quality one.

Do I have the ability to select who things are going to? Also, with a trigger
this powerful, I'd appreciate a bit more implication of what that first form
submission does.

~~~
taietel
Thanks for the feedback! Yes you can view the descriptions of each company and
check/uncheck the ones you would like to apply to :)

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nathantotten
I pretty much disregard every application that doesn't have at least a basic
note explaining why you want this particular job. Maybe getting __a __job is a
numbers game, but I don 't agree that getting a __good __job is.

~~~
tomjen3
That is what I did when I was looking. Turns out that takes less than 10s if
you have their website - "I have always been interested in $TECH_THEY_USE and
would love to work on a team that works on $WHAT_EVER_PRODUCT_THEY MAKE
because it sounds like a challenge". That wasn't exactly the words I used, but
close.

Then you include the name of whomever is the recipient, because people love to
see their own name and feel important.

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cwt137
My department just finished a cycle of hiring developers. We could tell which
applicants mass applied to jobs and used a generic cover letter. They are
probably was just playing the numbers game. Since they didn't care enough to
at minimum change or add one or two sentences to make the cover letter unique
to our job posting, they didn't get far in our hiring process.

~~~
StavrosK
When evaluating a developer, do you care more about whether they're a good fit
for the job, or whether they spent more time than necessary applying for your
job?

I mean, how much time did you spend approaching each developer individually?
Since you used an ad, I'm guessing zero. I'm not saying you should have
tailored your ad to each person, but why do you care if they burn time for
you, rather than evaluate them on what they can do for the company?

~~~
nathantotten
If someone can't be bothered to spend 10 minutes writing a cover letter for a
job they want then I would consider them unqualified. I don't want to work
with somebody who refuses to put in a bit of effort to get what they want.

I spend at least a few hours writing job posts. Why shouldn't I expect the
same?

~~~
bjt
But you don't customize the job post to each applicant, right? So "the same"
would be a developer spending a few hours writing a cover letter and resume
that are sent to a bunch of potential employers without customization.

~~~
pkaye
It is more common for the applicant to apply for the job so the job post has
to be generic. Now if the company is recruiting someone unique they will
approach them and tailor the opportunity to that person.

Also I don't think one has to spend a few hours to customize the resume. Make
one for each industry you are considering and spend 5-10 minutes tweaking it
for the employers you really care about.

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falcor84
I was really hoping that it's about an app that can generate a cv for itself
and auto-applies for jobs, hoping to get itself hired.

Are we not at that point yet?

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Sharma
Good idea. One important feature that can make it great idea is to match open
positions based on the resume's text and the job title and description
text(NLP). Then present a screen with the list of the companies with job
information algorithm matched with check-boxes. So that user can decide where
to apply.

~~~
taietel
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it! That's definitely on the
roadmap, right now users can still select which companies they would like to
apply to before sending out their applications.

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agentgt
@taietal great job. My company (SnapHop) researched that path for a little but
decided to stick with recruitment marketing tools. We couldn't figure out a
quick way to monetize and since we are self funded for 5 or so years it just
wasn't worth it yet.

Anyway I might be able to provide some insight and some connections in the
industry if you like (email is in profile).

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skytreader
Would love to try this (out of curiosity) but do you have a list of jobs you'd
send my profile to? I'd bet most jobseekers would want that to, as an
assurance that they won't get messages just from _any_ recruiter.

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lj3
Does the site have support for remote jobs? From what I can tell, you must
choose a single city when searching and there's no way of telling which jobs
might allow remote work and which ones are onsite only.

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throwaway47861
If the author reads here and is accepting feedback: please let go of these
ancient and inefficient tropes called Resume and Cover Letter.

They're quaint, meaningless and "work" because of old people's habits and for
no other reason. They have no real useful purpose.

"I am really enthusiastic about not ending up living in the streets" can be a
good cover letter too, you see.

EDIT: The classic letters are a one-way tool. That's not okay. A 20-minute
chat serves the same purpose and gives more info to both sides.

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cyberfart
the tinder-auto-right-swipe of job hunting

