
Ask HN: Would you be interested in Job Application Organizer? - bkovacev
I read a comment on here about someone applying for 50+ jobs and having an Excel sheet for it. Would the new grads and veterans be interested in something like a nice intuitive dashboard with the job application status, gmail API for the quick browsing of the emails, links related to the interviewing process, and stage the interview is in?
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p4wnc6
I've applied to probably 100+ jobs in the past two years. I tried keeping
track for a while and later felt it was not helpful. Occasionally I have to
dig back through emails to verify things, like whether a recruiter submitted
me for a certain company, and it can be a slight pain. But I don't think I
would get enough value out of a whole app dedicated to this topic to bother to
download it, and I am probably an ideal user of such a thing.

Third party recruiters are the number one pain of the process. They don't
respect candidates; they don't want to hear about your goals or your search
constraints; they just aggressively talk over you. And I'm even talking about
the so-called 'good' recruiters that you get referred to by word of mouth.
Even they will break your heart.

The second pain point is well known: everyone uses different online
application portals, and everyone has different requirements for manual data
entry. I would have expected by now that applying at any company is as simple
as just uploading a resume and clicking through some boilerplate agreements or
ethnicity surveys that we would all be wise enough to always opt-out of. But
I'm still dealing with application sites that look like they were built in
1995 and require upwards of 30 minutes of manual data entry.

Apps that could alleviate the pain of these issues would be way more valuable
than organizational apps. The pain of the disorganization is just not that
meaningful.

~~~
Dr_tldr
I just finished my job search, and I'd agree with this strongly. I started
used Trello for organizing my job applications, but I soon realized there was
no point. Companies that wanted to talk to me responded to my initial
application with a week or two, while companies that didn't weren't influenced
by any kind of followup communication.

After sending out about a hundred applications, I found I had no control over
the process, so there was no reason to track it. Instead, I spent that time
working on my own projects and going to meetups to find out about live job
openings and show off my stuff. The job application system at most places is
badly broken and HR and recruiters don't seem to know or care enough to fix
it, so it's better to circumvent through some kind of personal connection.

~~~
p4wnc6
I strongly agree with the comments about doing your own projects and going to
meetups. When I began to just submit applications and then stop thinking about
them, it freed up much more time to actually do programming. This in turn made
me feel more productive and allowed me to learn new things, which is a big
source of happiness for me. The compounding positive effects from sort of
tuning out the noisy signals from HR staff and recruiters and putting energy
into what I love (programming and math) has made me feel much more positive
about my job search overall.

Any time I have a day where there's just nothing good to apply to, or I don't
hear back from anyone, I just tune it all out and write some code and it helps
me feel much better.

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kfk
I think Excel or Trello are fine for most of the people out there and the ones
that need so much data won't pay for it (because I doubt somebody doing 100+
applications is a successful employee with money to spend).

I think you should focus on whatever takes out most of the effort of this
process and for that an email would be the best solution: send me an email
that is targeted to me and with jobs I can actually apply for.

The biggest pain for me is not doing applications, it's doing applications for
jobs where I have no idea if: 1. I have good chances; 2. have been closed
already (lots of those out there; 3. have the pay I am looking for.

~~~
bkovacev
Background story: I applied to 10+ companies a month ago. I did keep track, I
did follow up etc. Couple of them didn't follow up, couple of them I
remembered not replying last time I applied for them as well. Nothing changed.
I was tired of Excel, Notepad, Gmail.

The pain you're describing is being handled by at least 10 companies that I
know and which sent me updates about the jobs. Granted they're not the best,
but they work.

The pain I wanted to reduce was the pain that comes with the entire process.
When you're simultaneously in 10+ process it can become easy to lose your
focus and forget to follow up, read notes, to dos (google most recent
interviews etc).

The pain I also wanted to remove was the pain of re-applying to companies that
are god awful at providing feedback, that do not reply, that forget to close
job ads etc. Think job app history.

Another pain I wanted to remove was weighing the offers via charts and
summaries on the offer page and show communication and interest from the
company on the reports page.

Another idea as suggested in comments: Provide this data transparently, blind
the important information and that might take the product to a whole new
level.

I do not want this to be another job board or an email newsletter. There are
plenty out there.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Maybe the problem is asymmetrical information. If I interview at Apple and do
fantastic, and I have interviews lined up at Google and Facebook, wouldn't it
be a better use of the other interviewers' time to look up my results and
focus on things that matter, like culture fit?

I think the problem is that while most of us have college degrees which at
least give us a foot in the door, there is very little differentiation to an
employer from a graduate of Waterloo or Carnegie Mellon. You might assume
they're good but you don't know. They aren't vested by the companies you trust
to have quality screening processeses.

The problem might be getting companies to willingly disclose their
information. Then again, I went to a co-op school so by the time I graduated I
already had nearly a year of work experience, and very little trouble with
each additional notch on my belt. Maybe there is a way to solve this that
isn't necessarily a product or service.

------
smashu
A startup in Vienna is already doing it
[https://www.myveeta.com/en/](https://www.myveeta.com/en/)

~~~
bkovacev
Oh. I didn't know this. They seem like workable, lever.

However, there is something fundamentally different - they're just an
assistant and automatic job applier, converting to pdfs, creating cover
letters etc. I wouldn't offer that. I'd aim this initially to only tech-savvy
people like developers, engineers - you get the picture. I'm sure they don't
need help with converting to pdf and formatting. They don't need help with
applying. They do however need a way to track their application progress, as I
have applied to a couple of companies 10+ and at times it was tedious to track
all of them.

I meant something more like an actual job process tracking tool and a data
tool for your own use.

You apply for a job - tracked progress - landed the job. You landed couple
actually. You go to the offer page and compare the benefits at a glance via
graphs, summary's etc.

Lets say you searched for a job, you've sent 30+ applications, logged the
process etc. You got hired (woohoo). Something doesn't work out after 6 months
or after 2,3 years you start feeling burnt out and want to move on. You look
back and see where you applied, how was the process, email the recruiter etc.
You see they didn't reply while you had the necessary qualifications and they
didn't provide you with a great feedback. You consult google and the tool
which might have public database by now that is huge - realizing they didn't
change. You don't waste time.

~~~
jjp
If you consider applying for a job as little different to a sales
process/funnel could you sign-up for an account with salesforce, zoho or
similar and manage your opportunities that way.

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Omie6541
+1

I did find it difficult when I was applying for jobs. I had reasons for
applying to hundreds of companies through different sources and I used google
spreadsheet to keep track. I felt it was not enough when I started getting
updates and keeping track of previous conversation became painful. So I put
together a django application to do this. I just pushed it to github [1] I
didn't need much of features on web UI, I used default admin app.

I never thought of searching for something like this, so options suggested in
comments here are new to me, and not being arrogant but if I have to do job
search again then I will still use my django app because - its good enough,
self hosted, can modify at any time, etc.

however, to answer your question: Yes, I do feel there is a need for no-bs-app
for doing this. Not everyone is a developer, they do need ready-to-use app.

will I pay? : if I am looking for switch from current one then probably, if I
don't have a job then no.

If you need any help with workflows, feedback, ux etc, would be glad to help
(for free)

[1] [https://github.com/Omie/jtracker](https://github.com/Omie/jtracker)

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ufmace
A few thoughts:

It's hard to envision meeting every applicant's needs with a single webapp.
Excel and such may have a lack of depth to them, but at least it's easy to add
any kind of data you need anywhere. Can you think of everything that any type
of applicant might want, and put it all in there without also making it
overwhelmingly complex to use?

The financial pressures on something like this could become awkward. Your
target audience is applicants, but not many of them are going to be willing to
spend money on something like that. But hiring companies are also going to be
very interested in this, especially if you're doing any kind of tracking
across multiple applicants over longer periods of time. And they are willing
to spend quite a lot of money on the recruiting process. If you get much
traction, you may find yourself in a situation where you're making peanuts off
of ads or something, not even compensating your hosting costs or personal
development time, while multiple huge companies are offering you big bucks if
only you'll do a couple of things the way they want.

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willyyr
I saw something like that on PH the other day that looks like it does just
that + tracking of your applications:
[https://presumi.com/](https://presumi.com/)

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pkd
I was working on something similar, but I'd like to point out that Daniel
Higginbotham released [http://jobsearchsanity.com](http://jobsearchsanity.com)
as well.

~~~
bkovacev
Yes, something along these lines :)

However, I have a lot more features I'd love to implement than a simple
organizer.

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joshka
To my mind, this idea is similar to most CRM tools. Leads / Ops / Contacts /
Email tracking etc. The only difference is that you're selling yourself
instead of a product or service.

Another way to verify the need for this rather than asking directly would be
to mockup some realistic screenshots, make a fancy launching soon website and
harvest emails. If you get a bunch, go build it. If you get only a few, forget
about it.

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nilkn
Trello seems like a perfect fit for this, for me at least. Just have different
lists for different application statuses. Record special notes or links as
comments on individual cards. I'm curious what more you have in mind that this
approach wouldn't handle well.

I guess the main thing that would be missing is direct integration of emails
sent to and from the various companies.

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dba7dba
-1 I used Google sheet for this and found it useful. Each resume and cover letter is uniquely named for a given company/position along with other useful data such as advertised salary brief requirements etc. I also grab pdf copy of the job description.

Useful as it reminds me what I applied for when the recruiter calls me months
after applying.

Not sure if an app is really needed.

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patrickburke
I'm using a spreadsheet to organize the job listings before I apply. Some
columns include Job, Title, Industry, Salary, Notes, Distance from my house...
If a job search portal was combined with a 'job application organizer' that
would be a nice product.

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fmeyer
I'm applying to several companies. I just keep a .org file not to mix up
people name =)

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jmnicolas
Unless you plan to give it for free, I think you should ask "Would you [pay
for a] Job Application Organizer?".

If apps showed us something is that people are interested in everything ...
until you ask them money.

~~~
notahacker
Absolutely. And it's an even bigger problem if the question is "will you pay
monthly for a Job Application Organizer... for more than two months?"

I guess a free application organizer could be relatively easily monetised by
targeted job ads though...

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kornakiewicz
I'm going to start looking for new job and an idea of tool for managing all
this stuff came to my mind, but I probably won't build one. Separate mailbox
and spreadsheet should be enough.

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anilgulecha
You mean ATSes? There's plenty of existing options, many with free plans.

~~~
bkovacev
I meant something that an actual applicant can use for their own personal use
when job hunting. No bloatware, no job ads. Simple and plain organizer for
hunting jobs. It is not something you'd use everyday, but once you're in the
loop, a 1-3 month period is something normal for the job hunt. If you decide
to comeback you'd have history of the jobs applied. Direct emails to
recruiters, etc. So there is value.

Lets say you applied at Google/FB/Apple/30 Start Ups.

You have issues remembering all of the statuses of the applications, as trying
to remember 30+ jobs is hard. Follow ups, Emails, Stages, Interesting Links
you found on their recruiting process, To Dos, Resume Version sent (if you
applied to couple of positions and highlighted different skills). Point of
Contact, Last contact. List of contacts.

Report page showing companies with most interactions.

Offer page showing offers you have received and comparing them.

~~~
isomorph
Potentially yes. I currently have about 20 applications and am not making any
more for the moment, and while I'm managing to keep track of them in a
spreadsheet, I have sacrificed some detail e.g. When multiple interview
"rounds" happen on the same day, I treat them as one round. Sometimes I forget
to mark whether a round was technical/non-technical. But that's just for my
own records. Having something to compare offers - now that would be
interesting

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teolemon
have a look at
[https://www.jobmindapp.com/landing/new/](https://www.jobmindapp.com/landing/new/)

