Show HN: My Weekend Project ApplicantChatter

[davidrudder]

I did a bad thing. I copied the business idea of someone on Show HN. DeskAnything - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5454844 - allows job applicants to ask questions of the employees of the hiring companies. It’s a great idea. I copied it for lame reasons; their idea wasn’t implemented, I needed it now, their plans didn’t match my needs, and it seemed like a fun weekend project. So, I went ahead with it, and now it’s done.

My apologies to the DeskAnything guys. If you want to join with me, let me know. ApplicantChatter is on github, so you can always run with it.

My project is http://www.applicantchatter.com, a site which allows job applicants (or potential applicants) to ask employees questions anonymously. Employers sign up and add employees who will receive emails when a new question is posted. Employers will get a link to the “ask a question” page.

Anyone with the “ask” link can post a question. There’s a captcha to control spam, but otherwise it’s open to anyone with the link.

When a question comes in, the employees get an email with a link in it. The question can be forwarded to the right person to answer. Anyone with the link can answer the question. Since anyone can answer, the answer has some anonymity.

My use case is the company I work for. We have a great work environment, and I've been looking for a way to advertise that when hiring. We're hiring an Integration Applications Engineer soon (I'll post the link to the job description when it's available) and I built ApplicantChatter to use with it.

Questions? Ask me! http://applicantchatter.com/ask/the_ogranized_noses

[jole]

I don't think you did a bad thing. People take others people ideas all the time. I like the idea, and your project looks like a decent one. Just take a look at that Sign up button, looks pretty bad in Chrome!

[davidrudder → jole]

Thanks for the support!

I recently switched themes and that background didn't match well. I also found a similar problem with the captcha on signup, which I fixed. Thanks for reporting that!

[jole → davidrudder]

Now "Sign up" looks better. One more thought: I think that you should try to make that homepage looks better. Maybe different image, or even slider, and better order in general. It looks a little messy, like you created it in five 5mins or so.

Just because of the design DeskAnything leaves better impression on me. Making your homepage better would definitely improve the general impression of users.

Keep up the good work, I like the idea :)

[davidrudder → jole]

Yeah, I struggle with design. I've been working on that page, but don't have anything to push yet. Thanks for the advice, it doesn't fall on deaf ears. I've been thinking of offering a trade in hours...maybe post to craigslist.