Show HN: A Webapp to Auto Apply for Jobs | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A Webapp to Auto Apply for Jobs

jobgen.io

78 pointstaietel92 comments

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.

I agree, but also it is true that the mechanical process of actually filling in an application is very tedious. If that bit can be eliminated then it is definitely worth it.

That said, I think you can apply to jobs with a single click on LinkedIn (and I assume StackOverflow?) so that has kind of been solved. Ish.

I've never gotten a job with a resume I didn't taylor for the job in question. Thoughtful tweaking is overwhelmingly the longest part of applying for any job. I've never found the 10 minutes (or so) of filling out the internet forms difficult.

On the first point, I've spent a lot of time tayloring for jobs in question and never got more than a form letter of rejection, if any, even though it was a short note of alignment with abilities.

And, you're flat out wrong about the 'longest part' of applying for a job if you have to go through each company's individual "Job Applicant System" and fill out basic info over and over and over because the auto-fill systems are garbage 80% of the time. Redundant data entry is overwhelmingly the worst part, and Employers/HR people love to pretend that's not the case.

I strongly agree with your second point. Especially for Amazon, Blizzard, and other companies that subscribe to multi-page registrant forms. I'll often come across a job posting, or a mention from a recruiter that just points me to the standard application portal. If I'm thinking "Hey this looks right up my alley, maybe I'll send them my resume. Long shot at best though" please don't make me do this. Running into these arduous forms turns a long-shot application on a whim into a long-shot 40 min enthusiasm crushing affair.

Too many Taylor series, methinks! It's 'tailor'.

I've heard it said that if you send an application online, you're already screwed. Or, to put it another way: if the first person who sees your application is a computer or HR person, you're screwed.

Unfortunately this is the only avenue open to people who do not have the privilege of having a rolodex full of industry contacts who they keep regular enough contact with that it's not awkward to reach out for help.

Let's say I've worked with roughly 1,000 people throughout my 20 year career. Let's say generously 20% of them I worked with closely enough that they know who I am and have a vague sense that I'm an awesome worker. 20% of those I've actually developed a friendly relationship with beyond water cooler chit chat, where we'd trust each other enough to be willing to help with a job search. Maybe 20% of those are now in companies where I'd want to work. And further 20% of that list are in positions so close to the hiring manager at one of those companies where they could actually speak up and have some influence on a decision. We're down to one or two people in the entire industry.

These numbers are guesstimates (pretty much match my own situation), but I just don't see how "networking" is the silver bullet everyone says it is. I'm sure when it works it really works, but I wouldn't rely on it.

I've seen it work well for people. Those people spend a lot of time talking to, getting to know and befriending people on the business side of things, like managers, VPs, and technical leads.

Think of it like sales. Salesmen don't only sell to people they happen to run into at home or at the office. They go out of their way to target (ie: chat up and befriend) people who buy what they sell.

Definitely not true. Most jobs are given to people that apply online.

That's false in my anecdotal experience. It's also false according to common wisdom, so it seems that most people share my anecdote.

I couldn't find any data suggesting that it's true, but I did find this survey that backs up my assessment: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-survey-reveals-85-all-job...

Right out of college, staffing firms were the way to go for me. Big companies seem to like hiring on a contract-to-hire basis because it avoids the unemployment risk if they hire somebody who isn't a good fit for some reason after the first 90 days.

I applied for companies directly and ended up getting the exact same job through a staffing firm instead. For getting in the door, it's a big help starting out.

> 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.

This. If the job you're applying to pays >= 50k/year, you owe it to yourself to take 30 minutes or so before you apply and find a way to differentiate yourself and make a connection. Ideally you reach out to someone on the inside that you have a shared experience/interest with, but if you can't, just prepare a highly personalized cover letter explaining why you're excited about the position and a great fit for it. For a position with 50 applicants maybe 3 of them will have done this, and those 3 are likely the first ones to get called in for interviews.

Treating job applications like an indiscriminate numbers game is doing a disservice to yourself and the companies you apply to.

Unless those jobs don't pay >50k/yr. straight out of college most are going for low run entry jobs.

CS grads in good markets make significantly more than 50k/yr.

I'd be very interested to know about any market where they don't make significantly more than $50k/yr. Even in the town where I grew up (40,000 people in a dying state), new CS grads make more than that.

I've gone down that dead end. 1. Spend weeks researching the company, 2. Craft the perfect (after a few drafts) resume and cover letter tailored directly to that company, 3. Meticulously make sure all the online form fields filled in. Subsequently receive an auto-reply 10 minutes after you submit it with a generic "We considered your application and decided NO." E-mail. All it takes is a few of these, and I would be an idiot to continue to believe it's about taking the time and tailoring your application.

> only an idiot would continue to believe it's about taking the time and tailoring your application

Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN and cheapen your response.

Many other commenters, including myself, are responsible for hiring and immediately discard applications that aren't tailored.

When someone spends time customizing their application, it means my company is near the top of their list. That indicates a higher potential for a good fit.

If someone is mindlessly applying, there's a good chance they're wasting time for both of us. Only a big, badly-run organization would hire people from pools of robo-applications. I've never heard of any organization that has been happy hiring someone who did no research on the company ahead of time or didn't really care if they got the job or not.

I've edited my comment--it was certainly not meant to be a personal attack against anyone but that hypothetical job applicant!

Yup. Been there. Done that. The numbers game gets a better result because very few companies can accurately describe what they're looking for in a position or a candidate. Unless you can directly talk to somebody with hiring authority, you're playing the same numbers game everybody else is.

There's a middle ground between that and applying to "hundreds of jobs in under two minutes". What I do, what I assume most people do, is spend an hour hand-crafting the perfect response for the first application, and then use that as a template and spend five minutes tweaking it for each subsequent one.

Anything more than that would be better spent on things that improve your chances for every job you apply for (improving your resume, adding to your github, taking a course, etc).

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.

If you'll send me one of your cold emails, i'll tell you why you got no response. I've seen it all.

I am mostly a senior programmer but I'm still very interested in a fresh perspective about how do I contact business people. How can I reach you?

Regarding job applications: when hiring people the first applications we send to the bin are generic ones. I really despise them because we get so many of them. We spend so much of time reading applications that if an applicant can't have the courtesy of writing a personal email it really leaves a sour taste.

So to actually answer your question - when applying, write why you are interested in the job. Make it at least sound like you know what the company you're applying to does. Ask questions about the job. If it's just some generic "I'm good at this and that" we'll just throw it in the bin even if you seem to have the skills.

I understand and appreciate that -- plus I always write personalized messages. It's a very worthy time investment!

That being said, many firms don't have enough information on their websites -- and even in their job application info page! -- about what do they do technically and what is their current need.

That makes it hard to make a proper addressing to them while doing a sales pitch of your abilities and profile. And I refuse to engage in vague guess-work, too.

Thank you, I realize some people might not have responded because I didn't have enough info to go on to try and tell them why would I like working with them.

That's some good feedback! I will try to think about making sure that our job ads contain enough information about the role. Hadn't thought about that. Thanks!

Something I've never ever seen a company do is...

Tell me what business need my work will solve!

Just out of curiosity: Do you have difficulty hiring people?

Everyone has difficulty hiring people. The most popular companies, like Google, may have a glut of applicants, but it's still incredibly difficult to know whom to choose.

For almost everyone else, there are two problems: not enough applicants and no infallible way to screen them.

Hiring is (and should be) the most difficult thing a company does. It's the most important thing a company does for sure.

I'm not interested in the generic "everybody." I'm intersted in accatyyc's experience specifically. Not every company bins generic applications. It would be interesting to see if accatyyc's company can afford to do so because they have a glut of qualified applicants or if they're artificially limiting their candidate pool for some other reason.

To expand on my other answer in regards to this - I wouldn't say we have a glut of qualified applicants. It's pretty hard to find the great developers, and the reason we bin the generic ones is that we have never found a fit through one of those. Also it simply takes too much time to move further with those applications. I'd rather be programming :)

Thanks for responding! This answer had one interesting tidbit the other one didn't have, which is:

> the reason we bin the generic ones is that we have never found a fit through one of those.

That's an interesting bit of pattern recognition and something I hadn't considered.

> I'd rather be programming :)

Haha, fair enough. :)

Sorry to barge in yet again. IMO showing the job applicants the significance of their work if they are hired is motivating.

Many people aren't only about the money. I feel many employers grossly underestimate this point.

Depends on your point of view. In terms of amount of applications, no. Loads of people apply, but in terms of finding the right person, yes I think it's very hard. It takes a huge amount of time, and all the generic/automatic applications certainly don't speed up the process.

5 minutes of internet searching should find my email based on my username and bio :)

But that could be unsolicited -- and is obtained by looking you up without your consent. I prefer getting your consent first.

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.

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.

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

First of all, make the website look more professional. I.e. Do Not Capitalise Every Single Word. Secondly, fix spelling mistakes ("Its a numbers game").

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll definitely fix those issues :)

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.

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.

I'm at work so I can't check it out right now. Does it show you the job descriptions of all the jobs you have applied to?

Yep! You can read through all the descriptions, and check/uncheck the ones you would like to apply to.

Hmmm, and we built a Job Search tool that we initially intended as our internal tool to hunt for contract works. However, we end up aggregating all sorts of jobs.

I'm thinking search job with our tool - https://getbetterluck.com/ and apply with your tool.

Are the keywords the only way to filter the aggregated results? I immediately ran into wanting to filter by region but I don't think full text keyword search would be so reliable

Right now, you could use search to find posts based on cities or regions. We are planning have a bit more robust location based filter in future.

Congrats on taking the time and effort to build something both functional (fills a need) and can work as an example of your work (demonstration) at the same time!

As a fellow job seeker frustrated by the "Look at all these great tools for Employers to make Candidates jump through hoops" slant in SaaS, your contribution is quite welcome. I'll admit I have a Candidate Assist SaaS type program in mind as well, definitely different from yours in approach and execution, so feel very good about encouraging your success. Maybe even the scales a little!

Ok, I was going through your website. i found few issues. 1. the progress bar and the percentage do not match up. 2. I think you are storing the search results in sessions. Try to clear out the sessions every time. when i did a search on a term it shows me the result when I did a new research or refresh the page, the results are not being updated with new search 3. Upper case on the nav bar tabs labels which looked weird to me. 4. Applications remaining and upgrade plan gives me the same page. I would expect application remaning 10 should be a label not anchor tag 5. when I click on my profile and try to open current resume. I would expect resume to get downloaded. But it takes me to a blank page

You can hide that ugly 'Choose File' button by putting it inside a hidden div, and then have a nice bootstrappy button in its place that relays the onclick event to it via javascript.

I only mention it, as I discovered how to do it (and auto upload) only a few days ago...

You may want a FAQ section or something that describes the onboarding process a little more in depth. My gut reaction when looking at the instructions is "Will it just send my information out the second I click submit?" then I realized I didn't read the word "Create profile" on the button and that step 2 is where the magic happens.

Having something like an animated gif or screencast that walks through the process would be invaluable. It would also likely be good to have a privacy policy. I've been evaluating things like this and if I can figure out it isn't the right fit without jumping through the hoops or sharing personal information it would definitely be preferred.

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.

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.

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

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.

100%. My company does too, and in many cases, we ask applicants to include a secret phrase (usually "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow") to indicate that they've actually read the job description. I think if you're going to look at it as a numbers game, you're going to be better off sending 10 quality applications than 100 shots in the dark.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

We do for the most part. We might hire a number of people from the same position, but we typically write a post for each type of position or team.

Even at Microsoft this was often the case - of course there was a generic template, but you would put specifics to the role.

I don't understand this. I'm a developer, I create products. I'm not a professional writer. For me this means you value >>presentation<< more than my skills, despite I won't be a professional writer in your company...

I'm really not talking about something lengthy. But I get 100s of applications for every job post I publish. Most people who apply are frankly not qualified. If you are qualified, write a few sentences. "Hey, I saw your post for [...]. I thought this looked great for me because I have worked on [...] and I am super excited to learn more about [....]".

I am not asking for paragraphs, but show me you are interested. I honestly spend hours writing and reviewing the jobs I post and it takes probably 100+ hours total from a team to hire a person. We want to hire you, but you've got to help us. :)

I think hiring is completely broken. At least in IT. Developers don't understand HR people, and HR doesn't understand developers.

For me "Hey, I saw your post for [...]. I thought this looked great for me because I have worked on [...] and I am super excited to learn more about [....]" means absolutely nothing. Frankly, I do NOT know you or your company and in a job description there is nothing about the team, culture etc. But I have no other option just to make something up, because otherwise no one'll hire me.

Where I work, engineers hire engineers. You are right on some level that it is hard to know exactly what a company does, but for many jobs in software that isn't entirely true. Read the companies blog, look at their open source projects, use the product, and most importantly read the job posting. I really don't think you'll have to make something up if you really are a good fit for the role.

It's working really well when engineers hire engineers. I've no problem with that. They don't ask questions like "Why do you want to work for us" or "What are your strengths" or "Tell me about a situation where ...". Not every company has a blog, open source projects and many of them have no public products and are privately held. So, I can see the job description and the website. I don't know if you are an HR person or not. No offense. I'm not against them, but have very very very bad experience with them.

Op did spend a few hours: he wrote a script. By definition he did what a programmer should do: find a solution that is automizable, then make it work.

If that annoys some people, well, that is why you apply to more than one job.

Good point. And I would seriously consider an applicant that wrote such an application, but better than putting it in his resume would be to write a quick note. "Hey, I've been looking for a new role. As part of my process I wrote this app. See it here and let me know what you think." That would get somebody noticed.

Hiring managers don't look poorly on generic applications because we're prima donnas who want people to jump through hoops and waste time, we consider generic applications to be an indicator of a weak candidate.

If it's not immediately clear why, imagine that you're a fantastic developer who can get any job you want. How many jobs do you apply for per day? Would you use a web app that automates applying to jobs, even if it worked really well and were free?

You're not getting that many fantastic developers applying for your jobs. You're getting mostly average ones. Your process should be able to handle not throwing away qualified average candidates.

Candidates are judged relatively, not absolutely. Doesn't matter whether I'm hiring PhDs to write neural networks for $200K/yr or bootcamp grads to move fields around a form, a generic copy-paste application is a sign of a weak candidate. Doesn't mean I wouldn't hire them, either, but it does mean I won't call them unless I had no luck with the strong candidates.

I will take your reply-less downvotes as meaning, "I wish that what you said weren't true."

It is a little bit of both really but along a spectrum. If a person is really really good you don't care much about their resume. If they don't have relevant experience but spent some time on their resume it helps show interest. If you are fresh out of college, the second approach is probably all you have.

I understand that, but I don't see why interest should count for much. Out of two equal candidates, the interested one is probably better, but I don't know if interest is a good predictor of job performance... Maybe it is, though.

Interest is what gives someone the motivation to learn and improve themselves.

I'm a professional. I don't have to be interested in what your company does. If you pay me my asking rate, I will do a damn good job at producing exactly what you need. If I have to learn and improve myself to do that, I will.

This goes both ways.

I get emails, LinkedIn messages from recruiters and I could tell which recruiters mass emailed to candidates and used a generic template. They are probably just playing the numbers game. Since they didn't care enough to at a minimum change or add one or two sentences to make the email unique to my skill set, they didn't get far in their recruiting efforts.

There is no need to write a formal cover letter to get a job.

How does this square with the "shortage of engineers" lament that tech employers have been repeating for years? If there are so few applicants, how is it that everyone is so picky?

There isn't a shortage of engineers, there's a shortage of highly-experienced engineers that won't need training. Companies would rather wait months to poach an employee trained by another company than take up the task of training entry-level employees themselves.

This is just my personal opinion being a recent college grad, but I feel like if companies were really so desperate for new engineers they wouldn't put multiple-years experience requirements on all of their entry-level job postings.

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?

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.

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.

@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).

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.

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.

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.

the tinder-auto-right-swipe of job hunting

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