Show HN: Applying for jobs? Manage all your interviews in one place
afterinterview.com
afterinterview.com
I'm not trying to be harsh here or blow up your idea. Maybe it's a totally free app. I'm not sure. But, if you are selling user data, you could be inadvertently increasing companies bargaining power through hidden knowledge of what someone is doing too. If a company uses this added data on me, and gets me to take an offer that's 30k less per year, and I stay there 4 years, that ends up costing me 120k over 4 years (30k*4y) all for using an interview note taking app.
Currently, companies can claim their company pages but exchange for uploading a company logo, description and maybe job listing.
What does the company get in exchange for the monthly subscription fee?
Would HN consider that an invasion of privacy?
I haven’t looked at your product, but the premise is very real. It would be good to know what companies to apply for based a bunch of variables.
In theory Glassdoor could build that, but their interests are not best aligned to the candidate.
I think that's better indeed. If the model is to sell data to companies, it may feel to the user that you're telling companies which companies they're interviewing with, etc.
When a job seeker signs up they would see that their subscription was paid by someone else and it will instantly build goodwill/stickiness for the product.
It's generally hard to monetize from job seekers since they don't have an income in many cases, but many would be happy to once they land a job and may even choose to buy a subscription for personal friends/family who are looking for a job. Similarly companies could also pay to buy X # of subscriptions for job seekers to attract people to their jobs and build goodwill/positive employment branding.
Could make for a good viral loop, could drum up some great PR, and help a lot of people
I mean I wish success and everything but I just can't see anyone bothering using it.
I'd be very surprised (and impressed) if any interviewer gives honest feedback on the interview, in writing (via the app), esp. in cases where candidate was rejected / didn't receive an offer.
Cos that would have a discrimination lawsuit written all over it. HR and/or Recruiters also never gives candid feedback for the same reason. Because if they do, someone will eventually sue the company for discrimination.
Ex: The most common cookie cutter response for rejection based on ageism is "We really loved you, but unfortunate there wasn't a cultural fit."
At google I did bad in one of the technical questions (they told me which), box said I didn’t seem excited about the company (true), and Clearbit said I wasn’t able to implement a simple solution to a complex problem (because I was forced to use ruby and was rusty).
The only thing I didn’t like about it is that the requirements never said they were looking for ‘simple solution’.
Ah well.
Out of curiosity, is it just one of those inevitabilities or is it really easy to get in a bind with discrimination in rejecting (or firing I'd imagine) someone?
It was extremely frustrating to me as a candidate. How do you get better at something if know one helps you? Did I have lettuce in my teeth? Was I wet because it was raining and I forgot my umbrella? Am I truly a terrible programmer? Why did you reject my application!?
Most of the interviews came from younger tech firms, which were more lenient (and also willing to hire less experienced individuals due to budget constraints).
300~ applications. ~25 actual rejections. ~15 phone interviews. ~5 onsites. ~1 accepted.
It felt both necessary and successful, considering the junior dev market is flooded and treacherous.
Since then though, it's been basically through specific personal connections with essentially no applications as such.
Mostly mid-size startups. I have 5 years experience as a front end dev, but being self taught with no degree I look pretty bad on paper.
It's never been a problem for me in the past, but it seems like the market for mid-level self taught developers is drying up.
What actual benefits did you receive?
Beyond that, the usual stuff applies: you'll have an easier time if you have name-brand schools/companies/open-source projects on your resume, or if you have connections inside the company.
Super awesome you’re getting so many upvotes! It seems like a very useful product. I’ll aim to send some more detailed feedback from an industry perspective separately.
Again - really nice work!
I've found it helps me keep much better track and stay on top of where everything is with recruiters.
1) afterInterview is a bit of an ugly name. Maybe shorten it to afterview?
2) How do you intend to monetize? I can only think of what u/WestCoastJustin said: data. But then you'd need to be more open about that in these days I think, people are more suspicions, especially the one who are first-movers.
2a) if not data, make users pay for your services. Maybe on a monthly basis - but you would need to implement that right away, bc later it'll be hard.
0) Good luck!
Conversely, whenever I'm trying to get real work done on my phone I feel like I'm looking at and using the internet through a drinking straw. The interface just doesn't have enough bandwidth.
However, maybe there's a crop of people who don't feel this way and actually prefer phone apps? I'm definitely not going to tell these folks they're "doing it wrong", but they're ignoring at least some segment of the market if they only have a phone app.
Later when I start freelancing (years later) I put together a tool, wrapped it in a dotcom - appliedto.com, then later a slightly more generic version - outreachto.com. Wanted to do email 'send as', and got bit hung up on making that work well (at the time, yahoo and web outlook were just PITA non-starters - I've done a bit more with outlook now and it's a bit better).
I've considered revisiting this service, but could never quite figure out any monetization. As others have mentioned, people who are looking for work are often cash strapped (or at least more mindful). Making it in to a bit more a a 'job crm' maybe...? Freemium, with sample cover letters and templates?
What I needed this for was for keeping track of which versions of resumes I'd sent to people, having multiple versions already written and uploaded, and email templates that I could save and reuse.
I don't really want to be hijacking this thread, but... at the same time, any feedback on these from the gallery would be appreciated. (and... no doubt there's some security stuff I need to revisit soon - it's an older codebase).
It is very hard for recruiters to remember all the people that they have interviewed. But if you give them that functionality, you have the potential to kill all the ATS out there by going from the interviewee side of things.
Kind of like Github for interviews!
Candidates asking permission to audio record their interviews and upload on the site as a portfolio. Recruiters listen to those interviews and can be much more assertive on their recommendations!
One killer feature I would propose is to help candidates weigh up multiple offers; salary, equity, commute time, enjoyment, advancement, etc.
And rather than have competition destroy your idea, take it as one data point towards validation.
You might consider making a web based version, then it could be accessed on desktop as well.
If e.g. Monster or Indeed launched this as a value-add to existing functionality it would be big, but i'm not going to make the effort you're asking for in isolation.
Definitely don't need another login/app to manage them.
I will come back tonight to answer all your questions but my lunch break is over and I need to go back to work rn :)
I'm also curious about the business model here. It seems like if you were to aggregate a certain set of metrics and then have each use rate each company for a given position, you could put together some sort of metric which might be useful a) to the companies that are doing the interviewing and/or b) to other folks that are applying for the same position.
Curious to see where you go with this...
If I want feedback on my interview then I simply contact the interviewer and ask for feedback.
When interviewing with many places simultaneously the only differentiator that has determined job acceptance is the speed with which an offer letter was presented after the interview and the employer benefits.
1) how do I delete my account? Pretty sure GDPR won't like not having a button for it.
2) you should probably test the UI a bit more with different settings. The top buttons, on my iphone 6s with bold text enabled, don't fit on one line.
Creating these kind of tools are really good ideas for disrupting the markets. Because once you get the users you get everything.
This should be ‘gave’ or ‘have given’ instead of ‘give’.
Personal and Senstitive data is probably stored in a totally unencrypted manner and developers have unrestricted access to production.
We’ve seen what happens in terms of security when you give something like Firebase to startups « developers »[0]
Love the concept , but I Care more about privacy.
[0] https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/252443616/Unprote...
So don't ask me to pull myself through your sales funnel, make the process easy by addressing my major concerns before i need to ask.
So that would be my feedback to the poster: Detail how you ensure privacy and secure data. That should be a major part of the product description for this type of app at the outset.
I assume the app will target American users, but it could be useful to think through the privacy and data security with the EU GDPR — where that "should" becomes a "must".
I'll just copy a few bits, but the articles here are the most relevant:
https://gdpr-info.eu/art-13-gdpr/ : "Provide the data subject with ... the purposes of the processing for which the personal data are intended as well as the legal basis for the processing ... the recipients or categories of recipients of the personal data, if any"
Is the data shared with anyone?
https://gdpr-info.eu/art-30-gdpr/ : "...shall maintain a record of ... the envisaged time limits for erasure of the different categories of data ... a general description of the technical and organisational security measures ..."
How long is data kept after the interviews are completed?
https://gdpr-info.eu/art-32-gdpr/ : "The controller and processor shall take steps to ensure that any natural person acting under the authority of the controller or the processor who has access to personal data does not process them except on instructions from the controller, unless he or she is required to do so by Union or Member State law."
Can your developers access private data?
It's unfair to assume poor security practices. It's also ridiculous for a Show HN to be expected to meet a burden like "separation of access" when it's likely a person, singular, that has produced this app.
A fairer way to post something about this would have been to ask a question about privacy concerns.