Ask HN: Software to manage a jobhunt? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Software to manage a jobhunt?

3 pointsgnosis9 comments

When you're on a jobhunt, there's a lot to keep track of:

  - Job ads
  - Notes on companies
  - Contacts
  - Who you've contacted, when, and about what
  - When you've sent out your resume and to whom
  - Interview schedules
  - Followup schedules (who and when to call back
    or send thank-you notes to)

What software do you use to keep track of it all?

Do you use a bunch of plain text files? Do you break out the old spreadsheet? JibberJobber? Something else?

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Actually I started to build something that is a job search "augmentation" tool, it uses the Indeed.com API and uses a roll-out sidebar to list job openings and then you can go through them and then mark them blocked, applied to, saved, etc to filter through them so you never have to look at the full list again, I built the original solution using the Java stack and used it a bit for my own purposes, now that I'm getting more into Ruby I think I might rebuild it using Rails and see if I can make it into a more fully featured application, I think there is potential to add in more features similar to what you have mentioned (like being able to associate contact names with a job ad, etc).

On a side note, something I have realized is how fundamentally broken and annoying a lot of companies' job application process is. The sites that make you create an account on some barely working site that looks like it was built in 1995, then force you to basically manually fill out pieces of your resume into various input fields, are rather appalling. It is a good way to filter out the companies that probably wold suck to work for though as you can tell right away how much they care about interfacing with their employees.

A fellow hacker news member bullrico has thought about this issue and created quite a cool solution: http://impressar.io

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3518376

What I really don't like about solutions like this (and other "software as a service" sites) is that that the solution provider has access to my private information and data.

I'd much prefer using a standalone app that runs on my own computer and does everything from there.

No business has a need to know about which other businesses or people I contact in my job hunt, or really anything about me or my jobhunt, unless I'm applying for a job directly with them, and even then what they need to know is limited to my employment history and such, not about who else I've talked to during my jobhunt, much less the content of the conversations I've had with them.

I agree with RMS in that I think sites like impressar (and Facebook and Gmail, etc..) are really just spyware.

They might be worth using if they somehow managed to convince me my data would be completely private (ie. if even they didn't know what I was doing, saying, or who I'm talking to, etc). But that's a very tall order, and until they've got it together I am going to steer far clear of sites like these.

Calling it spyware is a bit harsh. The reason a lot of things are going SaaS is really simple: it's better for business. There are a ton of benefits to companies:

-Recurring revenue

-Instant upgrade

-Easier support / no wrangling with different platform differences

-Most people like accessing their services from anywhere via the web

-Easier to track user engagement, improve user experience

The list goes on and on. It has nothing to do with wanting all your personal data. It's a pretty simple business objective.

And, not to be offensive, but who really cares what jobs you are looking at? I honestly doubt the Impressario guy really cares if you are looking at Megacorp A or Megacorp B or Social-Startup C.

There are some things to be concerned about privacy - I have my doubts that this is one of them.

Just because there are business reasons for making SaaS webapps doesn't change the fact that they do in fact collect private information -- and that brings with it all the potential for abuse, leaks, sale of the information without my consent, tracking, spying, etc.

Call it what you will, but I certainly don't want my private information in the hands of some person or entity I don't trust.

As for who cares what jobs I apply to, you might not have noticed but there's something called datamining that can link all sorts of innocuous-seeming information to draw conclusions with serious privacy implications.

For example, before some researchers actually went ahead and did this, who would have guessed that your Netflix viewing habits could be used to determine your political preferences or sexual orientation? And would you really want Netflix and anyone who they sell the information to or anyone who manages to hack their servers knowing these?

You might not mind, but I bet a lot of other people do. Unfortunately, plenty of Netflix users probably still don't know that this kind of abuse -- and it is abuse -- is possible.

Something else that was in the news about a year ago or so is the recent trend of companies trolling through Facebook to see who your friends are, and determine from that whether they think you're credit-worth (or worthy of employment). Again, something apparently innocuous being subverted to have serious unintended consequences for the victims who were naive enough to give out their private information.

There are hundreds of examples like these -- there have been many books and articles written about the trend towards a surveillance society and the loss of privacy that's overcoming our world, with the advent of highly sophisticated technologies and the internet.

SaaS sites and the invasion of privacy that they encourage and participate in are a big part of this problem.

I'm currently working on a similar solution that will have some of those features - http://www.gigbasket.com Beta is due to launch in March 2012.

There are a few similar services implemented already though, but they are either too complex or too primitive in my opinion, therefore I decided to give a shot rolling out my own solution. Nevertheless, the ones that I have found are:

http://www.jobspeaker.com/

http://applymate.com/

http://gigcart.com/

http://www.jobkatch.com/

Personally nothing. If there was seamless solution that I was aware of I might use it. Currently I just keep track of everything in my head and it has been working fairly well thus far. I am sure a more organized approached would be better. It would definitely be useful for keeping track of who I met with in person and a little background about them.

I keep track of it in my head as well. However I would love a better system to keep track of my tailored cover letters and resumes. In my last job search I had several versions of the same resume going depending on the type of job I was applying for. I also would tailor my cover letter for every application.

Google Reader and Google Docs spreadsheet.

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