Back in 2009 I graduated with a degree in Psychology into one of the worst job markets in years. I was unemployed for about 6 months, during which I tried every job website out there, and thought each one was terrible.
I had some programming experience, so I hacked up a demo that I tried to put out there in 2010 called Scoople, but it was a single page php file that ran horribly and was really bad code. Initially I looked for a technical cofounder, but couldn't find anyone. So I decided to learn myself.
I've spent the last 4 years jumping from job to job, from IT Administrator to Computer Consultant to Web Developer to finally Rails web developer, and now I help build startups for a living. During the past 5 months I finally felt I had enough experience to build the job website I always wanted, and so I built TrueJob, which I'm calling OkCupid for Jobs.
I've made an imgur gif album of all the features here if you'd like to check out that first (more features to come!):
The idea is that you sign up with just an email and password, and then fill out your profile -- manually (one field at a time), by authenticating with LinkedIn, pulling from JSONResume, etc.
It then gives you a base set of recommended jobs, which you can then start to tweak by rating 1-5 stars a job posting, or favoriting/blocking certain attributes about that job posting-- company name, job title, job description keywords, etc.
My site then crunches the numbers, and reranks and reprioritizes the job postings so the most relevant matches are always at the top.
Once you apply for a job, employers look at your resume, and favorite or block things about it as well in order for them to get the best candidates -- but not to fear! Once you apply for a few jobs, you'll get back analytics on why someone didn't like your resume -- what keywords they hated, and which ones they loved, so you know what to change before you apply to the next job.
Hate my site? You can at least take the information you put in your profile, and convert it over to a hard copy PDF, with one of a few design styles. Take it to another place, or just use it to get a job! I just want to help people get into a job, whether they use my site or not -- job seekers too often get kicked in the teeth as it is, I want to help them succeed :)
A few caveats! (PLEASE READ)
* Right now, I haven't seeded the database with that many jobs, only about 1000, and all from Michigan, so if you wonder why you keep getting suggested Detroit jobs, now you know why. This is my number one priority right now -- my biggest struggle is finding a source for jobs that doesn't anonymize a lot of the important data like employer name, salary, etc, so if anyone knows of a great source to pull structured job postings from where I can link back to the original employer company page, let me know.
* The profile to PDF feature isn't working quite yet, so that will be my release next week along with creating scrapers that can get me a ton more job postings (or if you have any other ideas of how to get clean job postings, let me know). I'm also hoping it entices people to check back on the site every so often, in order to see the new stuff I'm planning!
This has been a labor of love for me guys -- I've been developing this app for the past 5 months after spending 4 years trying to get the experience to build it. I'm really hoping you guys like it, and give me any and all feedback and critiques.
Thanks,
eggbrain (scott@truejob.com)