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Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

rolepad.com

111–120 of 140 posts

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#112
post #3

Looks pretty good, i'm wondering how are you planning on monetizing this?

Through employers, not job seekers. Not sure how to put this without marketing-speak, but I do truly believe that there is a win-win proposition here where an amazing candidate experience can be highly beneficial to the hiring org. I wrote down some thoughts on https://rolepad.com/employers as well. As I mentioned in the original post, there is a lot of consider here privacy-wise but I definitely have some concrete i…

So it looks like you have no clue really why an employer would pay? Maybe when things become tight you would consider selling some user data? Or we can just trust you 100% as you are a solid guy?

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#113
post #66
post #61

It is nice to see that you mention GDPR in your legal documents. Can you tell me can I export my data in some json, csv or some similar format?

Not yet in an automated fashion. Interesting to see this request pop up a few times now today. I would attempt to provide this manually to comply with the spirit of GDPR data portability clause for now. Note that I don't claim GDPR compliance for Rolepad at this stage, but would do my best to ensure data privacy and security.

You ToS is widely at odds with GDPR though, maybe modify it so it is more in-line?

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#114
post #105
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the person who selectively applies to a job or three doesn't need this. The target is the person who has dozens of applications in various stages of flight and is "casting a wide net" to put the strategy charitably.

I suppose so. I tend to apply to a few jobs a year, but mostly because it seems like a neat place to work, or a change of pace. One thing I have noticed, as I'm extremely skilled at this stage in my career, is that there are logically fewer jobs. Spray and pray is more, I think, a junior thing.

Certainly applying for jobs out of school--at a time when nothing was online--it was very much a mass snail mail exercise for the most part as augmented by on-campus interviews. A lot of companies basically hire warm bodies. One job offer I got out of grad school was sight unseen. I had to ask them to invite me to see the place and talk to people.

Everything I've gotten since then (just a few) was sending an email to someone I knew at a company.

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#115
post #84

Congrats for launching the product! > These days it is common to apply to dozens of positions (some users track over a hundred opportunities). Honest question: is it that common? I'm an average software engineer in Western Europe. When I was junior (around 2010-2015) I usually got a job after submitting ~3 job applications (mainly, because I was accepting anything at that time). Nowadays, since I have more experience…

Sure it's common and it really depends how picky you are. I have 20 YoE and applied to over 150 places last year, some in Western Europe and some remote jobs in the USA. In the end I only got one offer, which I turned down. But I did gain a greater understanding of the market.

That seems like an insane number for an experienced person--that's almost an application every two days--and a yield of less than 1% which presumably wasn't even a compelling offer.

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#116
post #84

Congrats for launching the product! > These days it is common to apply to dozens of positions (some users track over a hundred opportunities). Honest question: is it that common? I'm an average software engineer in Western Europe. When I was junior (around 2010-2015) I usually got a job after submitting ~3 job applications (mainly, because I was accepting anything at that time). Nowadays, since I have more experience…

> I'm an average software engineer in Western Europe. When I was junior (around 2010-2015) I usually got a job after submitting ~3 job applications

Your situation is actually very rare unless you are accepting bottom of the barrel offers or very well connected landing quick offers. I am also from West Europe and for me with a decade of experience it still takes 30-45+ applications because most companies(except boring ones) do not publish a salary range and doesn’t share anything until the last stage, when I realize that what they are offering is garbage. On most applications, they also ask for expectations and some just outright ghost you after or simply hope that post interview they might be able to find some “shallow experience on this specific tech we use” so I might be willing to “take a bit of cut to work with their wonderful team..”.

Also typically every interview process is loooong, on average a complete process takes 4 weeks to 2 months.

Also, some one are out right stupid and start asking me about if am open/passionate about focusing on the work instead of “counting hours and going home”(ELI5: they want unpaid off record overtime).

So shifting through many garbages to find the one(or two) golden ones is a good effort.

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#117
post #80
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I answered a very similar question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37797516 . Believe me, I have been thinking hard about alignment, conflicts of interest, privacy implications, etc. Alienating the candidate side will basically nullify the core premise of the platform, so avoiding short-term thinking and bonehead decisions is top of mind.

Yeah, it’s just that I’ve never been able to trust anything where the employer was the one paying… Even if I could trust it at the start, it eventually turned bad.

Do you trust job boards? Because employers pay to get listed there

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#118
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I was a job seeker, specially if I was out of a job, I would never ever spend a single cent on a job application service Find this very hard to believe. You really wouldn't spend $1 to submit a job application to a position that is your bread and butter while unemployed? Even if it meant there wasn't hundreds of others spamming the same endpoint? Taking such an ideological high ground over a few cents rarely wor…

> Find this very hard to believe. You really wouldn't spend $1 to submit a job application to a position that is your bread and butter while unemployed? No, it's a stupid concept, and one that turns posting fake job ads into a profitable scam. > Even if it meant there wasn't hundreds of others spamming the same endpoint? Take a minute to think about that nonsense. Do you really think a company will want to risk losin…

This is already how it works for renting an apartment in the US (and often up to $75 per applicant, so each roommate has to pay!), the fact that companies don't charge you an application fee is merely convention. I'd be horrified but not surprised if we see a day where minimum wage jobs start charging an application fee to "cover the cost of background checks" or some other nonsense like that as corporate greed stretches ever further.

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inspired by your product I started logging my job search into a postgresql db. :)

how's that better than a spreadsheet?

I just know db well. Biggest appeal for me is this system allows me to approach the problem however I want. Currently I am putting all in one table - thinking in terms of (not so) slowly changing dimensions, and using recursive query to find the status of a application or a group of applications for a company.

Re: Show HN: A job application tracker with company reviews, recruiter autoresponder

#120
post #84

Congrats for launching the product! > These days it is common to apply to dozens of positions (some users track over a hundred opportunities). Honest question: is it that common? I'm an average software engineer in Western Europe. When I was junior (around 2010-2015) I usually got a job after submitting ~3 job applications (mainly, because I was accepting anything at that time). Nowadays, since I have more experience…

This was my experience until this year. I’m looking for something full time, and despite my decade+ of experience, no one is interested. I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed for more than 5 jobs in my life, but at this point I can barely get an interview. I’m thinking I should have kept my last job at this point.

Although the timing isn’t great, I’m not unhappy about it. The push to improve my presentation and be more thoughtful about these things is ultimately a very good thing. It’s definitely a bit unsettling too, though. Until now I’ve been abnormally fortunate.

And you’re right, interviewing with several companies at once is very stressful. I struggle to keep all of the roles separate in my mind at once, and I’m terrible at knowing which voice on the call is who, and who I asked what, when, why, etc. I have to write absolutely everything down and look over my notes before every call.

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