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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#541

Post by zahlman »

imnotjames wrote: post #28
codegeek wrote: post #12

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

I've run into the same thing. We don't even have the job posted publicly anywhere and we get >100 submissions per day. Many are duplicates. I've found some that with some minor research turn out to be foreign organized crime. A large number of them had the exact same cover letter with changes in the names and past jobs. Not only is it difficult to find candidates that actually fit the job role, it's hard to go throug…

How are people finding the job that isn't publicly posted; and how does foreign organized crime (seek to) benefit from applying?

Re: I automated my job application process

#542

Post by celdon25 »

chefandy wrote: post #481
aperrien wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then you run into problems on the corporate side: fake job listings to build up resume databases for comparison shopping of applicants. Regulations in this area should have to cut both ways.

This the end game that Silicon Valley created. An automation arms race between two competing groups that were initially trying to save a little time or cut down on staffing but escalated it to the point where the default approach would be considered unforgivably assholish 15 years ago, people that don’t buy into it at least somewhat are drowning in bullshit, and nobody’s happy— but on paper everybody’s got record pro…

This has already happened long ago with Google search results. The first tier of results is won by reasonably well-funded entities that provide a legitimate service, and have the means to optimize the signals feeding the search rankings, putting them higher than the next tier.

The second tier of search results tends to be dominated by imitators that don't really add anything of value (SEO spam, blog posts that tell you how to write a for loop in Ruby despite knowing full well that the reader already had no problem finding that information, etc.)

Then finally at the bottom are the little guys who try their best, but haven't learned yet that it's a waste of time to try to self-publish any content because there's too much actual spam masquerading as content, and Google can't tell the difference.

The search results effectively became a list of content approved by a single publisher (even if automated) rather than a melting pot of freely-expressed ideas.

I sincerely hope that we can prevent the similar nullification of the software developer's career accomplishments as carrying any weight, but I am starting to have doubts. If it even goes as far as the erosion of incentives to accomplish things, then we may actually end up needing that AI to do the work for us, as there will be few people left who give a shit.

Re: I automated my job application process

#543

Post by grantcarthew »

I recently automated this process, however, in a very different way.

- CLI run for every job you want to apply for (this is important)

- JavaScript (Deno) with Puppeteer to run the JS for the page

- Create a directory for all the artefacts

- Save the webpage link (artefact)

- Take a screenshot of the page (artefact)

- Extract the HTML (artefact)

- Convert HTML to Markdown with a CLI (artefact)

- Send Markdown to the Grok API to extract just the Job Description as Markdown (artefact)

- Send Job Description and Autobiography to Grok API to generate a Resume (artefact)

- Send Job Description and Autobiography to Grok API to generate a Cover Letter (artefact)

- Use pandoc to convert the Markdown Resume and Cover Letter into Open Document Format (LibreOffice) (artefacts)

The important differences here are:

- You need to find the job you are interested in. Why automate this?

- Run the CLI `job-hunter https://job.site/jobid` (50sec runtime)

- Open the ODF documents, review, edit, save (human involved is important)

- Use a bash script running LibreOffice CLI to convert ODF documents to PDF

- Review the PDFs

- Manually click the apply button on the site and upload the documents

I also keep a spreadsheet with the details for each job I apply for so I can track interactions, think CRM for job applications and recruiters. This could be automated, however, I got a job so have lost interest.

Points of interest:

- Markdown is a fantastic format in general, but for LLMs as prompts and documents, it's awesome.

- If you just curl the page html, you don't get the recruiters email addresses in most cases, hence the use of Puppeteer.

- Having all the artefacts saved on disk is important for review before and after the application, including adding notes.

- By using an Autobiography that is extreme in detail, the LLM can add anything and everything about you to the documents.

- Use Grok and support Elon. OpenAI can stick their "Open" where it fits.

- I don't end up having to format the documents that are generated as ODF files, they look great.

I can apply for around 10 to 20 jobs in a day if I try hard. Most of the time it is around 5 because I am doing other things. They are only jobs I'm interested in though, and I can customise the documents. Also, If I am applying for a job that includes AI, I add a note at the bottom stating it has been generated by an LLM and customised.

There's probably more interesting points, but you get the idea.

My TODO list includes a CLI switch to only open the page in a Firefox profile so I can authenticate to the page. This removes the stupid "automate auth on ever job site" issue. Simply authenticate and keep the cookie in the hunter profile.

The repo is private for the time being, but I could make it public.

Edit: formatting.

Re: I automated my job application process

#544

Post by zahlman »

mdaniel wrote: post #459
itronitron wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my two decades of experience, I've never seen another software engineer implement a linked list or even use a linked list. There are better, and more interesting, questions to be asking.

> or even use a linked list. You must work in a super specialized industry, then

The only real requirements to "never use a linked list" are a) use a language where some kind of contiguous-storage-based sequence (array, vector, whatever you want to call it; Python calls it a list, even) is built in (or in the standard library); plus b) not ever need to remove O(1) values from the middle of a sequence in O(1) time while preserving order.

But arguably, a candidate who hasn't ever had to contemplate the concept of "linked list" but can derive the necessary ideas on the spot given the basic design, has some useful talents.

Re: I automated my job application process

#545

Post by hansvm »

irrational wrote: post #458
belinder wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hiring manager for 3 positions about 4 months ago and the amount of fake applications out there was mind boggling to me. I would say 90% were either entirely fake or had the exact same generated ai text. It got so bad that we started only looking at resumes that had a working LinkedIn link. Also after so many bad resumes I started being very forgiving for the ones that didn't fully match the job requirements if…

I haven’t been job hunting since around 2002, so I’m completely out of the loop. Why are people submitting fake resumes? Are they hoping to get hired despite having no skills beyond using ChatGPT? But, what happens after that? They don’t have the skills to do the job, so what was the point of getting hired?

You can often work days to years before people catch on that you are (a) unqualified, (b) underqualified, (c) not legally allowed to work in a particular jursdiction, (d) overemployed, (e) leaking company secrets to ChatGPT, ....

On top of that, you have a number of people who are just trying to get hired and perhaps are skilled, but the market is so shitty (in part because of the AI resume slop) that they're resorting to various services to lessen the workload of shotgun resume posting. If you pay a person to send out resumes, you get email notifications that the resumes were submitted, and that person was just asking an LLM to spit out a resume, you'll be hard-pressed to figure out that the resumes are fake (and so on for a variety of other similar reasons, where spray-and-pray resumes are sent out in moderate good-faith but the resumes are BS).

Re: I automated my job application process

#546

Post by hb-robo »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #468
neilv wrote: post #219

It's lucky for some people that I'm not hiring right now, because I'd probably perma-denylist anyone I caught sending me LLM-generated text, especially for something that's supposed to be one-to-one, like a cover letter/email. That is such a obvious imminent plague upon society, in so many ways, and the only thing I can do is nip the few buds that are within my reach.

I feel the same way, but it’s actually not easy to detect LLMs. Anyone who experimented with writing styles and been using them for a while, can easily create texts that are indistinguishable from a real person. Fine tune a small LLM to your past emails, cover letters, resumes and etc. then go ham.

Right, and the last thing you want is false negatives here.

Re: I automated my job application process

#547

Post by hansvm »

wruza wrote: post #471
irrational wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t been job hunting since around 2002, so I’m completely out of the loop. Why are people submitting fake resumes? Are they hoping to get hired despite having no skills beyond using ChatGPT? But, what happens after that? They don’t have the skills to do the job, so what was the point of getting hired?

I can only think of a multiple-salary for onboarding period scam, where they llm all their job and get fired everywhere after a month with a couple years worth of money. You can’t really fire a hired guy without paying them at least once in US, can you?

You (almost always) have to pay them for any work they actually did. If you catch a North Korean citizen day 1 of onboarding, you're obligated to kick them out immediately, and you might have to pay them for the few hours they were there. If you catch them before they start, you (usually) don't have to pay them.

Re: I automated my job application process

#548

Post by hb-robo »

ok123456 wrote: post #475

With all the automated scamming on both sides, maybe showing up to the place dressed well to drop off a resume isn't an antiquated idea after all.

I tried this during peak Silicon Valley days. I remember two things:

1. I got laughed at for wearing a suit by t-shirt devs

2. Around 40% of the places did not allow people to walk in the door at all.

I would be pleased with this kind of "analog" solution to this noise though, even as someone who missed the previous in-person paradigm entirely.

Re: I automated my job application process

#549

Post by hansvm »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #534
yosito wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I've just been getting generic rejection responses from no-reply email addresses. There's no way to get feedback. My guess is that they're just sending out mass rejections for anyone except a few candidates they've selected to interview, and the other 1000 applications just get automatically tossed.

I was just hiring for an associate role recently and we got more than 800 applicants within a day, and our recruiter had a short list within a few days. If we gave everyone individualized feedback we wouldn’t do anything else for months. You might need to pay someone to look at the roles you’re applying for and the resumes you’re sending in for the kind of feedback you’re expecting.

Did more than a few ask for feedback?
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