5 ms·

Ask HN: advice for my site, happyjobsearch.com

80 points by nonrecursive 17y ago

Hi everyone, About a year ago I created a web site to help people stay organized when looking for a job. Since then I've refined it to the point where I feel like it's now a viable product. I'm lacking two important things, however: a) a business model and b) time to market it. My preference is to sell it, and I would greatly appreciate advice on selling a niche site like this. In the meantime I want to try and get some traffic to it, so advice on optimizing the 30 minutes a day I have to do marketing would be awesome. Incidentally, I've been using the site to keep track of some of my marketing efforts. As I search for people to contact regarding the site, I'm storing their information and keeping track of the "next action" - review their site, email, etc. Do any of you feel you'd benefit from using a site like happyjobsearch to keep track of your marketing efforts? A little more about the site: Its main benefit is providing a tool to approach job searching systematically. I got laid off twice in three months last year, and I found that it was very demotivating to approach job seeking in a sloppy, reactive manner. So I tried to take a GTD approach and do things in stages: collect, review, and respond. The idea with the site is to spend some time collecting job listings each day without spending a lot of time reviewing them, and definitely not spending time responding. Then, to spend time reviewing listings further and taking the time to send a proper cover letter and resume. Separating these different processes and being able to keep track of which stage each job opportunity was in really helped me feel more in control and made me feel like I was actually making progress, because I could see what I'd gotten done. In the end that's what I hope it does for other people - help them with their job search on a practical level, but also help in some way to keep people motivated, because looking for jobs can really suck :D

nonrecursive 17y ago
Hi everyone, About a year ago I created a web site to help people stay organized when looking for a job. Since then I've refined it to the point where I feel like it's now a viable product. I'm lacking two important things, however: a) a business model and b) time to market it. My preference is to sell it, and I would greatly appreciate advice on selling a niche site like this. In the meantime I want to try and get some traffic to it, so advice on optimizing the 30 minutes a day I have to do marketing would be awesome. Incidentally, I've been using the site to keep track of some of my marketing efforts. As I search for people to contact regarding the site, I'm storing their information and keeping track of the "next action" - review their site, email, etc. Do any of you feel you'd benefit from using a site like happyjobsearch to keep track of your marketing efforts? A little more about the site: Its main benefit is providing a tool to approach job searching systematically. I got laid off twice in three months last year, and I found that it was very demotivating to approach job seeking in a sloppy, reactive manner. So I tried to take a GTD approach and do things in stages: collect, review, and respond. The idea with the site is to spend some time collecting job listings each day without spending a lot of time reviewing them, and definitely not spending time responding. Then, to spend time reviewing listings further and taking the time to send a proper cover letter and resume. Separating these different processes and being able to keep track of which stage each job opportunity was in really helped me feel more in control and made me feel like I was actually making progress, because I could see what I'd gotten done. In the end that's what I hope it does for other people - help them with their job search on a practical level, but also help in some way to keep people motivated, because looking for jobs can really suck :D
- hackoder 17y ago
  Initial impressions are good. Very clean, intuitive, and useful. You could add more value in the cover letter and interview reminder section, and also add in a resume section. For example, in the interview section a person could create a list of stuff they need to look at or study, and then check them off as they're finished. Similarly, you could create and save different cover letter and resumes. A user could use special syntax like [[Edit company name]] to just edit the relevant parts and send the resumes off. I can see this working with a very cheap subscription model ($1-2/month) if there are more features. I dont think have you have enough to sell it right now, since most job sites have their own job tracking system.
  - nonrecursive 17y ago
    Thanks for your suggestions. With resumes, I feel like there are a few good web sites out there already. For example, I use emurse.com which is free and does everything I could want it to. I really like your idea about having multiple cover letters and placeholders in the cover letters. Something like that would have been helpful for me so I could see quickly which parts I needed to change. It would also be fun to code up an interface for it. On the money side, I was thinking a one-time payment of around $8 would allow use of the site for up to a year. A subscription model sounds good too, and probably the best thing is just to test.
    - gcheong 17y ago
      The separate slots for resumes is a good idea. I'd like to track what resume version I sent where. I think a one-time payment for access sounds like a good idea. Or maybe even just a donation button for now? The argument there is that people who find jobs might be willing to donate quite a bit more and also you never know when you'll need the site again so having the information readily available would be good.
    - hcho 17y ago
      Don't put a fixed price, allow users to pay what the site's worth to them. You can go freemium route. Providing SMS and/or e-mail based reminder service to your paying customers only springs to mind.
Femur 17y ago
Hi. I used your site about 9 months ago as my main tool for organizing my job search. I was the guy who emailed you with the suggestion to have links open in a new tab versus navigating away from the site (which you implemented a few hours later!). I am happy to say I am now gainfully employed as an Oracle DBA at a large company. I have recommended your site to friends and they have used it as well. AAA+++ would use again.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  That's awesome that you've found a good job! Thanks for the good feedback you gave me, and thanks too for recommending the site. It's very gratifying to hear that you found it useful enough to tell your friends to use it.
  - nonrecursive 17y ago
    p.s. thanks once more but I hope you won't need to use the site again
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
mrfish 17y ago
I'd like to say that I do this already myself but nope. I'm just too lazy. Good idea! Not sure how you can monetize it but good idea.
francoisdevlin 17y ago
Very cool site. One thing I would upgrade. You have your "interview reminders" section. Very cool. The data is entered in a * / * * / * * * style, very intuitive for entry. However, I would RENDER the information in a set of nested ul tags. Just my $.02
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Useful feedback that's very easy to implement: thank you very much sir.
natrius 17y ago
You're getting some porn spam on the demo account. If you're not already, it'd probably be a good idea to reset it with known good data every couple of hours.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I was resetting the data every 15 minutes. I've now simply disabled saving changes by the demo account altogether. Thanks again!
nobody_nowhere 17y ago
This is great! It mirrors the approach I've taken to job hunting in the past -- but on a webpage instead of a text editor. Business model options (non-exclusive): - Advertising: You have a wide range of options for sponsorship, display or performance advertising. I could write all day about them. Happy to give you more info. - Subscription/"Freemium": Pay to use. Pay to use certain features. Pay not to see ads. Tip jars. Tons of options. - Leap of faith: Focus on scaling up the user base (with or without other revenue) and sell it to a monster/dice/etc Good luck!
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thank you!
timcederman 17y ago
Yikes - what's up with the spam here? http://www.happyjobsearch.com/opportunities http://www.happyjobsearch.com/opportunities
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Dang that sucks. The "demo" account is open so that people can see what the site's about without having to log in at all. I doubt people will be enticed by spam for cialis, viagra, etc, though. Looks like I need to install akismet.
  - nonrecursive 17y ago
    Thanks for the heads up. I was resetting the data every 15 minutes. I've now simply disabled saving changes by the demo account altogether. Thanks again!
    - megamark16 17y ago
      Another approach is to save all changes made to the demo account to the user's session state, that way I as a user can see what adding, editing, and deleting records looks and behaves like but only I can see my changes (based on my session) and it auto cleans itself when m session ends.
ricardo 17y ago
Awesome idea and clean execution. I organized my last job search in excel and retained a lot of the same information. One suggestion: It would be useful to cache the job listing the user links to. During my last job search I remember finding a lot of my bookmarks to be invalid because the original post had expired and the recruiter reposted it.
timcederman 17y ago
I worked in the job space for a while, and I would recommend shopping this around to sites like TheLadders, Indeed, SimplyHired, etc, who are all always looking for competitive features. If they could just buy something rather than build it in-house, I'm sure they would (speaking as someone who worked at a startup which got sold to Monster.com for 72.5 million).
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Something like this is what I have in mind, but I have no idea how to approach companies to shop my site around. Do you have any advice?
  - timcederman 17y ago
    I would use LinkedIn, or if you email me I can put you in touch with a few folks who might be able to help. You'd also be surprised at the recipient lists behind the "contact us" forms on a lot of the major sites. e.g. http://www.indeed.com/jsp/contactus.jsp http://www.indeed.com/jsp/contactus.jsp
    - nonrecursive 17y ago
      Thank you - I'll send you an email shortly. One thing I'm wondering about is, should you email them with your price or ask them for an offer?
      - rapind 17y ago
        Why not just build your user base and work to make sure your feature set is competitive or better? They'll come to you eventually.
        timcederman 17y ago
        You'd be surprised at the number of small-scale acquisitions that occur after a casual mention or demonstration of a site.
heyitsnick 17y ago
Google chrome 3.0.195.21 In the first page of the demo, the tables at the bottom stretch wider than the fixed width of the design
ulysses 17y ago
I haven't dug into it yet, will try to tonight, but one thing struck me. When I run across any sort of site like this normally, one of the first things I look at is news items (in this case the blog) and the forum. If there aren't any posts in either in the last couple of months, I usually assume it's been abandoned, so I don't dig any deeper. Even a one or two line post every month or two reassures me that some sort of active maintenance is going on.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I've added a blog post and will add an update to the forum as well.
BobN 17y ago
The name feels odd -- like an unedited Chinese translation. Monster only works because they could afford a Superbowl ad. Maybe something that highlights the organizational aspect? MyJobSearchManager.com is open.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  For some reason the name makes me smile, which is probably a terrible reason for keeping it. Initially it was After the Pink Slip. I also have worksearchtool.com . Another reason I went with Happy Job Search was that initially I was hoping to add more to the site, so it wouldn't just be about being organized. That's probably a bad idea though.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
    I like the name. It puts a positive spin on what can be a very negative time in life. It's also memorable. I say keep it.
    - heyitsnick 17y ago
      Upvoting in agreement.
  - chairface 17y ago
    Just another vote for keeping the name. I smiled when I saw it.
  - mquander 17y ago
    Not looking for a job, so grain of salt, but I particularly like the name and think it has a straightforward & casual feel.
numbchuckskills 17y ago
not to be a negative-nancy, but is this that much better than tracking things in something like a Google docs spreadsheet with a few tabs? Seems like a solution to a non-existent problem.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  I'm sure a spreadsheet works fine for many people, and from the comments you can see that others have used them for this purpose. Here are some advantages this site has: * The data to capture has already been figured out for you. When you're first looking for a job you might not really know what to record about each listing. * The approach has been figured out for you. I did not follow the GTD-esque approach initially, and I'm sure most other people don't. That in itself is useful, as is the site's ability to facilitate it. * There is a bookmarklet for adding job listings. This saves you time. * You can subscribe to an ical feed of your next actions, which you can't do with a spreadsheet. * You can subscribe to RSS feeds from your favorite job sites so that you can easily review new postings in one place. If you're ever looking for a job, please do give it a try and decide for yourself whether it's better than fiddling with a spread sheet :)
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
  It's certainly more structured than a free-form spreadsheet. The mere fact that it's a special purpose tool makes a difference too.
JangoSteve 17y ago
This looks very nice from what I saw in the demo account. Very clean interface. I actually have a project I had made initially for B2B sales leads, but there are certain features of automation that I've been thinking lately could really be used for job search. Perhaps we should talk?
riordan 17y ago
Brilliant! I've been using Highrise to similarly organize my job search, however your approach is fantastically elegant and will probably begin using the two in tandem. I've found that the networking aspects of jobseeking are not only critical in breaking past the resume firewall but are also among the hardest parts to manage, particularly trying to balance several open opportunities and inquiries. The approach of systemizing all open opportunities, though, is brilliant. I'd suggest finding a way to integrate contacts & contact history within the site, almost making it more CRM-like, to make it a jobsearcher's dashboard. As to a business model, I'm not sure it's immediately robust enough to begin as a subscription service and I'm no longer sold on advertising as a sustainable revenue stream, particularly with niche web apps. Frankly, partnering with a LinkedIn might be the best outcome, but it's a real longshot. With the market for unemployed jobseekers outnumbering employed jobseekers, it's going to be a tough opportunity to make money on. That said, best of luck - it's really quite brilliant.
lazyant 17y ago
Out of curiosity, what language/framework did you use for the site?
- steveplace 17y ago
  I'm assuming that since the demo had example listing urls from 37s and workingwithrails, it's probably RoR
- markbao 17y ago
  Check le headers. Server: Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) Phusion_Passenger/2.0.3 X-Powered-By: Phusion Passenger (mod_rails/mod_rack) 2.0.3 Ruby on Rails. (BTW guys, time to upgrade to Passenger 2.2.5!)
  - lazyant 17y ago
    that's leaky and calls for: ServerSignature Off ServerTokens Prod
    - nonrecursive 17y ago
      Could you tell me why it's a bad thing? All I can think of is that it gives someone more info so they know where to start when cooking up an exploit
      - lincolnq 17y ago
        If someone is scanning for vulnerable sites, it makes it possible to identify them without attempting the exploit.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Yep I used Rails with jQuery on the front end. Linode + rails + phusion passenger = sweet sweet deployment. I might move to heroku though, which also has sweet sweet deployment and would be free.
donw 17y ago
Several other people have commented on resume functionality, but what I'd like to see is a targeted resume builder -- one where you can list the sum total of all your skills and experience, tag each line item with specific job categories, and then use that to build targeted resumes aimed at specific markets. I've never seen a site with that feature.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  That's a really cool idea, and I'd like something with that too.
  - megamark16 17y ago
    I would also like a fast way to 'build' my resume with appropriately specific pieces from my overall experience and skills.
TrevorJ 17y ago
I think this is a great idea. First impression, I would reconsider the colors. I think there's something to be said for being playful, however I'd like to see colors that are a bit more businesslike. The colors say toy, but this is a tool. Granted, web 2.0 has proven that a pastel color scheme can work, and I do think it can work for you too but you either need to pull back on it or take it a step further and support it with some more stylized design elements. Specifically, if your site name in the header felt more like a logo and felt a bit playful, you'd be signaling that this lightweight, airy feel is part of your brand identity. Right now there's some disconnect there. The dark blue you are using is nice, I think maybe just making that a bit more prevalent in your design would serve to ground the overall design a bit more.
alphageek 17y ago
THis is something I was hoping to find. It becomes really hard for me to remember which jobs I applied to and to save jobs that I would like to apply to later. This is ideal for me. Thank you !!
Slzr 17y ago
My 2c: Get some design, some logo Its a great site, you just need some digg/reddit front page or stumbleupon on it, good luck.

80 points by nonrecursive 17y ago

nonrecursive 17y ago

hackoder 17y ago
Initial impressions are good. Very clean, intuitive, and useful. You could add more value in the cover letter and interview reminder section, and also add in a resume section. For example, in the interview section a person could create a list of stuff they need to look at or study, and then check them off as they're finished. Similarly, you could create and save different cover letter and resumes. A user could use special syntax like [[Edit company name]] to just edit the relevant parts and send the resumes off. I can see this working with a very cheap subscription model ($1-2/month) if there are more features. I dont think have you have enough to sell it right now, since most job sites have their own job tracking system.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thanks for your suggestions. With resumes, I feel like there are a few good web sites out there already. For example, I use emurse.com which is free and does everything I could want it to. I really like your idea about having multiple cover letters and placeholders in the cover letters. Something like that would have been helpful for me so I could see quickly which parts I needed to change. It would also be fun to code up an interface for it. On the money side, I was thinking a one-time payment of around $8 would allow use of the site for up to a year. A subscription model sounds good too, and probably the best thing is just to test.
  - gcheong 17y ago
    The separate slots for resumes is a good idea. I'd like to track what resume version I sent where. I think a one-time payment for access sounds like a good idea. Or maybe even just a donation button for now? The argument there is that people who find jobs might be willing to donate quite a bit more and also you never know when you'll need the site again so having the information readily available would be good.
  - hcho 17y ago
    Don't put a fixed price, allow users to pay what the site's worth to them. You can go freemium route. Providing SMS and/or e-mail based reminder service to your paying customers only springs to mind.

Femur 17y ago

Hi. I used your site about 9 months ago as my main tool for organizing my job search. I was the guy who emailed you with the suggestion to have links open in a new tab versus navigating away from the site (which you implemented a few hours later!). I am happy to say I am now gainfully employed as an Oracle DBA at a large company. I have recommended your site to friends and they have used it as well. AAA+++ would use again.

nonrecursive 17y ago
That's awesome that you've found a good job! Thanks for the good feedback you gave me, and thanks too for recommending the site. It's very gratifying to hear that you found it useful enough to tell your friends to use it.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  p.s. thanks once more but I hope you won't need to use the site again
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

mrfish 17y ago

I'd like to say that I do this already myself but nope. I'm just too lazy. Good idea! Not sure how you can monetize it but good idea.

francoisdevlin 17y ago

Very cool site. One thing I would upgrade. You have your "interview reminders" section. Very cool. The data is entered in a * / * * / * * * style, very intuitive for entry. However, I would RENDER the information in a set of nested ul tags. Just my $.02

nonrecursive 17y ago
Useful feedback that's very easy to implement: thank you very much sir.

natrius 17y ago

You're getting some porn spam on the demo account. If you're not already, it'd probably be a good idea to reset it with known good data every couple of hours.

nonrecursive 17y ago
Thanks for the heads up. I was resetting the data every 15 minutes. I've now simply disabled saving changes by the demo account altogether. Thanks again!

nobody_nowhere 17y ago

This is great! It mirrors the approach I've taken to job hunting in the past -- but on a webpage instead of a text editor. Business model options (non-exclusive): - Advertising: You have a wide range of options for sponsorship, display or performance advertising. I could write all day about them. Happy to give you more info. - Subscription/"Freemium": Pay to use. Pay to use certain features. Pay not to see ads. Tip jars. Tons of options. - Leap of faith: Focus on scaling up the user base (with or without other revenue) and sell it to a monster/dice/etc Good luck!

nonrecursive 17y ago
Thank you!

timcederman 17y ago

Yikes - what's up with the spam here? http://www.happyjobsearch.com/opportunities http://www.happyjobsearch.com/opportunities

nonrecursive 17y ago
Dang that sucks. The "demo" account is open so that people can see what the site's about without having to log in at all. I doubt people will be enticed by spam for cialis, viagra, etc, though. Looks like I need to install akismet.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I was resetting the data every 15 minutes. I've now simply disabled saving changes by the demo account altogether. Thanks again!
  - megamark16 17y ago
    Another approach is to save all changes made to the demo account to the user's session state, that way I as a user can see what adding, editing, and deleting records looks and behaves like but only I can see my changes (based on my session) and it auto cleans itself when m session ends.

ricardo 17y ago

Awesome idea and clean execution. I organized my last job search in excel and retained a lot of the same information. One suggestion: It would be useful to cache the job listing the user links to. During my last job search I remember finding a lot of my bookmarks to be invalid because the original post had expired and the recruiter reposted it.

timcederman 17y ago

I worked in the job space for a while, and I would recommend shopping this around to sites like TheLadders, Indeed, SimplyHired, etc, who are all always looking for competitive features. If they could just buy something rather than build it in-house, I'm sure they would (speaking as someone who worked at a startup which got sold to Monster.com for 72.5 million).

nonrecursive 17y ago
Something like this is what I have in mind, but I have no idea how to approach companies to shop my site around. Do you have any advice?
- timcederman 17y ago
  I would use LinkedIn, or if you email me I can put you in touch with a few folks who might be able to help. You'd also be surprised at the recipient lists behind the "contact us" forms on a lot of the major sites. e.g. http://www.indeed.com/jsp/contactus.jsp http://www.indeed.com/jsp/contactus.jsp
  - nonrecursive 17y ago
    Thank you - I'll send you an email shortly. One thing I'm wondering about is, should you email them with your price or ask them for an offer?
    - rapind 17y ago
      Why not just build your user base and work to make sure your feature set is competitive or better? They'll come to you eventually.
      - timcederman 17y ago
        You'd be surprised at the number of small-scale acquisitions that occur after a casual mention or demonstration of a site.

heyitsnick 17y ago

Google chrome 3.0.195.21 In the first page of the demo, the tables at the bottom stretch wider than the fixed width of the design

ulysses 17y ago

I haven't dug into it yet, will try to tonight, but one thing struck me. When I run across any sort of site like this normally, one of the first things I look at is news items (in this case the blog) and the forum. If there aren't any posts in either in the last couple of months, I usually assume it's been abandoned, so I don't dig any deeper. Even a one or two line post every month or two reassures me that some sort of active maintenance is going on.

nonrecursive 17y ago
Thanks for the suggestion. I've added a blog post and will add an update to the forum as well.

BobN 17y ago

The name feels odd -- like an unedited Chinese translation. Monster only works because they could afford a Superbowl ad. Maybe something that highlights the organizational aspect? MyJobSearchManager.com is open.

nonrecursive 17y ago
For some reason the name makes me smile, which is probably a terrible reason for keeping it. Initially it was After the Pink Slip. I also have worksearchtool.com . Another reason I went with Happy Job Search was that initially I was hoping to add more to the site, so it wouldn't just be about being organized. That's probably a bad idea though.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
  I like the name. It puts a positive spin on what can be a very negative time in life. It's also memorable. I say keep it.
  - heyitsnick 17y ago
    Upvoting in agreement.
- chairface 17y ago
  Just another vote for keeping the name. I smiled when I saw it.
- mquander 17y ago
  Not looking for a job, so grain of salt, but I particularly like the name and think it has a straightforward & casual feel.

numbchuckskills 17y ago

not to be a negative-nancy, but is this that much better than tracking things in something like a Google docs spreadsheet with a few tabs? Seems like a solution to a non-existent problem.

nonrecursive 17y ago
I'm sure a spreadsheet works fine for many people, and from the comments you can see that others have used them for this purpose. Here are some advantages this site has: * The data to capture has already been figured out for you. When you're first looking for a job you might not really know what to record about each listing. * The approach has been figured out for you. I did not follow the GTD-esque approach initially, and I'm sure most other people don't. That in itself is useful, as is the site's ability to facilitate it. * There is a bookmarklet for adding job listings. This saves you time. * You can subscribe to an ical feed of your next actions, which you can't do with a spreadsheet. * You can subscribe to RSS feeds from your favorite job sites so that you can easily review new postings in one place. If you're ever looking for a job, please do give it a try and decide for yourself whether it's better than fiddling with a spread sheet :)
LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
It's certainly more structured than a free-form spreadsheet. The mere fact that it's a special purpose tool makes a difference too.

JangoSteve 17y ago

This looks very nice from what I saw in the demo account. Very clean interface. I actually have a project I had made initially for B2B sales leads, but there are certain features of automation that I've been thinking lately could really be used for job search. Perhaps we should talk?

riordan 17y ago

Brilliant! I've been using Highrise to similarly organize my job search, however your approach is fantastically elegant and will probably begin using the two in tandem. I've found that the networking aspects of jobseeking are not only critical in breaking past the resume firewall but are also among the hardest parts to manage, particularly trying to balance several open opportunities and inquiries. The approach of systemizing all open opportunities, though, is brilliant. I'd suggest finding a way to integrate contacts & contact history within the site, almost making it more CRM-like, to make it a jobsearcher's dashboard. As to a business model, I'm not sure it's immediately robust enough to begin as a subscription service and I'm no longer sold on advertising as a sustainable revenue stream, particularly with niche web apps. Frankly, partnering with a LinkedIn might be the best outcome, but it's a real longshot. With the market for unemployed jobseekers outnumbering employed jobseekers, it's going to be a tough opportunity to make money on. That said, best of luck - it's really quite brilliant.

lazyant 17y ago

Out of curiosity, what language/framework did you use for the site?

steveplace 17y ago
I'm assuming that since the demo had example listing urls from 37s and workingwithrails, it's probably RoR
markbao 17y ago
Check le headers. Server: Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) Phusion_Passenger/2.0.3 X-Powered-By: Phusion Passenger (mod_rails/mod_rack) 2.0.3 Ruby on Rails. (BTW guys, time to upgrade to Passenger 2.2.5!)
- lazyant 17y ago
  that's leaky and calls for: ServerSignature Off ServerTokens Prod
  - nonrecursive 17y ago
    Could you tell me why it's a bad thing? All I can think of is that it gives someone more info so they know where to start when cooking up an exploit
    - lincolnq 17y ago
      If someone is scanning for vulnerable sites, it makes it possible to identify them without attempting the exploit.
nonrecursive 17y ago
Yep I used Rails with jQuery on the front end. Linode + rails + phusion passenger = sweet sweet deployment. I might move to heroku though, which also has sweet sweet deployment and would be free.

donw 17y ago

Several other people have commented on resume functionality, but what I'd like to see is a targeted resume builder -- one where you can list the sum total of all your skills and experience, tag each line item with specific job categories, and then use that to build targeted resumes aimed at specific markets. I've never seen a site with that feature.

nonrecursive 17y ago
That's a really cool idea, and I'd like something with that too.
- megamark16 17y ago
  I would also like a fast way to 'build' my resume with appropriately specific pieces from my overall experience and skills.

TrevorJ 17y ago

I think this is a great idea. First impression, I would reconsider the colors. I think there's something to be said for being playful, however I'd like to see colors that are a bit more businesslike. The colors say toy, but this is a tool. Granted, web 2.0 has proven that a pastel color scheme can work, and I do think it can work for you too but you either need to pull back on it or take it a step further and support it with some more stylized design elements. Specifically, if your site name in the header felt more like a logo and felt a bit playful, you'd be signaling that this lightweight, airy feel is part of your brand identity. Right now there's some disconnect there. The dark blue you are using is nice, I think maybe just making that a bit more prevalent in your design would serve to ground the overall design a bit more.

alphageek 17y ago

THis is something I was hoping to find. It becomes really hard for me to remember which jobs I applied to and to save jobs that I would like to apply to later. This is ideal for me. Thank you !!

Slzr 17y ago

My 2c: Get some design, some logo Its a great site, you just need some digg/reddit front page or stumbleupon on it, good luck.