Automating My First Job Search
My last year of college I began the dreaded job search. I wanted to work somewhere on the east coast, but I didn't care where. So I began working my way down the east coast craigslist job boards. For each job, I would write an e-mail cover letter that matched the job. I had read about how discussing related skills in a cover letter greatly increases the chances of getting a job. So my typical cover letter was an introduction paragraph, then a paragraph discussing my experience with the skills needed, then a standard closing paragraph.
After about an hour of this, being a programmer decided to automate this whole process.
So I built a script to scrape the jobs from craigslist. Based on the keywords in the job description, it would insert the associated skills paragraph, attach the resume and send it out. The app sent out 1,500 resumes in about 24 hours. (After about 6 hours of programming)
The next day I was inundated with calls and e-mails. I did a bunch of phone interviews that day. One company even flew me out that day (less than 10 hours after they got my resume) I decided to take the job with them a few days later. During the interviews they asked questions like "how did you hear about us." I dodged the question, since the real answer was that I heard about them the first time when they called.
After working for the company for six months, I ended up telling the story of how I automated the job application process. They told me that had I told that story during my interview, they probably would have hired me on the spot without more interviewing.
I forgot about the app for years, until a few of my non-programmer friends mentioned how much time they spent doing a similar process when looking for work. Thus I began working on InstantEmployed.
