NextStep

Clone our Airtable template and write down your professional accomplishments.
Get an Airtable API key to convert your experience into JSON resume.
Edit your sections.
Download your JSON resume and import into https://latexresu.me/

Inspiration

Job security is threatened when employees aren't able to track the work they're doing. They should be able to track their achievements and report them to their managers when dealing with performance reviews. At the same time, people who get laid off might feel insecurity if they don't remember what they achieved when rewriting their resume. We decided to make a logging system for achievements and a tool to generate JSON Resumes (a universal resume schema) with filtered achievements (and other resume details).

What it does

We created 2 products to make employees feel like they have more job security. The first one is an Airtable performance tracker where they write down their achievements from work. The second one is an Airtable-to-JSON Resume converter that lets them filter achievements they want to show for the resume they're submitting to a job posting or sharing to a recruiter.

How we built it

We pivoted a few times so tech choices and code quality may seem confusing. We used Next.js to build an app where a user can enter their Airtable base (which stems from a template) and have the app calculate rows they'd like included in their JSON Resume file. Daisy UI (a Tailwind plugin) was the simplest option we found for building UI. We used SWR for networking and Jotai for state management. File downloads are handled by a library called file-saver and all downloads are saved in local storage.

Challenges we ran into

Our team had a hard time coming up with an idea that satisfies the "Job Security" theme. We had to pivot a few times which killed a lot of hours in the 24-hour hackathon while making the code worse. We also didn't have matching time zones and schedules so project alignment was difficult to achieve--one person would do X which depends on the other person doing Y, but the other person is sleeping due to being on the other side of the planet.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

First hackathon and first time working with React for some of our members. They seem to like it and would love to immerse in these activities more.
Was able to deploy a working product that matches our original requirements. They may not be the most sophisticated, but they tested our project management skills by forcing us to think about time/skill constraints and also user requirements.

What we learned

Participating in a hackathon was excellent opportunity for our team to learn and grow as CS students. Working closely with a team of diverse individuals with different skills and backgrounds taught valuable collaboration skills, including communication, teamwork, and compromise. Depending on the specific challenge or theme of the hackathon, we had the opportunity to learn and apply new technical skills.

What's next for NextStep

Next step is better UX, UI, and product bundling. Why do we use Airtable despite it being slow and cumbersome to use? Well, we didn't have enough time to make our own backend system so we piggybacked on it.
We want to use AI to help people generate perfect resume experience items based on input job postings (or even show them how qualified they are). Women would feel more secure if we show them that they really are qualified enough (maybe if 60% qualified) when applying to work (i.e. men apply even when not that qualified but women only apply if they feel very qualified).
Using job site APIs to match resumes to job postings automatically. In this case, people would have to optimize their resume to get jobs rather than look for recruiters or job postings. They won't feel any job insecurity anymore they're always in a pre-warmed recruitable state (not looking for work but always available for work immediately in case of lay off or company departure).