My 7 month pregnant wife was laid off from Indeed (she was a PM there) back in December. This pissed me off quite a bit, as she was supposed to get 6 months leave and instead got fired.
So I spent the last five months working part time to build Dreamwork, a platform aiming to make the job search experience actually better with AI (not just mass application spam).
I started with just a telegram bot doing scraping, then advanced to Google Embeddings 2.0 for vectorizing the jobs, built out a tight 6 axis scorecard for both the user and each job.
Then I actually got to use my English degree (lol) to optimize the prompt for custom per-job resumes and cover letters to make them not sound like - again - shitty AI.
Most AI cover letters have a kind of consistently dead quality. They use all the keywords and somehow communicate nothing. I absolutely hate that, so I’ve been fairly obsessive about making the output feel more like a decent human draft: specific but restrained, and not stuffed with keywords.
It is now useful enough that I think strangers can try it and find serious value.
What it does today:
- indexes ~100k curated tech jobs
- tries to avoid stale/duplicate aggregator garbage
- uses semantic matching instead of only keyword search
- generates an “application pack” for each job: tailored resume, cover letter, and answers to common/custom questions
- lets the user edit everything before applying
- helps keep track of saved jobs and generated materials
Auto apply is the part I’m conflicted about. I do t think blindly spraying applications is good for the candidates (chance of hiring is already low, even with hard work and customization), recruiters (they’re swamped), or the world (we don’t need more slop).
I’ll build auto apply out in some format, but I want to be thoughtful about it.
I also built out a whole research section to map out layoffs and hiring trends. This will start to be super useful in a month or two.
Anyways - it’s all free to use right now. Built originally out of spite, now becoming a real product.
I’d love to get feedback on what elements would truly make this the career companion you’re looking for. Not - resume spray and pray platform, but something that will actually help you navigate this insane hiring economy we’re in.
You can check it out here:
vunderba•53m ago
However, if you’re planning to monetize this, which it appears you are, there are a couple of things that come to mind.
First, temper your expectations. I’ve consistently seen job-aggregator/application tools with AI posted on Hacker News nearly once or twice a week for practically a year at this point. You’re entering a very competitive space, so just be aware of that.
Second, and related to the first point, I think the name might be working against you. DreamWork(s) is a very well-known animation studio in the US, and from an SEO perspective it seems likely you'll be heavily down-ranked or overshadowed which could make discovery an issue.
Good luck!
cojj25•18m ago
And noted on the name - something I’m considering daily. I just like the feel of dreamwork.