Inspiration
For those new to tech, the field can seem intimidating at first, in particular for women and minority groups. In 2018, 20% of all jobs in technology were held by women, despite the fact that 74% of girls express a desire for a career in STEM fields. Many women don't follow their dream, often due to a lack of confidence or 'imposter syndrome'. That's where helloTech comes in. helloTech is a gentle, step-by-step resume builder to guide you through the process of creating a tech-focused resume, all while reminding you that you already possess incredible skills and valuable experiences, no matter where yvou come from. Submitting job applications is a stressful process, so let helloTech do some of the hard work for you, propelling you towards your dream tech career by giving you tips and hints on creating the perfect resume. This resume builder is tailored towards those with less tech experience, helping you highlight other achievements to give you an edge against others in a similar position. It's like saying "hello world" again, but this time -- "hello, Tech!"
What it does
helloTech uses information the user inputs to create a beautifully formatted resume. The website will guide the user through six pages: About You, Education, Skills, Experience, Projects, and Extracurriculars. When these have all been filled in, the final step is Generate! This will output a downloadable and printable PDF of the completed resume and leave the user feeling more confident and empowered in their journey into tech. The resume format is specifically designed for those new to tech in mind -- the 'Project' section, for example, allows the user to highlight a time they faced a problem and achieved an outcome.
In order to ensure that the outputted resume is not only aesthetic, but also excellently written, helloTech also includes helpful tools. For example, the 'Projects' section highlights the verbs and adjectives you're using, to ensure you're using action words and a consistent tense/voice. It also includes a word count to encourage the user to be concise. In addition, the 'Skills' section categorises the skills the user inputs automatically, increasing the readability of the eventual resume. Every section has tips written at the top to help ensure the resume is as attractive to employers as possible.
Research suggests that one reason that women can be reluctant to apply for technology jobs is due to a lack of female role models. Only 4.8% of CEO's on the 2018 Fortune500 list were women. We therefore have included inspirational quotes from exceptional women on each page of the website.
How I built it
helloTech is primarily built using React.js. We built a 'parent' Javascript file that implements the progression bar and the ability to move between the website's pages. Each page of the resume builder (the 'children') is composed of one or more Javascript files, combined with CSS files to ensure a streamlined and cohesive design. Finally, a resume generator Javascript file combines the user's inputs and combines them into a Stylesheet, to create the final formatted PDF document.
We used Material-UI to create webpage features, and Google Cloud Natural Language API to detect and highlight verbs and adjectives.
Challenges I ran into
One large initial challenge was that there is no strictly correct way to format a tech resume (or any resume!). We brainstormed different possible section headers, with an emphasis on conveying all the information needed on a resume in the most succinct, simple way possible. Taking into account the intended user demographic of those new to tech, we decided on the structure you can see in our final product.
It was also difficult to fomat the resume layout within React, which was managed with time and perseverance!
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Two of our four team members hadn't used Material-UI and had to learn the React framework from scratch, so we're proud of how much we've learned and what we've managed to create. We are also proud of our incorporation of Google Cloud Natural Language API into our project, enhancing the website's ability to provide critical feedback. In addition, rendering the PDF from the information within the website was a challenge that we are happy to have accomplished.
What I learned
We have learned a lot from the project. We've learned significant new programming skills between us, from learning to use React to integrating an API. In addition, we've learned about the importance of design elements to make the user experience as seamless and intuitive as possible, as well as how to implement such a design.
What's next for helloTech
There are many options for future development in helloTech. One goal would be to make the final PDF resume document customisable, so the user can do final touch-ups to tailor their resume to specific requirements, and to ensure the product is as flawless as possible. We also would create more templates so the user has many options to choose from to suit their tastes and needs.
In addition, it would be useful for the website to produce a warning if the resulting resume is going to be over two pages, as it's important that a resume is concise and not too long. This would allow the user to edit their inputs accordingly. In accordance with this, an option to edit the font size would be useful to aid with this.
Finally, we would create a 'skills cube'. This would be a visual representation of the balance of your resume, showing the user their resume's strengths and weaknesses.
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