Inspiration
As four young women participating in a hackathon meant to encourage female representation in the tech industry, we wanted to seek a way to challenge female representation in the workplace across the tech industry. As college students of various ages going through different recruitment processes, one thing we all agreed on was the importance of networking, followed by the lack of networks available specifically for women. Thus, HERizon was born!!
What it does
HERizon is a professional network built to connect women to professionals in different industries that they are interested in. Upon signing up for the website, each user completes a basic form that detects what their interests are based on their major. Students can then explore different alumni from their schools and, in the future, filter searches based on companies they are interested in or careers they may want to pursue. We also implemented a feature with which young women can submit their resumes to a database (similar to at Pearl Hacks) where they will be parsed, anonymized, and sent straight to recruiters at partner companies in order to avoid recruiting biases.
How we built it
The front-end was built using React, a Javascript framework that utilizes JSX and CSS. The layout for the web application was designed originally using Figma. Additionally, we used Botonic, an open-source chatbot, to design a chatbot to enhance overall customer experience with additional resume tips and networking help. We also utilized Auth0 to create a user login; with which, users can be given various permissions.
The backend utilizes sqlAlchemy and Postgresql to store existing students and mentors information. In the future, we hope to be able to filter data efficiently and automate the pairing of students and mentors.
Challenges we ran into
One challenge we ran into was creating the profile page based on user authorization. After implementing Auth0, we wanted to add a further step which provided users with various questions about their career interests based on whether they were students or industry professionals wanting to serve as mentors. We struggled with only showing certain visual elements on the page depending on the user, but ended up using React useState hooks and conditional statements to alter what was being displayed. Another challenge was the integration of the front-end and back-end.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We feel proud of our clean and colorful UI with formatted CSS. We are also proud of our created database that stores the student and mentor network.
What we learned
The front-end team learned how to effectively use useState and useEffect hooks in React as not being too familiar with using the framework, as well as how to use Figma to create an effective and visually appealing user interface.
Although the back-end team was somewhat experienced with the database used, we learned how to use various new dependencies and more about user authentication.
What's next for HERizon
One thing we hope to implement is partnerships with various employers to take part in a resume database to give more women opportunities in fields they are interested in, as well as to be able to avoid certain biases in the recruitment process. Furthermore, we hope to tap into the UNC alumni database that gives students access to a similar option of contacting those in their fields of interests who have given permission to be contacted in order to encourage the Tar Heel connections. We also hope to provide resources to students regarding current job/internship listings and technical advancements.
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