Inspiration
We were inspired to simplify what is a universal and often painful experience of this stage of life- the job hunt.
What it does
This Chrome extension allows the user to create a customizable message that can be automatically populated with basic contact info and then sent by Gmail or copied into another medium (e.g. LinkedIn message). The extension will then save the date, company, and contact method to a spreadsheet for later review. The spreadsheet also has the capability to enter dates of further interviews and the end result of any communications/applications to support analysis of the most effective methods in the job search as well as serving as a record of when and what communications have taken place so far.
How we built it
We created a Chrome extension that uses HTML, CSS, and vanilla JS. The extension uses Google Drive's REST API in order to save the data in the user's Drive and Gmail to send any emails.
Challenges we ran into
We had originally planned to retrieve the name, email, and company from a recruiter's LinkedIn page, but had to change directions when we decided that this was likely a violation of LinkedIn's Terms of Service, even if we weren't saving any personal information or accessing any information that wasn't publicly available on a profile. We also ran into difficulty because Chrome's current version of extensions does not allow use of scripts hosted elsewhere, which prevented the use of all of Google client APIs that would have made much of the functionality easier to implement.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were proud to have produced something unlike anything any of us had ever made before, especially something that with a bit more work we feel would actually be useful to us.
What we learned
We learned a lot about using REST APIs (especially those requiring authorization tokens in the request), working with vanilla JS, and manipulating the DOM of a webpage.
What's next for Send-It
We would like to implement some better analysis tools, especially a Sankey diagram that can be used to easily visualize the progression of all a user's communications/applications in an easily understandable way. The extension also needs to be verified and approved by Google before it can be used by anybody who isn't a pre-approved tester, so that would be a priority.
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