ApniCV

Location:

Pakistan

Partnership period:

2022

Industry:

Information Technology

Technologies:

Laravel, PHP, MongoDB, Linux,

Team Size:

1 Backend Developer, 1 Frontend Developer

Competitive Environment

The process of resume building and job applications continues to remain fragmented lacking an integrated solution. Microsoft Word still dominates resume authoring focused solely on creating static documents devoid of any personalization or context.

Various online resume formatting tools also emerged that assist in organizing received content visually but do not aid candidates in framing the narrative itself.

Applicant tracking systems no doubt brought automation benefiting recruiters to screen and communicate with applicants at scale. However, these ATS solutions offer no intelligence in actually matching candidate strengths to open positions. This results in spray and pray applications from job seekers with minimal transparency into suitability.

While disparate point solutions aid the hiring side, there exists no unified application acceleration platform centralizing a user's profile, target opportunities identification, resume construction tuned to those openings, and automated application submission & tracking.

This lack of an integrated smart system tailored to candidate needs results in diminished ROI for effort spent. The landscape lacked an advisor guiding professionals through opportunities aligned with their assets and orchestrating a high-velocity application funnel transparently.

Problem Statement

As career consultants who have evaluated thousands of resumes, we found clients universally struggling to frame effective resumes and target relevant openings. The process breaks down due to multiple gaps:

Blank canvas paralysis without context on structuring narratives: Beginning resume writing by staring at a blank Word document or page is intimidating for most without guidance on framing relevant experiences.
Oblivious to keywords required for ATS resonance: Applicants are often unaware of algorithms screening resumes and fail to optimize narratives for prominence.
Quantifying achievements and impact to demonstrate value: Articulating career milestones with measurable outcomes posed challenges even for seasoned professionals.
Volume recruiting demands high application velocity: Applying to multiple openings simultaneously requires rapidly generating tailored resume variations and tracking status.

Additionally, evolving workplace dynamics mean professionals frequently change jobs needing to reframe relevant experiences differently each time. The complexity leaves even seasoned talent acquisition teams overwhelmed and underprepared resulting in diminished ROI for effort spent.

The landscape lacked an integrated application acceleration platform centralizing user profiles, target opportunities identification, and automated application submission & tracking. Without assistance, the process sub-optimizes outcomes despite significant energy investments.

Solution and Objectives

Through extensive user research, we realized resume building must transform from a one-time project into an intelligent system centralizing candidate data, and experiences into an easily accessible application automation engine.

We envisioned an AI-powered career acceleration platform that can:

Guide framing compelling, quantified resume narratives:
The system would assist users in authoring optimized professional profiles and resumes showcasing their assets. Templates and examples focus on quantifying achievements, impact, and competencies tuned to applicant tracking algorithms.
Auto-recommend opportunities perfectly matched to strengths:
Integrating into job boards and career sites, the platform automatically surfaces openings aligned to a candidate's profile - experience, skills, preferences, etc. Advanced matching algorithms also incorporate historical hiring trends increasing relevance.
One-click resume generation tailored for every application:
Further building on the profile, the platform generates tailored 1-page resumes optimized for applicant tracking systems for each targeted application. The machine learning model dynamically constructs focused narratives.
Orchestrate high-quality, high-volume applications end-to-end:
Finally, the system submits applications to nearly any online portal or employer solution while logging status. Robust tracking and automatic follow-ups minimize leakage.

Essentially elevating resume building from a one-time project into an intelligent system targeting opportunities where the probability of landing is maximum.

The singular vision was transforming application funnel efficacy centralizing user profile assets and target opportunities data into an automation engine tailored to career advancement needs.

Technology Planning

We deliberately invested heavily upfront in planning the architecture, user experience, and capability prioritization validating assumptions through research:

Technical Architecture:

Finalized cloud-native modular architecture on Laravel enabling independent scaling of application modules via microservices:

Backend APIs: PHP
Database: MongoDB Atlas
Search indexes managed with rankings
Queue and notification management

The priority was building for rapid iteration aligned to agile sprints through correct technological components identification upfront.

Experience Design
Adopting design thinking process through generative user studies and rapid prototyping, we detailed user journeys for essential workflows like:

Guided profile builder question sequences
Matching jobs filtered discovery
One-page resume layout variations
Minimal application submission form enhancements

Focus involved simplification reducing cognitive load while adding automation.

Prioritization Cadence
Features categorization across must-have, good-to-have and delighters supported launch MVP definition within 12 weeks, balancing technical complexity vs impact.

Quarterly planning accounted for new behaviors while maximizing reuse by leveraging existing components.

Fortnightly client council sessions provided direct inclusion into backlogs from the early stages.

The extensive planning phase established strong structural foundations across technology, experience, and delivery optimizing for agile output.

Phases

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Conclusion and Results

The integrated ApniCV platform transformed an otherwise fragmented, complex journey for candidates seeking new opportunities into a smart automation engine - right from showcasing professional assets, identifying jobs where the probability of selection is high and efficiently applying through tailored resumes submitted via automated means.

Through the phased rollout leveraging prescriptive guidance across 3 key modules, ApniCV elevates users over common breakdowns amplifying application funnel efficacy:

Guided profile builder assists in articulating compelling career narratives tuned to target roles overcoming blank page paralysis through examples, templates, and keyword guidance targeting applicant tracking algorithm optimization.
Opportunity discovery punctuation leveraging jobs integrations, proprietary matching algorithms, and curated recommendations takes the guesswork out of relevant opening identification multiplying options aligned to individual strengths.
Application automation orchestrator allows rapid generation of tailored 1-click resumes for targeted opportunities simplifying custom output at scale and streamlining end-to-end submission tracking through integrated gateways minimizing leakage via reminders.

These compounding efficiencies at key conversion steps explained the multifold business impact unlocked:

50% application time reduction through draft enablement
5X better job opportunities match rates to candidate assets
60% application completion rates for integrated 1-click apply

It is essentially reframing resume building from one-time project paralysis into an intelligent system targeting opportunities with maximum probability of advancement.

Key Challenge

Central to the recommendation relevance was training ML models requiring anonymized ATS datasets of past applicants, resume details, and interview call conversion. Obtaining these in a compliant manner posed data privacy challenges needing creative solutions.

Next Steps

Having streamlined resume creation and job application tracking, we envision expanding ApniCV into a smart career advisor guiding users through upskilling recommendations. Exploring capabilities like:

Skills gap analysis
Training guidance aligned to dream jobs
Interview readiness remote coaching

We foresee such solutions accelerating workforce transformations through expert-driven yet personalized assistance at scale.

ApniCV

ApniCV

Competitive Environment

Problem Statement

Solution and Objectives

Technology Planning