HackerIntro
Connecting software engineers and companies
I haven't updated milestones here in a while. It doesn't mean there's no progress, though!
The customer base has been slowly but steadily growing. There was a bit of churn while trying to identify the best-matching customer types.
The resume discovery engine has been humming along nicely. We're soon to hit 100K resumes in Resume Search!
Saved searches are nearing completion (I have to work out a few UX bugs), and I want to start inviting developers whose resumes were found onto the platform soon.
Today, to celebrate the arrival of October and the passage of the 20,000 resumes mark, I am launching the Basic plan for Resume Search to validate the volume of the demand for the service.
I am still working incessantly to get features of the Professional and Unlimited plans ready for primetime.
It's a start!
Today, I woke up to having over 20,000 resumes in our database. It is inspiring to see how many people are out there. We keep adding hundreds of resumes every day.
Sure, we don't have millions just yet, but our approach allows us to feel the pulse of this community.
With the official launch of Resume Search around the corner, it's definitely time to improve conversions on the landing website.
It's been way overdue, but I was waiting for awesome Levi Nunnink to finish working on the illustrations, which I just had to have.
I am still working out its rougher edges, but it is miles ahead of what was there just this morning. The problem was that there was no reasonable explanation right on the main page. Instead, I was trying to solve the problem of multiple audiences by offering visitors to choose who they are. Suffice to say that this didn't work well.
Oh yeah, that's right, since the last update, HackerIntro got a new product!
A month ago, I was trying to think more about how to create immediate value for recruiters and hiring companies. Something that would make HackerIntro an investment that pays off immediately.
This thought made me go back and think more about the processes that happen in recruitment—the very basics.
How do you find developers that match your needs?
You'd search for them through projects, publications, and resumes.
But, hey, I know what has frustrated me for quite a while!
There are many resumes, between personal websites, specialized listing services, and metaphorical desk drawers.
What if I can get these and make it easy to search through them?
..
The next thing I knew, I had a bunch of crawlers getting their hands on resumes, Elasticsearch humming along, some Python code doing ML magic...
Today, HackerIntro has over 8,000 resumes indexed, and I am gearing up towards its official launch (the point at which I will start charging for the product).
Scary and exciting. Time to get more customers.
One of the essential things for HackerIntro to make it is to build an extensive network on all sides of the ecosystem. Engineers, recruiters, hiring managers... all of them.
I can only do so much lead outreach myself. But the world is immense!
So I decided to draw on the help of our friends, followers, and other fantastic people.
As of August 1st, 2021, we are starting paying for any qualifying referrals with a great bonus of a new MacBook Pro (once it will actually come out) for the top performer.
It's available here https://hackerintro.com/campaign/connect
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Hi Yurii. I had a look at your site, but I don't understand how it works. I am bombarded with irrelevant offers from recruiters. They never bother to check my stack or location, for example. Most of it is just fishing for connections, so I mostly ignore them. How will your service will help me?
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Hi Max,
Thank you so much for your feedback.
Currently, the main venue for fixing the problem of being bombarded by recruiters is @hackerintro.com mailboxes (see https://hackerintro.com/engineers)
If you use a @hackerintro.com address to receive recruiting inquiries, it serves two purposes:
- Signals that you might consider some opportunities (a stronger signal for recruiters to research you before contacting)
- Raises the bar for recruiters. For example, unless you flip a configuration switch, they have to become HackerIntro users themselves to send emails to your @hackerintro.com email. In the future, more features are to be added to pre-screen inquiries to ensure only quality ones get through.
Please let me know if this helps you understanding HackerIntro's offering better?
P.S. As the problem space is not one thing, HackerIntro is likely to become more than one feature.
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I'm trying to tackle the same problem from a different perspective. I think the reason we are bombarded with irrelevant offers is because it's too hard to find out what is relevant. I wonder if having better online profiles would improve the relevancy. Checkout my product. Maybe it's worth having a chat.
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I agree with you. At the very least, this is one of the reasons. I am currently working on building a meaningful (and searchable) database of traditional resumes with an express intent to take it further towards better kind of resumes (or profiles, bios, etc.) to improve relevancy a d discoverability.
Would love to chat.
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I ordered a landing page roast a few days ago at https://www.roastmylandingpage.com/, and this morning I woke up to Olly's roast in my inbox! Woohoo!
He's given some excellent feedback and suggestions, and I dove right in by spending the whole day splitting the landing page in four — to have a specific message for each audience.
Check out the revamped HackerIntro.com!
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Thanks so much for booking a roast with me.
I'm impressed with your speed to implement changes to test!
How is it going for you?
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Olly, thanks for checking in with me here, and I apologize for missing this.
It's going alright, building out the product, but didn't have a lot of time to focus on the landing page. Have tons of ideas there, though!
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Today I am announcing Insights Newsletter, a different take on how companies can present themselves to potential candidates.
A lot of hiring managers and recruiters are still just doing job ads. But this format doesn't engage potential candidates early on. It doesn't spark interest.
So I wanted to offer something interesting to engineers to read — deeper insights into companies that are hiring. Something worth following even if you are not looking.
Today is the day when I am releasing first chunk of email forwarding functionality of HackerIntro.com.
Now one can get their own mailbox and manage their conversations with recruiters and hiring companies better:
Today's release has:
- Better control over who can send emails to the inbox
- E-mail privacy
Today's release doesn't have:
- Any mailbox-related UI (ha! it's coming -- one can get their mailbox by talking to me through the chat box)
Also coming later:
- Pre-screening
- Batch forwarding at pre-scheduled time
- Reminders
- ...and more, I guess?
Beautiful day.
Following the initial announcement, I've contacted some recruiters and they are signing up for a trial.
To celebrate this micro-victory, I'm updating the design of the website to make it look a lot more legitimate and to make it easier to work on it. The original version was quickly done on Bubble.io out of general interest in No Code tools. Turns out, it's too difficult to use, especially when it comes to designing UI.
So, back to code it is.
I've got some orders to fulfill!
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