[firstplacelast]

Earlier this year was playing around with the idea of creating an app to track job applications and the subsequent interview process for candidates. Then using the data to give users insights into companies and roles and how responsive they are. So (with enough adoption) one could see how long they take to respond or even see other candidates they had responded to for a specific position (maybe even allow competing candidates to chat? or see where others are in the interview pipeline).

I could not figure out a way to painlessly gather this info without monitoring users' emails (privacy nightmare) or having users forward emails to the app (too painful/not conducive to user adoption). But if anyone has any ideas how to get around that?

[ZuoCen_Liu]

I think the primary obstacle isn't the data ingestion method, but the fact that companies treat the recruitment lifecycle as a proprietary black box. From an HR perspective, transparency is a liability, not an asset. They have zero incentive to cooperate with an external 'tracking' tool because: 1Information Asymmetry is Power: If candidates knew exactly where they stood or how many 'ghost' positions existed, the company would lose its leverage in salary negotiations and timeline control. 2Legal and PR Risk: Making the pipeline visible exposes a company to accusations of bias or 'unfavorable' hiring patterns. 'Privacy' is often used here as a convenient shield to hide inefficiency or lack of intent. Even if you solved the email-scraping problem, you'd likely face Terms of Service (ToS) roadblocks or even legal threats from major corporations claiming you are 'scraping' or 'misrepresenting' their internal processes. The 'pain' of user adoption isn't just about email forwarding; it's about the fact that candidates are often too intimidated to participate in a system that might be seen as 'adversarial' to the very companies they are trying to join. We aren't just missing a tool; we are missing a safe harbor for candidate data sharing.

[Manozco]

Maybe by providing a unique email to the user that he/she will use for the company. Be sure to forward emails to the user also :D

[ZuoCen_Liu]

Haha, that's unlikely.