Intentions
When I first learned about the Devpost PartyRock Hackathon I signed up with basically no intention of actually entering anything. I was excited by the idea that maybe one day I would do something like that, but even before hitting the "submit" button to enter I had already decided I couldn't come up with even a decent idea of what to build, let alone find something interesting or possibly unique.

After entering I more or less forgot about it, but I did start talking more about prompt-based engineering, generative AI and similar concepts. As my understanding started to grow I started using PartyRock as my own easy to use sandbox to better understand simple theories and test out ideas. I made some random applications for fun. In fact, I spent a good week trying to create one that would build a web comic based on prompts. This was an idea I had because I wanted to add a funny visual to my Cloud Resume Challenge blog. I never really got it working, but I think that was just the limitations of the platform.

Then one day I was talking about my attempts to make a career change. I am excited about the cloud, prompt-based engineering and AI as a whole, but I have just been struggling to figure out how to turn my interests and drive into something tangible for a career shift. Someone said to me "look at posting for jobs you want and see what you are missing". My response was "I don't even know what jobs titles I might want". Internally I was thinking I just want someone to look at my resume, look at my skills, certifications and interests, and give me some ideas!

Lightbulb

It took about 15 minutes for the lightbulb to go off and for me to launch PartyRock. 5 minutes later the Career MatchMaker was born.

I didn't build it from scratch with widgets, I told PartRock what I wanted and let it fill in the blanks. The first iteration was simple, a place to paste my resume, a place to drop in some additional skills, and the job list generator.

From there I thought well this is great, but now I need to know how to go from where I am to that job. So once again I had PartyRock do the heavy lifting for me, and I had another app, the Career Pathfinder. This one took a resume, skills, and desired job and explained what was missing.

For both apps I started tweaking the widgets. I added a chatbot to the MatchMaker app to be able to ask questions about the jobs. I added a mock interview to the PathFinder app just for fun. And the more I worked on them the more invested I got in the idea. I started thinking not just about myself but other people I know in a similar boat, wanting or needing to make a career change.

I also realized the two apps were great, but one app would be better. That was also about the time I decided that I was going to enter this app into the Hackathon.

Getting to Work

I set to work combining the two apps so that both functions were in the same app. This is when I really started to play with PartyRock; tweaking prompts, editing widgets, making widgets, etc.

I altered the approach so that the app took the resume input and distilled a list of skills and certifications. I also started seeing how I wanted to expand the app, and started having people play with the app and provide feedback. This helped me see where I was missing some items to come up with better outcomes.

As I continued to iterate I included desired job fields, likes and dislikes/jobs to avoid, as well as an additional skills area in case there was something missing from the resume. This became the basis for the generated job list, but a much more refined and specific list.

The other functions I basically left the same. A career coach chatbot to ask questions about jobs, a place to select a job from the list and enter it to learn what additional skills, certs etc would be needed based on the resume and skills area. I also expanded this to include resource to help fill those gaps.

Hitting Submit
I finally hit a place where I felt ready. I no longer cared if it was novel enough or interesting enough. I had made an app that I liked, that I knew had a purpose. I also had feedback from my testers that told me I had made something with value, and that was enough for me. Once I had everything working the way I wanted and needed I did submit my app. Honestly I shocked myself with this one. I don't expect to win anything, and in looking at the gallery I am not the only person who made a career-related app, but I also don't care. I hit submit, and that was a huge win for me.

Feel free to check out my Career MatchMaker app and let me know what you think!

Career MatchMaker