Resume Sender

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• Download demo project - 50 Kb

Introduction

Finding a job can be tough, keeping track of where you have application can be tougher. Many a times when I received a phone call, asking me to come for an interview, I will be scratching my head, wondering when did I send in the application to this company(amids the thousands that I have sent). It was only until very much later that I realized that it was done a month ago! Job searching companies gave the tip to note down the companies I have applied to somewhere for reference, but hey, I'm in the IT industry, can't this be automated? Thus give rise to this little application.

What it does

This application will basically do 4 things for you,

1) send your job application to the employer, together with the attached resume, and email a copy to your email.

2) keep track of the job applications you have made.

3) streamline your job application process, all the details you have entered for the email, you can save it as a template. All future applications you made, you only require to enter the email, the position applied and the company's name. The application will help you to change the subject header and email accordingly to the position applied as long as you follow the instructions carefully.

4) allow you to preview the actual email before sending it. It will first send the email to your own email first for you to preview the result.

How to use it

Using it is simple, just follow the steps below. Note that tooltips are there if you are lost. Just click on the box and it will tell you what to enter for that textbox.

1) make sure you have .Net 2.0 runtime installed and running. You can download the runtime from microsoft if you don't have it installed.

2) setup the SMTP configuration first. This is a 1-time process as long as you save it later. You can lock the values entered by clicking on the check box. Note that the application will automatically lock those boxes for you if there are any values in them for all subsequent startups.

3) Enter all the relevant information. Remember to attach your resume using the insert attachment button. Alernatively, you can enter the link into it directly into the textbox. To auto-insert the position you are applying for, enter #position in the subject header and email body text boxes, and they will be replaced automatically.

4) click preview if you want to preview the result of your email. Press submit if you wish to submit. After emailing successfully, this application will be saved and shown in the datagridview located at the bottom of the screen.

Note that you can delete any entries in the datagridview.

The codes

There's actually nothing special with the codes. If you are a basic programmer, the codes will look familar to you. However, I need to point that I have included 2 special classes inside, namely the Bossware class and the config class. The Bossware class, not written by me and a special thks to the writer, allows me to send email with authentication. The config class is a simple manager for configuration. The source code for this class is not included in this project, however, it is found at another article that I had posted before.

Improvements

This application was wiped up in a matter of 3 hours. It needs further improvements.

1) The settings are saved as xmls, and without encryptions. Please note especially that the email password is saved without encryption. This, together with other details, ought to be encrypted.

2) If there are multiple users, probably I should add in a login function. But it is unusual that there might more than 1 user for this application? I might add it in if there is a demand for it.

3) Windows .Net 3.0 actually has created new methods for creating windows application. I might port this over to that if I have the chance.

4) I might include the function to do an update of the interview date and timing for keeping track of each job.

Suggestions

All suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance to all!