Side Project · MBA Job Search
Recruiting CRM
I had a problem. No existing tool connected applications, contacts, and outreach history in one place. So I built one.
The Problem
MBA recruiting means managing a lot of moving parts at once — applications across dozens of companies, a network of contacts at each one, outreach threads at different stages, and follow-up timelines that slip if you're not on top of them.
The standard setup is a spreadsheet for applications, Gmail for outreach, LinkedIn for contacts, and something like Notion loosely stitching it together. It works until it doesn't — and it stops working fast.
Nothing off-the-shelf connected all of those together in a way that matched how the process actually works. So I kept losing track of things that mattered.
Spreadsheets
Good for tracking status, bad for everything else. No contact history, no reminders, no threading.
Gmail
All the outreach is there, but there's no structure. Search doesn't scale when you're managing 50 threads.
Contact management without any application context. Can't see your outreach history alongside a job record.
Notion
Flexible, but requires you to build the system yourself every time — and it still doesn't connect to your inbox.
The Build Decision
I could have kept patching the spreadsheet. Instead I treated this the way I'd treat any product problem: defined what I actually needed, looked at what existed, decided the gap was big enough to close myself, and started building.
That decision was intentional on two levels. First, I needed the tool — I was actively using it during my search. Second, building it was a chance to document how I approach 0-to-1 problems. The process is visible in the repo: how I scoped it, what I prioritized, how it evolved.
What It Does
It's a full-stack CRM built specifically for the recruiting workflow. Applications, contacts, and outreach history live together in one place and reference each other — so when you pull up a company, you see your application status, every contact you have there, and the full thread of what you've sent and received.
It's live, it works, and I used it throughout my MBA job search.
I don't just think about building things. I build them.
This project is self-referential in the best way. The problem was real, the solution is live, and the build process is documented. That's the whole story.