F.M.
ApplyTogether
A collaborative job search platform for students — because recruiting is hard enough without doing it alone.
Product Manager · May – July 2026 · Personal Project
The Problem
My friends and I were all recruiting at the same time — same companies, same deadlines, same anxiety. We'd share opportunities over text, lose track of what we'd sent each other, and have no idea where anyone was in the process.
Spreadsheets got messy. Group chats got noisy. Everyone was doing the same search in complete isolation.
The frustrating part wasn't the job search itself. It was that we were all going through it together and somehow still alone.
Who It's For
ApplyTogether is built for college students in active recruiting seasons — typically juniors and seniors applying for internships or new grad roles, who have a close group of 3–6 friends doing the same search at the same time.
These are people who already share opportunities informally over iMessage or a Notion doc, but have no structured way to stay organised, accountable, or informed about where their friends are in the process — without it getting competitive or awkward.
Key Features
Shared Opportunity Feed
Anyone in the group can add a role — company, position, location, deadline, link, and notes. It appears on everyone's feed instantly. Each listing shows how many group members are interested, have applied, and are interviewing — real numbers, not names, so nobody feels watched.
Group Recruiting Calendar
Every deadline lives on a shared calendar, colour-coded by urgency. Red means 3 days or less. Yellow means 4–7 days. Green means more than a week out. At a glance, the whole group knows what's coming up and when.
Personal Application Dashboard
Each user has their own private tracker — applications saved, submitted, interviews scheduled, offers received. Your progress is yours. Only you see the full picture of where you are; the group sees the aggregate activity, not individual outcomes.
Group Insights & Activity
A recruiting pulse shows group-level momentum — how many opportunities were added this week, how many applications went out. It's designed to keep the group motivated without turning the search into a competition.
Decisions Worth Explaining
Why keep the tracker private?
The whole platform is collaborative, so the instinct was to make everything visible. But when I thought about how this would actually feel — watching a friend's rejection in real time, or feeling pressure because someone else had more interviews — I realized full transparency would make the platform toxic. The feed shows numbers, not names. Your personal tracker is yours alone. The social layer is for opportunity sharing and encouragement, not individual scorekeeping.
Why colour-code deadlines instead of sorting by date?
Sorting by date is logical but it doesn't create urgency. A deadline that's "November 14th" doesn't feel real until you see it in red. The color system makes the calendar scannable in seconds — you know immediately what needs attention without having to do mental maths on dates.
Why a recruiting pulse instead of a live activity feed?
A live feed of every action — "Sarah viewed this listing," "James changed his status" — would feel invasive and create anxiety. The recruiting pulse gives the group a sense of collective momentum without surfacing individual behaviour. It answers "are we active as a group?" without answering "what is each person doing?"
How I'd Measure Success / Metrics
If ApplyTogether were a launched product, here's how I'd know it was working:
North star metric: Number of opportunities from the shared feed that at least one group member applies to, per week — because this only goes up if someone shared something valuable enough that a teammate actually acted on it. A low quality share that nobody touches doesn't move the number, making sure it has real user value.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
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D30 retention rate — are users still coming back a month into recruiting season?
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Average group size — are groups healthy (3–6 people) or too small to be useful?
Leading indicator: Whether a user shares a second opportunity within 48 hours of sharing their first. One share could be curiosity. Two shares means the behavior is starting to stick.
The honest challenge: The job search has a natural end date — someone gets an offer and leaves the platform. The current version solves the acute phase of recruiting well, but long-term retention beyond a single season is an open question. The recruiting pulse helps create weekly momentum, but a real product would need to think harder about what brings users back every day, not just when a new opportunity appears.
What I'd Build Next
The vision for ApplyTogether goes beyond college students. People are always hiring and people are always hunting — whether that's new grads, career changers, or professionals looking for their next role. The collaborative model isn't unique to campus recruiting.
In the next version I'd focus on three things: secure authentication so real user data can be stored safely, better support for larger groups beyond the 3–6 friend dynamic, and smarter ways to keep the group engaged throughout a full recruiting season — not just when someone finds something new to share.