HireBuddy: AI-Powered Career & Recruitment Platform

HireBuddy (formerly ReadyBoss) is a comprehensive, production-grade Career & Recruitment platform powered by state-of-the-art AI. It streamlines the job application journey and talent assessment by integrating resume analysis, job matching, real-time insights, learning roadmaps, and mock interviews into a unified, premium user experience.

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🌟 Key Features

📄 AI Resume Parsing & ATS Scoring

• ATS Compatibility Evaluation: Upload your resume in PDF, DOCX, TXT formats to immediately receive a score evaluating its compatibility against a target role.
• Semantic Analysis: Goes beyond pure keywords to understand contextual work experience, matching semantic concepts to job requirements.
• Actionable Optimizations: Receive AI-generated suggestions to tailor your profile summary, highlight missing skills, and rewrite achievement statements.

🤖 Intelligent AI Service Integrations

• Skill Extraction: Uses advanced models to extract technical and soft skills directly from unstructured documents.
• Smart Keyword Match: Compares resume text with target role keywords and highlights matching vs. missing elements.
• API Resiliency: Self-healing fallback mechanism transitions to basic rule-based analysis if AI APIs are rate-limited or offline.

💼 Smart Job Search & Tracker

• Career Tracking Dashboard: Manage application statuses, dates, and interview progress.
• Real-time Metrics: Visualize application success rates and track application statistics dynamically.
• Salary Insights: Fetches real-time salary ranges based on title, industry, and location utilizing JSearch APIs.

🧠 Personalized Learning & Mock Interviews

• Custom Learning Roadmaps: Generates structured learning paths tailored to your target tech role, linking to resources on YouTube, Udemy, and Coursera.
• AI Mock Interviews: Practice technical interviews with role-specific AI-generated questions and receive feedback on your answers.

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🛠️ Technology Stack

Layer	Technologies
Frontend	React (Vite), Tailwind CSS, Lucide Icons, Framer Motion
Dashboard	Dedicated React Admin/Analytics Portal
Backend	Node.js, Express (ES Modules)
Database	MongoDB, Mongoose ODM
AI Models	OpenAI GPT, Cohere AI (Command), Google Gemini, Groq SDK
Real-time	Socket.io
Parsing	Mammoth (docx), PDF-Parse (pdf)

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📂 Project Structure

HireBuddy/
├── README.md                  # Project overview & documentation
├── backend/                   # Node.js/Express ESM backend API
│   ├── config/                # DB connection settings
│   ├── controllers/           # Route logic handlers
│   ├── middleware/            # JWT auth & uploads middleware
│   ├── models/                # MongoDB (Mongoose) schemas
│   ├── routes/                # Express routes (auth, resumes, jobs, etc.)
│   ├── uploads/               # Temporary storage for uploaded resumes
│   └── utils/                 # AI integrations & text parsers
├── dashboard/                 # React Vite admin & analytics client (Port 5173)
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/        # Reusable UI components
│   │   ├── pages/             # Dashboard pages (Analytics, Board, etc.)
│   │   └── App.jsx
│   └── package.json
└── frontend/                  # Main landing page client application (Port 5174)
    ├── src/
    └── package.json

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v20.x or higher recommended)
• MongoDB (Local instance or MongoDB Atlas cluster)
• API Keys: Register and configure credentials for Cohere, OpenRouter, and JSearch.

1. Clone & Install Dependencies

Clone the repository and run npm install in each directory:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/keshavagr025/HireBuddy.git
cd HireBuddy

# Install dependencies for all subsystems
cd backend && npm install
cd ../dashboard && npm install
cd ../frontend && npm install

2. Backend Setup & Configuration

Create a .env file in the backend/ directory (see backend/.env.example as a guide):

PORT=5000
NODE_ENV=development
MONGODB_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret_key

# AI Provider Keys
COHERE_API_KEY=your_cohere_key
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your_openrouter_key
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_key
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_key

# Third-party APIs
RAPIDAPI_KEY=your_jsearch_rapidapi_key
YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your_youtube_api_key

Run the backend development server:

node index.js

Note: Upon successful database connection, the backend will automatically seed default job roles (Frontend, Backend, Full Stack Engineer) into your database if the collection is empty.

3. Run the Frontend Applications

Run the Dashboard (Analytics Portal):

cd dashboard
npm run dev

The dashboard will be active on http://localhost:5173.

Run the Landing Page (User Portal):

cd frontend
npm run dev

The landing page will be active on http://localhost:5174.

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📡 Core API Endpoints

Authentication

• POST /api/auth/signup - Register a new user
• POST /api/auth/login - Authenticate and retrieve JWT token

Resume Analytics

• POST /api/resumes/upload - Upload resume file (PDF/DOCX/TXT)
• POST /api/resumes/:id/analyze/:jobRoleId - Perform AI resume matching

Job Roles & Data

• GET /api/job-roles - Retrieve list of available job roles
• POST /api/job-roles - Create a new target job role
• GET /api/salary/estimate - Fetch salary estimates based on search criteria

Personalized Learning & AI Interactivity

• POST /api/learning/generate-roadmap - Generate custom career roadmap
• POST /api/mock/generate-question - Generate mock interview question
• POST /api/mock/evaluate-answer - Submit answer for immediate AI rating

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🔧 Troubleshooting & Resiliency Fixes

• DNS Resolution Crashes: In some ISP networks, Node.js fails to query MongoDB Atlas SRV records (querySrv ECONNREFUSED). The backend has been configured to use public DNS servers (Google 8.8.8.8 & Cloudflare 1.1.1.1) at start to ensure database connectivity.
• ES Module Compatibility: Fixed a crash where standard pdf-parse debug scripts threw exceptions due to deprecated module.parent lookups in ESM wrappers. The project uses pdf-parse-debugging-disabled to prevent start crashes.
• API Model Retirement: Migrated AI calls from the deprecated command-light model to the active Cohere command model to ensure prompt resume reviews and skill extraction.

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📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.