I along with three of my classmates (Ashwin, Ross, and Patrick) recently competed in the HackUVa 24 hour hackathon competition. Prior to the event, I pitched the idea of developing Screend, an app that made phone interview screen process easier, at Darden. I, like many of my fellow MBA classmates, had been through several phone interview screens as part of the internship recruiting process and wondered how to simplify it. Additionally, I recognized how valuable a streamlined automated phone interview system would be to enterprises based on my background in human capital management (HCM) software industry where I saw how firsthand how companies revolutionized their business processes with technology.
Photos from HackUVa and MLH available on https://www.facebook.com/hackuva
Since the team only had 24 hours to build the app, I selected a technology stack that emphasized speed and reliability. Foremost, I chose to use Twilio so that through APIs we could enable job seekers to dial a phone number, be prompted to answer interview questions, record their answers, and enable a recruiter to review the audio after the fact. Second I decided to use Python/Flask for the app platform since it integrates well with Twilio and it is incredibly easy to deploy. Third, I selected Bootstrap for the front end because of the framework's simplicity and configuration for mobile use. Fourth, I decided to use MySQL since our group was fairly familiar with SQL and there was a slight chance that we might have multiple applications interacting with the database.
Our team overcame enormous hurdles including some strange CSS that refused to load. The final result was an incredible app in which recruiters could enter questions and the system would include automatically in a phone interview screen. One area of technology that I would recommend improving would be Twilio's Python library. Our solution required a dynamic series of questions and recorded answers. Initially we tried to use the Python library to create <Say> and <Record> loops but had to abandon this approach. Instead we generated Twiml and used a counter and loop between two different functions in Python. While it is unclear whether this was the best or only solution, I would definitely enjoy the ability to embed multiple <Record> sections within a <Say> tag as well as generate them dynamically within the Python Library.
Overall, aur team's app was a huge success! As Darden's first team to compete at the UVaHackathon, we clearly demonstrated that MBAs can code!! Lastly, our team was sponsored by the Darden Technology Club. Thank you to Gal and the rest of the DTC for your support!!
Check out more information about Screend here
Our team overcame enormous hurdles including some strange CSS that refused to load. The final result was an incredible app in which recruiters could enter questions and the system would include automatically in a phone interview screen. One area of technology that I would recommend improving would be Twilio's Python library. Our solution required a dynamic series of questions and recorded answers. Initially we tried to use the Python library to create <Say> and <Record> loops but had to abandon this approach. Instead we generated Twiml and used a counter and loop between two different functions in Python. While it is unclear whether this was the best or only solution, I would definitely enjoy the ability to embed multiple <Record> sections within a <Say> tag as well as generate them dynamically within the Python Library.
Overall, aur team's app was a huge success! As Darden's first team to compete at the UVaHackathon, we clearly demonstrated that MBAs can code!! Lastly, our team was sponsored by the Darden Technology Club. Thank you to Gal and the rest of the DTC for your support!!
Check out more information about Screend here