PartyRock Hackathon - Playing to Learn, Playing to Change
Published: 2024-03-22 21:03:09

**Intentions**
When I first learned about the Devpost PartyRock Hackathon I signed up with basically no intention of actually entering anything. I was excited by the idea that maybe one day I would do something like that, but even before hitting the "submit" button to enter I had already decided I couldn't come up with even a decent idea of what to build, let alone find something interesting or possibly unique.

After entering I more or less forgot about it, but I did start talking more about prompt-based engineering, generative AI and similar concepts. As my understanding started to grow I started using PartyRock as my own easy to use sandbox to better understand simple theories and test out ideas. I made some random applications for fun. In fact, I spent a good week trying to create one that would build a web comic based on prompts. This was an idea I had because I wanted to add a funny visual to my Cloud Resume Challenge blog. I never really got it working, but I think that was just the limitations of the platform.

Then one day I was talking about my attempts to make a career change. I am excited about the cloud, prompt-based engineering and AI as a whole, but I have just been struggling to figure out how to turn my interests and drive into something tangible for a career shift. Someone said to me "look at posting for jobs you want and see what you are missing". My response was "I don't even know what jobs titles I might want". Internally I was thinking I just want someone to look at my resume, look at my skills, certifications and interests, and give me some ideas! 

**Lightbulb**

It took about 15 minutes for the lightbulb to go off and for me to launch PartyRock. 5 minutes later the Career MatchMaker was born.

I didn't build it from scratch with widgets, I told PartRock what I wanted and let it fill in the blanks. The first iteration was simple, a place to paste my resume, a place to drop in some additional skills, and the job list generator.

From there I thought well this is great, but now I need to know how to go from where I am to that job. So once again I had PartyRock do the heavy lifting for me, and I had another app, the Career Pathfinder. This one took a resume, skills, and desired job and explained what was missing.

For both apps I started tweaking the widgets. I added a chatbot to the MatchMaker app to be able to ask questions about the jobs. I added a mock interview to the PathFinder app just for fun. And the more I worked on them the more invested I got in the idea. I started thinking not just about myself but other people I know in a similar boat, wanting or needing to make a career change.

I also realized the two apps were great, but one app would be better. That was also about the time I decided that I was going to enter this app into the Hackathon.

**Getting to Work**

I set to work combining the two apps so that both functions were in the same app. This is when I really started to play with PartyRock; tweaking prompts, editing widgets, making widgets, etc.

I altered the approach so that the app took the resume input and distilled a list of skills and certifications. I also started seeing how I wanted to expand the app, and started having people play with the app and provide feedback. This helped me see where I was missing some items to come up with better outcomes.


As I continued to iterate I included desired job fields, likes and dislikes/jobs to avoid, as well as an additional skills area in case there was something missing from the resume. This became the basis for the generated job list, but a much more refined and specific list.

The other functions I basically left the same. A career coach chatbot to ask questions about jobs, a place to select a job from the list and enter it to learn what additional skills, certs etc would be needed based on the resume and skills area. I also expanded this to include resource to help fill those gaps.

**Hitting Submit**
I finally hit a place where I felt ready. I no longer cared if it was novel enough or interesting enough. I had made an app that I liked, that I knew had a purpose. I also had feedback from my testers that told me I had made something with value, and that was enough for me. Once I had everything working the way I wanted and needed I did submit my app. Honestly I shocked myself with this one. I don't expect to win anything, and in looking at the gallery I am not the only person who made a career-related app, but I also don't care. I hit submit, and that was a huge win for me.

Feel free to check out my Career MatchMaker app and let me know what you think!

[Career MatchMaker](https://partyrock.aws/u/infinitekyle/L4Y-jMg3y/Career-Match-Maker)