talentd v5: what's changing, and why

If you've used talentd for a while, you've probably noticed things changing over the last few weeks. Here's what's going on, what's coming, and where we need your help.

Why we're changing things

talentd runs on a handful of servers: the website, the system that brings in new jobs from over 300 companies every day, the apps, the WhatsApp and Telegram channels. Running all of that costs money every month.

For a long time we hoped ads would cover it. They don't. On a normal day, around 9,000 page views earn us about $1.50 from ads. That's not enough to pay for one server.

So we're doing two things:

1. Cutting down to fewer servers and rebuilding the parts that were slow or wasteful, so talentd costs less to run and can keep going for the long term.
2. Building talentd v5: one place for everything you need while looking for your first job or internship, instead of separate tools spread across different pages.

Finding and applying to jobs on talentd stays free.

Where your jobs come from

Every job on talentd comes straight from the company: from its own careers page, or posted by the company with us. No agencies, no paid listings, and you never pay anything to apply.

Here's what that looks like so far:

• We've checked 103,066 job listings from companies' careers pages.
• Only 10,236 of them passed our checks (about 1 in 10). The rest weren't right for freshers and interns, were outside India and the US, or were repeats.
• In total we've listed 12,884 jobs from 917 companies. 11,681 were approved and 1,132 were turned down.
• 9,590 jobs are open right now.

We also keep checking that each job is still live on the company's site. When a company takes a job down, we close it here too, so you don't waste time applying to something that's gone.

What's new in v5

One dashboard for your whole job search

This is the big one. Once you sign in, you get one home for everything:

• To do: jobs you saved that close soon, and "did you apply?" reminders when you open an apply link
• Your applications: where each one stands (applied, interview, rejected, offer), and a nudge when you haven't heard back in two weeks
• This week: deadlines and interviews in one calendar
• New for you: jobs that match your batch and the cities you picked
• Alerts: get the jobs you care about by email
• Resume tools, AI tools and daily coding practice in the same place

Your college, inside talentd

Placement updates usually reach you through five different WhatsApp groups, and the important ones get buried. In v5, your college gets its own space on talentd:

• Placement drives: every drive your placement office (TnP) runs, with who can apply (CGPA, branch, batch), the registration deadline and the test date. talentd tells you straight away if you're eligible.
• Announcements from the placement office in one place, pinned and easy to find, instead of lost in chats.
• Seniors who can refer you: alumni from your college at the companies you want, who are open to giving referrals.
• Interview write-ups from your college: what the rounds were actually like, written by students who just went through them.
• Your batch: a practice leaderboard, and how your profile and resume compare with your batch.

For placement officers (TnP): post drives and announcements once and reach every student, see who has registered, and stop chasing replies across spreadsheets and chat groups. Only verified placement officers can post drives, and students can report anyone asking for a registration fee.

We'll start with a few colleges first. If you'd like your college to be one of them, say so in the comments.

A new home page

The home page now opens with what matters: today's jobs for your batch, a search that takes a role, skill or company plus a city, and jobs that are closing soon.

Search that understands what you type

Search used to match your exact phrase. If you typed "data analyst bangalore", you got nothing, because no job had that exact phrase in its title. Now every word counts on its own: role, company, skills, city. "Bangalore" and "Bengaluru" are the same city. The same search now finds 138 jobs.

Real closing dates, and "closing soon"

Many companies set a last date to apply, but it was buried on their careers page. We now pick it up when the company publishes it, and show it on the job: "Apply by 24 Nov", or "Closes today" in the last days. There's a "Closing this week" filter, so you can apply to those first.

We only show a date when the company itself gives one. We never guess.

Filters that show you what's there

Every filter now shows how many jobs it has before you click it: batch year, fresher or internship, category, city. No more clicking a filter and landing on an empty page. You can also filter for remote and hybrid jobs now, and by salary (₹3, 6 or 10 LPA and above).

How we rebuilt it (for the techies)

Most of you are engineers or about to be, so here's what changed under the hood.

The backend: Python to Go. talentd's main backend was a Python (FastAPI) service. We've been rewriting it in Go, one route at a time, while the site kept running: every rewritten route had to return exactly the same response as the old one before it went live. Most of the backend now runs on Go, including jobs, search, accounts, payments and the job alerts. On top of that we built a new jobs API with proper indexes and a search index of its own, instead of scanning text columns on every request.

Time our server takes to answer (the same request, not cached, median of 20):

That's up to 40 times faster for a page of jobs, and the new search also finds more of the right jobs: "data analyst" now matches 388 jobs instead of 57, because it looks at every word instead of the exact phrase.

The website: Next.js to Astro. The current site is a Next.js app that sends a lot of JavaScript to your phone. v5 is built with Astro: pages are rendered on the server as plain HTML, and JavaScript is only added where a page really needs it, like a filter or a button.

Measured on a mid-range phone on slow 4G, job page, median of 5 loads:

To be fair to the old site: on fast Wi-Fi the first paint is about the same for both (around 1.5 s), because most of that time is the trip from India to our server. The difference shows up on phones and slow connections, which is how most of you use talentd. The v5 numbers don't include ads yet, so we compared our own JavaScript only.

Fewer moving parts. Fewer servers, a smaller database (we removed duplicate data and unused indexes), and pages that can be cached at the edge. It's cheaper to run and there's less that can break.

Ideas we're exploring (not promised yet)

These are things we think could help, but we haven't decided to build them. Some are hard to do well, and we'd rather hear from you first.

• Auto-fill for company application forms. Many companies use the same few application systems, like Workday and SuccessFactors. We're looking at filling in your details (name, education, resume) for you on those forms, so you only check and submit. You'd still review every application before it goes out. This one is tricky: every company runs its own site, many need a separate login, and some block automated help. So treat it as an experiment, not a promise.
• "How well do I match this job?" A score for your resume against each job, and the skills you're missing.
• WhatsApp alerts and reminders: new jobs that match you, and a reminder the day before a job you saved closes.
• Interview experiences by company: real rounds and questions, shared by students who went through them.
• Google Calendar sync for your deadlines and interviews.

We'd like to hear from you

Comment below. The most useful things you can tell us:

1. Which of the ideas above would you actually use? Pick one or two.
2. What annoys you most on talentd today? Be honest, we can take it.
3. What do you wish a job site did for you that none of them do?

We'll read every comment, and what you say will decide what we build first.

New parts will roll out over the coming weeks. You don't need to do anything: the site will just get better as they go live.

Thanks for being part of talentd.
Azhar