What It Does

The Job Application Tracker is a Windows desktop app that centralizes the entire job-search workflow — every application, company, contact, and skill in one local SQLite database, no cloud account required.

Drop a job-posting PDF onto the form and it extracts the text and company name automatically. Every application syncs to your Obsidian vault as a structured markdown note, with your personal notes protected from being overwritten.

Built for a real job hunt:

▶ Track applications from Applied through Offer or Rejected
▶ Switch between sortable table and drag-and-drop Kanban board
▶ See response rate and offer rate at a glance with stat cards
▶ Keep long-form notes in Obsidian, auto-synced per application

Application Lifecycle

Every application moves through a status pipeline, visualized as columns on the Kanban board:

📨

Applied

Submission logged with date, salary range, and posting URL

📞

Screening

Recruiter call or HR screen in progress

💬

Interview

Technical or panel interviews scheduled

🎉

Offer

Offer received — celebrate and negotiate

📕

Rejected

Closed out, kept for response-rate analytics

APPLIED → SCREENING → INTERVIEW → OFFER / REJECTED

Key Features

  <div class="bg-dark-800/60 border border-purple-700/30 rounded-xl p-6 hover:border-purple-500/50 transition-colors">
    <div class="flex items-center space-x-3 mb-4">
      <div class="w-10 h-10 rounded-lg bg-purple-500/20 flex items-center justify-center text-xl">📊</div>
      <h3 class="text-lg font-bold text-purple-400">Dashboard — Table & Kanban</h3>
    </div>
    <p class="text-gray-300 text-sm mb-4">Toggle between a sortable table with real-time status updates and a drag-and-drop Kanban board organized by application status. Stat cards show application count, response rate, and offer rate.</p>
    <div class="flex flex-wrap gap-2">
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Sortable columns</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Drag & drop</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Week stats</span>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="bg-dark-800/60 border border-pink-700/30 rounded-xl p-6 hover:border-pink-500/50 transition-colors">
    <div class="flex items-center space-x-3 mb-4">
      <div class="w-10 h-10 rounded-lg bg-pink-500/20 flex items-center justify-center text-xl">🗒️</div>
      <h3 class="text-lg font-bold text-pink-400">Obsidian Vault Sync</h3>
    </div>
    <p class="text-gray-300 text-sm mb-4">Every application auto-syncs to your Obsidian vault as a markdown note with YAML frontmatter, status, timeline, and skills. A protected User Notes section survives every re-sync — your notes are never overwritten.</p>
    <div class="flex flex-wrap gap-2">
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">YAML frontmatter</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Section-aware merge</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Protected notes</span>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="bg-dark-800/60 border border-blue-700/30 rounded-xl p-6 hover:border-blue-500/50 transition-colors">
    <div class="flex items-center space-x-3 mb-4">
      <div class="w-10 h-10 rounded-lg bg-blue-500/20 flex items-center justify-center text-xl">📄</div>
      <h3 class="text-lg font-bold text-blue-400">PDF Job-Posting Extraction</h3>
    </div>
    <p class="text-gray-300 text-sm mb-4">Load a job posting PDF directly into the application form — the extraction service pulls the full text and detects the company name, so you never retype a job description again.</p>
    <div class="flex flex-wrap gap-2">
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Text extraction</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Company detection</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Auto-fill form</span>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="bg-dark-800/60 border border-green-700/30 rounded-xl p-6 hover:border-green-500/50 transition-colors">
    <div class="flex items-center space-x-3 mb-4">
      <div class="w-10 h-10 rounded-lg bg-green-500/20 flex items-center justify-center text-xl">🗂️</div>
      <h3 class="text-lg font-bold text-green-400">Companies, Contacts & Skills</h3>
    </div>
    <p class="text-gray-300 text-sm mb-4">Full CRUD pages with inline edit panels for companies, recruiters, and skills. Tag each application with required vs. owned skills — 26 IT/security skills come pre-seeded on first run.</p>
    <div class="flex flex-wrap gap-2">
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Inline editing</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Skill matching</span>
      <span class="bg-gray-700 text-gray-300 px-2 py-1 rounded text-xs">Delete confirmations</span>
    </div>
  </div>

</div>

Clean Architecture

Why MVVM + WPF?

✓WPF's data binding engine is built for MVVM — {Binding} targets INotifyPropertyChanged
✓ViewModels are fully testable without UI — no Window or Page references
✓Commands (ICommand) replace controller actions cleanly
✓Dependency injection container wires every layer at startup

Testing & Data

✓xUnit test suite — service, settings, and in-memory repository tests
✓SQLite + Dapper with WAL mode and multi-map joins
✓Indexes on the three most-filtered columns: AppliedDate, Status, CompanyId
✓Settings persisted as JSON in %APPDATA%\JobTracker

PRESENTATION

JobTracker.WPF

XAML Views · ViewModels · Converters · Dark Theme

↓

USE CASES

JobTracker.Application

Services · DTOs · Interfaces · SettingsService

↓

DOMAIN

JobTracker.Domain

Entities · Enums · Repository Contracts

↓

INFRASTRUCTURE — JobTracker.Infrastructure

🗄️

SQLite + Dapper

Repositories

🗒️

Markdown Sync

Obsidian vault

📄

PDF Extraction

Job postings

Obsidian Markdown Sync

SYNCED NOTE One .md file per application

2025-04-02_KPMG_IT-Infrastructure.md

--- tags: [job-application, applied, 2025] status: Applied company: "KPMG Ireland" role: "IT Infrastructure Specialist" applied_date: 2025-04-02 --- # Job Application — IT Infrastructure ## Skills Required - Azure ✅ - PowerShell ✅ - SIEM - Defender XDR

## User Notes <!— USER_NOTES_START —> My notes survive every re-sync <!— USER_NOTES_END —>

HOW SYNC WORKS

1

Point at your vault

Settings → Browse → select your Obsidian vault root folder.

2

Auto-generated filenames

Notes are written as YYYY-MM-DD_company_role.md with structured YAML frontmatter.

3

Section-aware merge

The sync service rewrites status, timeline, and skills on every change — but the USER_NOTES markers protect anything you wrote by hand.

Database Schema

Companies        (Id, Name, Website, Industry…)
Contacts         (Id, Name, Email, LinkedInUrl…)
Skills           (Id, Name, Category)
JobApplications  (Id, RoleName, Status, AppliedDate,
SalaryRange, IsRemote, CompanyId FK…)
ApplicationSkills (JobAppId FK, SkillId FK,
IsOwned, IsRequired)

Tech Stack

💜

C# / .NET 8

Core language

🖥️

WPF + MVVM

UI framework

🗄️

SQLite + Dapper

Local database

🧪

xUnit

Test suite

🗒️

Obsidian

Markdown sync

Roadmap

📤

CSV / Excel Export

Export the full application history for analysis in spreadsheets.

📅

Interview Calendar View

Timeline view with urgency indicators for upcoming interviews.

📧

Email Parsing

Poll the inbox with MailKit to auto-create draft applications.

🤖

AI CV Analysis

Match CV text against job descriptions with DPAPI-encrypted API keys.

Job ApplicationTracker