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Project Overview Handshake Watcher is an automation tool designed to help students monitor the Handshake job portal for new internships and job postings. Without repeatedly checking manually. The application continuously scans job listings and sends instant Telegram updates whenever new roles are available. The main objective is to save time, reduce missed opportunities, and ensure fast responses to competitive job postings.
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How It Works The project is built using pure Java and structured into independent modules: Component Responsibility HandshakeScraper: Logs into Handshake and scrapes job listings StateStore: Stores previously seen listings in a JSON file to avoid duplicate alerts HandshakeJobWatcher: Scheduler to monitor new jobs periodically TelegramNotifier: Sends instant job alerts using Telegram Bot API DailySummary: Optionally sends a recap of job changes once per day Main: CLI entry point to run different operating modes
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Technologies & Tools Used Java (Core Java, Streams, Multithreading) HTML scraping using internal parsing and DOM extraction JSON-based persistent storage for tracking job state Maven for dependency management & packaging Telegram Bot API for notifications Authentication via login cookies stored securely and reused for scraping Scheduling logic for automated periodic job checks AWS EC2 for 24/7 deployment VS Code for development workflow
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Authentication & Storage To interact with Handshake securely: The tool uses session login cookies instead of storing usernames/passwords. Cookies are refreshed and managed automatically. Previously detected jobs are saved in a local JSON file (like jobState.json) so only new postings trigger notifications — preventing spam.
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Notifications Notifications are delivered through Telegram with details like: Job title Company name Apply link Time discovered
This provides quick access and boosts the chance of applying early.
- Deployment The full system is deployed on an AWS EC2 Linux instance, running continuously as a background service. This ensures: No local machine required Always on - checks around the clock Low-latency job alerts