Job Hunt — MERN Job Portal

A full-stack job portal where job seekers can browse and apply for jobs, and recruiters can post jobs and manage applicants. It includes email OTP verification, password reset via OTP, and AI-powered job recommendations.

Built with the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js).

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✨ Features

For Everyone (no login needed)

• Browse all jobs, search by keyword, and view full job details
• See AI-recommended related jobs on every job detail page
• Clean, responsive UI (works on mobile and desktop)

For Job Seekers (Students)

• Register with email OTP verification (account is verified before login)
• Auto-login right after verifying the OTP
• Apply to jobs (login required)
• Save / bookmark jobs for later (login required)
• Profile page with bio, skills, resume link, and applied-jobs history
• Edit profile and change password (OTP based)

For Recruiters

• Register / login as a recruiter
• Create and manage companies
• Post jobs and edit job listings
• View applicants for each job

Security / Account

• Email OTP verification on signup (via Nodemailer + Gmail OAuth2)
• Forgot password flow from the login page (OTP based)
• Change password from the profile (OTP based)
• Passwords hashed with bcrypt, auth via JWT stored in an httpOnly cookie

AI

• Job recommendations generated by an LLM (GPT-OSS-120B via an OpenAI-compatible API)
• Falls back to jobType/location matching if the AI is slow or unavailable

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🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend

• React 18 + Vite
• Redux Toolkit + redux-persist (state management)
• React Router DOM (routing)
• Tailwind CSS + shadcn/ui (Radix UI) components
• Axios, Sonner (toasts), Lucide icons

Backend

• Node.js + Express
• MongoDB + Mongoose
• JWT + bcryptjs (authentication)
• Multer + Cloudinary (file/image uploads)
• Nodemailer (Gmail OAuth2) for OTP emails
• Native fetch to call the AI API

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📁 Project Structure

JOB-PORTAL/
├── Backend/
│   ├── controllers/      # Route logic (user, job, company, application)
│   ├── models/           # Mongoose schemas
│   ├── routes/           # Express routes
│   ├── middleware/       # Auth (JWT) + Multer upload
│   ├── utils/            # db, cloudinary, datauri, mailer, aiClient
│   ├── index.js          # App entry (Express server)
│   └── .env              # Backend secrets (you create this)
│
└── Frontend/
    ├── src/
    │   ├── components/    # UI components (auth, admin, job, shared)
    │   ├── redux/         # Slices + store
    │   ├── hooks/         # Custom data-fetching hooks
    │   └── utils/data.js  # API base URLs
    └── vite.config.js

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✅ Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

• Node.js v18 or higher (the backend uses the built-in fetch)
• npm (comes with Node.js)
• A MongoDB database (local or a free MongoDB Atlas cluster)
• A Cloudinary account (for profile photo uploads) — free tier works
• A Gmail account with OAuth2 credentials (for sending OTP emails)
• An AI API key (clod.io / any OpenAI-compatible endpoint) for recommendations

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⚙️ Setup & Installation

1. Clone / download the project

cd JOB-PORTAL

2. Backend setup

cd Backend
npm install

Create a file named .env inside the Backend/ folder with these values:

# Database
MONGO_URI = your_mongodb_connection_string

# Auth
JWT_SECRET = any_long_random_secret

# Cloudinary (image uploads)
CLOUD_NAME = your_cloud_name
CLOUD_API  = your_cloudinary_api_key
API_SECRET = your_cloudinary_api_secret

# Server
PORT = 5011
NODE_ENV = development

# Allowed frontend origins (comma separated, no trailing slash)
CORS_ORIGIN = http://localhost:5173

# AI (for job recommendations - OpenAI-compatible endpoint)
AI_BASE_URL = https://api.clod.io/v1
AI_API_KEY  = your_ai_api_key
AI_MODEL    = openai/gpt-oss-120b

# Email (Gmail OAuth2 - for OTP verification)
EMAIL_USER    = your_gmail_address
CLIENT_ID     = your_google_oauth_client_id
CLIENT_SECRET = your_google_oauth_client_secret
REFRESH_TOKEN = your_google_oauth_refresh_token

Start the backend:

npm run dev

The server runs at http://localhost:5011

Note: Set NODE_ENV = development while developing locally so the backend does not try to serve the production frontend build.

3. Frontend setup

Open a new terminal:

cd Frontend
npm install
npm run dev

The app runs at http://localhost:5173

The frontend talks to the backend using the URLs in Frontend/src/utils/data.js (default http://localhost:5011). Change those if your backend runs on a different host/port.

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▶️ Running the App (quick recap)

Step	Command	Folder	URL
1. Start backend	npm run dev	Backend/	http://localhost:5011
2. Start frontend	npm run dev	Frontend/	http://localhost:5173

Open http://localhost:5173 in your browser. 🎉

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🔐 How the OTP / Auth flows work

Register → Verify → Auto Login

1. Fill the register form → backend creates an unverified account and emails a 6-digit OTP.
2. You are taken to the Verify Email page → enter the OTP.
3. On success you are logged in automatically and sent to the home page.

Forgot Password (from Login)

1. Click "Forgot Password?" on the login page.
2. Enter your email → get an OTP → enter OTP + new password → done.

Change Password (from Profile)

1. Open Profile → Edit (pencil) → Change Password.
2. An OTP is sent to your email automatically → enter OTP + new password → done.

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🌐 Main API Endpoints

Base URL: http://localhost:5011

User (/api/user)

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/register	Register + send OTP
POST	/verify-otp	Verify email OTP (auto-login)
POST	/resend-otp	Resend signup OTP
POST	/forgot-password	Send password-reset OTP
POST	/reset-password	Reset password with OTP
POST	/login	Login
POST	/logout	Logout
POST	/profile/update	Update profile (auth)

Jobs (/api/job)

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/get	List/search all jobs (public)
GET	/get/:id	Get single job (public)
GET	/recommendations/:id	AI recommended jobs (public)
POST	/post	Post a job (recruiter, auth)
GET	/getadminjobs	Recruiter's jobs (auth)

Company (/api/company) & Applications (/api/application)

• Company create / get / update (recruiter, auth)
• Apply to a job, view applicants (auth)

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🧰 Available Scripts

Backend

• npm run dev / npm start — start with nodemon

Frontend

• npm run dev — start dev server
• npm run build — production build
• npm run preview — preview the build
• npm run lint — run ESLint

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🩺 Troubleshooting

• CORS error — make sure your frontend URL is listed in CORS_ORIGIN in the backend .env, then restart the backend.
• OTP email not sending — check the Gmail OAuth2 credentials (CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET, REFRESH_TOKEN, EMAIL_USER). The refresh token must have Gmail send scope.
• Can't log in after adding verification — accounts created before email verification existed may have isVerified unset; verify them or update the field in the DB.
• .env changes not applied — restart the backend (nodemon does not reload .env automatically).
• Recommendations not showing — confirm the AI_* values in .env and that the backend was restarted.

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👤 Author

Ankit Pathak — github.com/ankitpathak62

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Made with the MERN stack. Contributions and suggestions are welcome!