TalentHub (Spring Boot & React JWT Candidate Portal / ATS)

An enterprise-grade, secure, full-stack Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Candidate Portal built with Spring Boot 3.x and React 18. The application implements robust Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) secured via JSON Web Tokens (JWT) and Spring Security, persisting candidate and authentication data in a PostgreSQL database.

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🚀 Key Features

🔐 Authentication & Security

• Secure Authentication: Sign up and Login flow powered by JWT.
• Spring Security integration: Robust stateless session management with JWT filters.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Distinct permissions for Candidates (ROLE_USER) and Recruiters/Administrators (ROLE_ADMIN).

💼 Candidate Portal (Role: USER)

• Job Application Wizard: Dynamic creation of Candidate profiles including:
  • Education History: Multiple school, degree, and GPA records.
  • Work Experience: Multiple company, position, and duration entries.
  • Training & Certifications: Course details, institutions, and year of completion.
• My Applications: Interactive board to view, update, or delete submitted applications.
• Profile Page: Live view of authenticated user details.

🔍 Recruiter Dashboard (Role: ADMIN)

• Advanced Search Engine: Search applicants by Name, Position Applied, or Education Level in real-time.
• Comprehensive Profiles: View complete resumes of applicants (including work experience, education, and certificates).
• Centralized Management: Full administrative read access to all registered candidate data.

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Backend

• Core Framework: Spring Boot 3.1.0 (Java 17)
• Security: Spring Security & JJWT (JSON Web Token)
• Database: PostgreSQL (JDBC, JPA/Hibernate)
• ORM & Persistence: Spring Data JPA
• Validation: Jakarta Bean Validation

Frontend

• Library: React 18.2.0 (Functional Components & Hooks)
• Routing: React Router DOM v6
• Styling: Bootstrap 4.6.2 & FontAwesome 6.6.0
• HTTP Client: Axios (configured with interceptors/auth-headers)
• Validation: React Validation & Validator

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📂 Project Structure

springboot-react-jwt/
├── backend/            # Spring Boot REST API
│   ├── src/            # Java backend source code
│   ├── pom.xml         # Maven project configuration
│   └── mvnw            # Maven Wrapper
└── frontend/           # React Single Page Application (SPA)
    ├── src/            # React components, services, and routing
    └── package.json    # npm scripts and packages

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⚙️ Local Setup & Installation

Prerequisites

• Java JDK 17 or higher
• Node.js (v16+) and npm or Yarn
• PostgreSQL database service

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1. Database Setup

Create a PostgreSQL database named postgres (or as configured in your local application.properties):

CREATE DATABASE postgres;

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2. Backend Configuration & Launch

1. Navigate to the backend directory:

   cd backend

2. Open src/main/resources/application.properties and verify your PostgreSQL credentials:

   spring.datasource.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/postgres
   spring.datasource.username=postgres
   spring.datasource.password=your_db_password

3. Run the Spring Boot application using Maven:

   ./mvnw spring-boot:run

4. On startup, Hibernate will automatically create the required database tables.
5. Initialize the default user roles by running the following SQL commands (which are also defined in backend/src/main/resources/insert.sql):

   INSERT INTO roles(name) VALUES('ROLE_USER');
   INSERT INTO roles(name) VALUES('ROLE_MODERATOR');
   INSERT INTO roles(name) VALUES('ROLE_ADMIN');

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3. Frontend Configuration & Launch

1. Navigate to the frontend directory:

   cd ../frontend

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Start the development server (configured to run on port 8081):

   npm start

4. Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8081.

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🛡️ API Endpoints

Authentication & Authorization

Method	Endpoint	Description	Access
POST	/api/auth/signup	Register a new user	Public
POST	/api/auth/signin	Login & receive JWT Token	Public

Candidate & Application Management

Method	Endpoint	Description	Access
GET	/api/candidates	Fetch candidates (All for Admin, User's own for Candidate)	Candidate, Admin
GET	/api/candidates/{id}	Get candidate details by ID	Candidate (own), Admin
POST	/api/candidates	Create new candidate application profile	Candidate
PUT	/api/candidates	Update candidate application profile	Candidate
GET	/api/candidates/search	Search candidates by name, position, or education	Admin
POST	/api/candidates/{id}/education	Add education to candidate profile	Candidate
POST	/api/candidates/{id}/workExperience	Add work experience to candidate profile	Candidate
POST	/api/candidates/{id}/training	Add training to candidate profile	Candidate

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Feel free to check the issues page.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.