{"id":409,"date":"2025-10-14T11:42:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpkins.social\/cliff\/?p=409"},"modified":"2025-12-15T09:26:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T17:26:28","slug":"how-to-use-claude-in-a-job-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simpkins.social\/cliff\/blog\/2025\/10\/14\/how-to-use-claude-in-a-job-search\/","title":{"rendered":"How to use Claude in a Job Search"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the last six months, I’ve learned a lot about how to best use Claude in my job search. This blog post summarizes my latest evolution in partnering with the AI – turning it into a career coach that makes the search process easier and more impactful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the below scenario is tailored to using Claude to improve your job search and to create a tailored, hallucination-free resume, the approach is also applicable to a wider range of scenarios – customer emails, marketing deliverables, documentation, etc. It’s been a fun learning experience as well as a huge time-saver for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This approach delivers 95%+ quality resumes that are 100% hallucination-free. I now spend 20 minutes tailoring a resume instead of 90 minutes recreating from scratch.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Claude as my Wingman<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When I evaluate a prospective role (identified by my Job Search AI Agent<\/a>), Claude helps me evaluate the role and recommends whether I should apply to it – I provide it with information about the company and the job description, and it provides two things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. An initial assessment of whether the role is a potential match<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. A starter resume that I can use for submission<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    My explicit goal here is to not apply to everything <\/em>– I want Claude to help me filter out everything except excellent fits, and then to help me curate the best data points from my career to tell a story that resonates for the hiring manager. Claude brings an objective perspective – one that challenges me and helps me be more targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Below is a screenshot of a conversation when I bring the AI a mismatch:<\/p>\n\n\n

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    \"Screenshot<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    As you can see, Claude is brutally honest in its initial assessment – the prompt has been tuned to generate assessments that lean more towards ‘not a fit’ rather than wasting the time of both me and the hiring team(s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Now, let’s compare that against a solid fit – where Claude not only provides an assessment, but outlines a fully detailed analysis on concern areas for both me and the hiring manager. This analysis helps you think through the full implications of a role and where you should lean into interview preparation. Personally, I am horrible at interviews, so this has helped me think about how I present myself and limit my ramblings on topics that I think are interesting, but that are irrelevant to a busy interviewer. I’m still working on this part of myself as I look for my next role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Claude’s personality in our discussions is also something that I am quite proud of, but that’s a topic for another blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Setting up the LLM Project Space<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    To accomplish this analysis, I set up a project space within Claude with a very long set of instructions and a collection of files that are to be used as reference points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Note: Claude Projects is a workspace feature that allows you to provide custom instructions and reference documents that persist across all conversations in that project.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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    \"Breakdown<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    Claude Project Files<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    I run this as a project inside of my Claude account that is specific to my job search, which contains the files below. I used Microsoft Word files (.docx) for easy editing, but Markdown (.md) files work just as well and may be easier for version control if you’re technical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Note on file naming: The numeric prefixes (01-, 02-, etc.) help Claude prioritize sources – it reads files in order when resolving conflicts or uncertainties.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n