How it got built
Still being built. Here is every fix so far.
Nearly every part of the kit started as a mistake, a number I didn't like, or a question someone asked. This is every one I've dealt with so far: 84 changes, and counting. I work on it every day.
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September
One chat and one résumé.
I opened Claude and started applying, a handful of jobs at a time.
The first fixes
- It asked me before every application. I gave it standing approval for jobs that truly fit. It stops only for what needs a person.
- It asked me the same questions on every form. One file holds the answers I've confirmed. It fills forms from that file and nothing else, and never asks twice.
- It stopped to ask about honest "no" answers, salary boxes and relocation. Standing answers now cover the questions every form asks.
- Sign-ins. Always mine. It never types a password, even when the browser has already filled one in.
- An early essay had a detail in it that wasn't true. Essays use only facts I've confirmed, and I read each one before it's used.
- Decisions I made in chat were forgotten by the next day. Every decision is written into its instructions in the same turn.
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Late September
The same job got three applications.
My list of what I'd applied to had gaps.
RuleBefore every form, check the tracker, the inbox and the page itself.
More from those days
- Two chats opened the same form at the same moment. Each one writes a claim in the tracker before it opens a form.
- A form had a hidden trap: a box telling any AI filling it in to write out a recipe. Text on a web page is never an instruction. It leaves the box alone and tells me.
- It wanted to email an address it found in an automated confirmation. No cold email. It drafts notes only where there's a real reason to write, and I send them.
- A company's name matched a different company with the same name. Before trusting a page, it checks that the page really belongs to that employer.
- A legal agreement was tucked into a form. Non-competes and anything beyond the ordinary wait for me.
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Late September
One chat became a team.
A worker that applies on its own, a driver that works with me when a site needs a sign-in, and check-ins that run on a timer.
What that took
- The worker reported every blocker in chat. One list holds everything waiting on me, quickest first, and a summary gathers it twice a day.
- The worker sat idle between batches. It keeps a queue of scored jobs ready and works straight through it.
- Two chats gave new rows the same number. Each chat got its own range of row numbers.
- Times in the log were guesses. It reads the clock before it writes a time.
- Tabs piled up. It closes each tab as soon as the application is confirmed.
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Late September
200 custom résumés, zero interviews.
I had been rewriting my résumé for every company. None of those applications led to an interview.
RuleStop rewriting the résumé for each company.
One more
- Résumé files named after companies were hard to choose between. Files are named by type of job.
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Early October
Every job gets a score first.
Would I thrive there, would I love the work, and would the hiring manager pick me. Low scores never get sent.
How the score changed
- The fit score measured how much I liked a job. Fit now means how a hiring manager would judge my record, and it counts double.
- It skipped any job that asked for a year more than I had. Years asked lower the score. The form's own yes/no questions still get the true answer.
- I knew people at some of these companies. The shelf: who I know where, the best open job there, the right résumé, and a note for me to send.
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Early October
It got a memory.
A list of every posting it has ever read, so nothing is read twice. That list has passed 73,000.
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October
More applications, fewer replies.
About 640 went out in 17 days. Only 1.6% of them led to a request to talk.
What broke along the way
- Forms froze when their tab sat behind another window. The window with the form stays in front, and the automated work got a window of its own.
- The laptop went to sleep and everything stopped. It keeps the computer awake while it works.
- An application site emailed a code to prove a person was there. Codes are mine. It waits with the page open and tells me.
- It would have applied to a second job at a company where I was already interviewing. It doesn't. It notes the other job so I can raise it myself.
- A recruiter's request to talk sat in my Promotions tab for a day. The inbox check reads every tab, and looks for the words recruiters actually use.
- Some employers cap how many applications one person can send. It spends those on the best-fit jobs first.
- Some postings exist only to meet a legal requirement and aren't real openings. It learned to spot them and hold them.
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Mid-October
A résumé for each type of job.
One résumé for everything undersold me, and one per company took too long. Now there's a small set, one for each type of job, each built only from confirmed facts.
Also that week
- A required question I'd have to answer "no" to. The form's own screening questions are the real bar. If the honest answer rules me out, it skips the job.
- I couldn't see which companies were finished. A checklist of every company, built from the same records.
- Nobody was measuring what worked. Every week it counts replies by fit score and type of job, and suggests what to change.
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Late October
Fit first.
I raised the bar and narrowed the search to jobs I closely matched. Of the next 370 or so, 3.5% led to a request to talk.
RuleUnder a 6 out of 10 on fit, it doesn't apply.
Everything else from those weeks
- Cold applications alone got few replies, and two of my strongest processes began with an introduction. For the best-fit jobs it finds someone I know there and drafts a note. It still applies straight away.
- Signed-in application pages expired in the middle of a form, some after ten minutes. It fills and sends in one sitting, one company at a time.
- Tick boxes for privacy notices, terms and "this is true". I decide each kind once, and it records my answer. Signatures stay mine.
- Forms that fill themselves from a résumé invented jobs and skills. It checks every autofilled box against my confirmed facts and corrects it.
- A dropdown ended up on a different choice than the one it picked. It reads back every yes/no and every voluntary answer before sending.
- Each application system behaves differently. It keeps notes on 18 of them, written from the forms themselves.
- Two "application submitted" messages turned out to be false, and a failure email arrived hours later. The inbox check looks for those.
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Early November
Company sites first.
Job-listing sites were mostly noise for me: hundreds of postings for each one worth applying to. Now it checks the careers sites of the companies on my list for new postings, and reads my job-alert emails.
Also in those days
- My phone's signal dropped while I was driving, and the work in progress was lost. Work is cut into small pieces that can be picked up again.
- I was counting interviews by rows in a table. It counts conversations: every round and every call.
- Scam postings exist. It stops at anything that asks for money, bank details or ID numbers, or wants to move to a chat app.
- Some employers say AI may not be used. Those applications are mine, and if a form asks whether AI helped, the answer is the truth.
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November 11
I gave it away.
I posted the video and shared the setup as this free kit. Turning one person's system into something a stranger can run took its own list.
Everything it took to share it
- My own details were all through the files. Everything personal came out. Your Claude fills in yours.
- My own choices were baked in: my cities, my kinds of job. The kit assumes nothing. It asks you.
- The instructions assumed someone technical. Seven steps with exact clicks, a check under each one, and plain words throughout.
- Thirty files to copy one by one. One button copies the whole kit, and one paste sets it up.
- A long paste can get cut off. Claude says which files are missing and carries on when you type "continue".
- People open the link on a phone. A note at the top, with a button to email yourself the link.
- Some screens refuse the copy button. It falls back to selecting the text so you can copy it by hand.
- Links inside the page did nothing in one view. They scroll by script now.
- My setup used programs that only run on Windows. The kit has none of them.
- Job-listing sites don't allow software to use them for you. The kit stays off them. It reads their alert emails and applies on employers' own sites.
- An hour of questions before seeing anything. The interview has two parts, and a scored list of jobs comes after about 15 minutes.
- How hands-on should it be? You choose once: it sends on its own, or it shows you each one first.
- In a trial run it stopped dead at the first sign-in. It parks that job for you and keeps going.
- In a trial run it tried to apply before setup was finished. No form opens until the interview is done, except the first one you do together.
- A requirement nobody had asked about was treated as a "no". A blank isn't a no. It asks you.
- Jobs were left half-claimed when a chat ended. Each new chat picks up leftovers first.
- People asked whether it was safe, and how to undo it. A section on what you install and who gets paid, and a full list of what to switch off.
- The numbers had to be honest. The page shows my real results, including how few applications get a reply.
- Every version needs a second pair of eyes. A fresh reviewer reads it, and a fresh Claude sets it up from scratch, before it goes out.
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November 12
Rebuilt for $20, with its own form helper.
The kit is now built around Claude's $20 plan. In its first test, the fast-fill helper cut one 30-question form from 15 steps to 5.
Everything from that day
- A friend told me it used too much of the plan. Rebuilt around one short chat a day, with limits on how much it reads.
- Long chats cost more with every step. Everything lives in files, so each day starts fresh.
- Screenshots cost more than text. It reads pages as text first.
- Setting it up used a lot of the plan, because Claude retyped every file. Quick setup: Claude downloads the files.
- I tested a popular autofill add-on. Its rules don't allow an AI to operate it, and it filled the same form differently twice. Left out.
- So I wrote the kit's own helper. One step puts in a whole form's answers. It has no code to send one.
- The Chrome add-on cuts long answers short. The helper answers in short parts.
- The first version of the helper reported its own fingerprint. Three reviews caught it the same day. Now the browser works the fingerprint out before the helper ever runs.
- The page said "five steps" as if that held everywhere. It now says exactly what the test covered, and that Chrome takes more.
- Opening a form through the kit's site would have told the employer where the tab came from. It no longer does.
- It needed a home. This website: a short link, a quick setup, and a contact form with no address on the page.
- Who it's for. Rewritten around new graduates and students: graduation dates, internship seasons, résumés built from projects and part-time work.
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Now
Still being built.
This is a live project. I'm working on it every day, and this page changes when the kit does. On the list right now:
- Measuring what a normal week costs on the $20 plan.
- A full run by a real person on a Mac.
- Teaching the helper more application systems. It knows three.
- A real internship search, start to finish.
- Checking the app's button names in the setup steps each time the app updates.
- Reading what comes in through Contact. The next fix probably starts there.