Job Search System

Job Search System

A complete AI-assisted job search methodology. The persona pattern, Fit Check Method, Cover Letter Rules, Pipeline framework, and templates that take you from discovery to signed offer.

The Problem

You have a smart AI assistant. You ask it to write a cover letter, and it produces a generic paragraph that could go to any company. You ask it to assess a job, and it tells you "this sounds like a great opportunity." You ask it to prep you for an interview, and it gives you philosophical answers instead of operational ones.

You end up with a lot of applications, very few interviews, and no real strategy.

The Fix

The skills in this pack are the operating system we layer on top of the raw model. Each one captures a discipline that's hard to maintain in the moment but easy to forget when you're heads-down:

• The AI Hiring Manager persona — strict, decent, competent. Not a yes-man. Tells you when a job is a bad fit. Tells you when your number is below market.
• The Fit Check Method — a structured 0-100 score for every job, with required reading, output format, and what-to-look-for rubric. Skip the 60s, apply to the 80s.
• The Cover Letter Rules — research-first, specific-to-specific, no boilerplate. If the company name can be swapped for a competitor and the letter still reads, the letter has failed.
• The Pipeline framework — discovered → matched → materials → submitted → interviewing → offer. Track the funnel. Surface bottlenecks. Don't let applications sit in "ready to submit" pile.
• The Interview Pattern — the interview is about what you'd do for them, not about you. Every practice answer should name a specific plan.

What's In The Pack

career-strategy — The strategic layer

• The AI Hiring Manager persona (brutally honest, direct, never a yes-man)
• Pipeline health metrics (target / warning / critical for each stage)
• Bottleneck detection patterns
• Priority scoring formula (Fit × 0.5 + Urgency × 0.3 + Effort × 0.2)
• The Listen First rules (don't lecture the user on what they already know)
• Comp & notice anchoring (never negotiate on the user's behalf)
• Daily nudge / weekly review cadence

fit-check — The pre-application gate

• Required reading: profile + comp-notice before scoring
• 0-100 scoring rubric with structured output
• Areas of Strong Fit / Areas of Weak Fit / Pitch / Questions / Red Flags
• The Founder-Experience Counter-Rule (generalizable to all non-traditional candidates)
• Research-before-scoring requirement

job-search — Find and track

• Pluggable source pattern (HN, Adzuna, Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever)
• Job schema with status, score, notes, events
• Deduplication by (company, normalized_title)
• Company research at match stage (the foundation of any good cover letter)
• AI target lists structure (greenhouse / ashby / lever / unknown_ats)

job-apply — Materials + submission

• Per-application folder structure (cv.md, cover.md, cv-data.json, form_answers.json, cv.pdf)
• Cover letter rules: research-first, specific-to-specific, no boilerplate
• ATS submission patterns from real production use (React native setter, comp handling, false-positive detection)
• The "cusp / hobbyist / approaching" trap
• Safe-by-default behaviour (preserve hand-tailored content)

interview-prep — Operational answers

• Question pattern table (anti-pattern vs landing pattern)
• Default answer structure (built → would-build → bridge)
• The second-stage debrief loop
• The founder-as-X story arc
• Common anti-patterns in interview prep

Templates Included

You fill these in once, update as you grow:

Adapters Included

The skills are authored for pi-agent, but we include drop-in adapters for the major AI coding tools:

Real Usage

This is the methodology we used to:

• Run a 70+ application pipeline targeting AI-first companies
• Score-fit-check every opportunity before sending a single application
• Fix the "all about me, nothing about them" second-stage pattern
• Get the user past 1st-round screens at companies they'd actually want to work at

It works. It's not magic — it's discipline.

License

Personal-use commercial. One purchase = one seat. Install in your dev environment, modify freely, use in your own job search. Do not resell the pack or the unmodified skills as a competing product.

What's in the download

A .tgz containing:

job-search-system-0.1.0/
├── README.md              ← this overview
├── INSTALL.md             ← per-tool setup walkthrough
├── METHODOLOGY.md         ← the longer write-up
├── skills/                ← the 5 skill files (SKILL.md)
│   ├── career-strategy/
│   ├── fit-check/
│   ├── job-search/
│   ├── job-apply/
│   └── interview-prep/
├── templates/             ← what you fill in
│   ├── profile.md
│   ├── comp-notice.md
│   ├── ai-targets.json
│   └── cover-letter.md
├── adapters/              ← drop-in for other tools
│   ├── claude-code/
│   ├── cursor/
│   ├── cline/
│   └── generic/
└── examples/              ← worked example fit checks

Updates

Free for life — re-download any time.