SKIP THE LINE

Applying through the front door is a lottery. Your resume lands in a pile of four hundred, a filter reads it for eleven seconds, and nobody involved knows your name. That is the game most people play harder instead of differently.

These seven prompts play it differently. Run them in order, in one chat, on one job you actually want.

THE RUBRIC

Every job description is a scorecard written in polite language. Before you rewrite a single bullet, make Claude translate it back.

Prompt 1 — score me like the hiring manager

Here is the job description I am targeting: [PASTE JD]
Here is my resume: [PASTE OR ATTACH]

Act as the hiring manager for this role, not a career coach.
Build the scoring rubric you would actually screen on: the 8
criteria, weighted, with what a 1, a 3, and a 5 look like for
each one.

Then score my resume against it. Give me the number, the three
gaps costing me the most points, and whether I make your
interview list. Be blunt. I would rather hear it now than not
hear back for three weeks.

You now have the thing nobody hands you: the actual bar, and your distance from it.

Prompt 2 — rewrite against the rubric

Rewrite my resume for this one job using that rubric.

Rules: every claim must trace to something already in my resume
or something I tell you is true. Invent nothing. If a gap needs
evidence I have not given you, ask me for it instead of writing
around it.

Mirror the exact nouns the job description uses for tools,
titles, and outcomes. Lead every bullet with the result, not the
responsibility, and put a number on it wherever I have one.

Then show me a table of what you changed and which rubric point
each change buys.

That last table is the whole trick. You can see exactly which edits are worth points and which are decoration, and you can defend every line of it in a room.

THE BACK CHANNEL

The pile is the slow lane. The fast lane is one person who reads your name before a filter does. These two prompts are how you get there.

Prompt 3 — the dossier

Research [COMPANY] and this role like I have an interview Monday.

Find: who this role most likely reports to, who they hired onto
this team recently, what the company shipped or announced in the
last 90 days, their public numbers if they have any, and any
signal about why this seat is open — backfill, growth, or reorg.

End with the one problem this hire is being made to solve, in a
single sentence, and the evidence you based it on.

That last sentence is your opening line, your cover letter, and half your interview answers. Most candidates never figure it out. You have it before you apply.

Prompt 4 — the note that gets a reply

Write the note I send the hiring manager directly.

Under 120 words. Open with the problem you identified, not with
me. One line of specific proof I have solved something like it
before, pulled from my resume. One clear ask: fifteen minutes
this week.

No adjectives about myself. No "I am passionate about." No
paragraph about how much I admire the company.

Give me three versions: LinkedIn DM, cold email, and a referral
ask I can forward to someone who already works there.

Send it yourself, from your account, after you have read it out loud. A note that sounds automated gets treated like one.

THE REHEARSAL

Reading your answers is not practicing them. This prompt makes Claude hostile on purpose.

Prompt 5 — the interview that fights back

Interview me for this role. You are the hiring manager, you are
skeptical, and you have read my resume.

Ask one question at a time and wait for my answer. After each
one: score it 1-5, quote the strongest sentence I said and the
weakest, and make me answer again if it scored under 4.

Start with the hardest question about my biggest gap on your
rubric. Run 10 questions.

At the end, give me my three recurring tells and the 60-second
story I should have ready for every version of "walk me through
your background."

Do this the night before, out loud, typing your real answers. The first three will be bad. That is the point of doing it here instead of there.

THE NUMBER

The offer call is fifteen minutes that reprice your entire year. Do not improvise it.

Prompt 6 — the counter, word for word

I have an offer: [ROLE] at [COMPANY], base [BASE], equity
[EQUITY], bonus [BONUS], location [LOCATION]. Competing offers:
[YES/NO — DETAILS].

Research the real market range for this title, company stage,
and city, and cite where each number came from. Tell me which
line item has the most give at a company like this, and which
one they genuinely cannot move.

Then write my counter word for word, as I would say it out loud
on a call. Include exactly what I say when they ask for my
number first, and what I say if they tell me the offer is final.

Rehearse the counter with Prompt 5 before the call. The words matter less than saying them without your voice changing.

MAKE IT RUN WITHOUT YOU

Two prompts that delete the parts of the search that are pure tax.

Prompt 7 — the standing agent

Save everything you know about my background, my rubric scores,
and my writing voice as a skill called job-hunt, so I never
paste my resume again.

Then set up a scheduled task that runs every morning: check
[JOB BOARDS AND COMPANY CAREER PAGES], find new postings for
[ROLE] in [LOCATION], score each one against my background out
of 100, and for anything above 80, draft the tailored resume,
the hiring manager note, and the dossier.

Email me the queue. I only ever review and send.

And when the application itself is a forty-field Workday form, turn on Cowork so Claude gets its own browser, then hand it the URL and your tailored resume and let it fill the form. Read the summary before it submits.

BEFORE YOU RUN IT

• Truth is the strategy, not the constraint. Claude can make you sound like anyone. Every fabricated line becomes a question you cannot answer in the room, and interviewers are extremely good at finding the seam. If you cannot defend a bullet, cut it.
• Bring your own numbers. Claude can only quantify what you feed it. Spend twenty minutes before Prompt 2 pulling real figures — revenue, headcount, latency, hours saved, tickets closed. That work is the difference between a rewrite and a repackage.
• Ten tailored beats two hundred blasted. The rubric pass takes about fifteen minutes per job. Do it for ten companies you would actually join instead of mass-applying to two hundred you would not.
• You press send. Let Claude research, score, draft, and queue. The message goes out from your hands, in your voice, after you have read it.
• Know the room's rules. Some employers ask you to disclose AI assistance on applications or take-homes. Answer that honestly when asked — the leverage here is preparation, and preparation has never been against the rules.

Pick the one job you keep not applying to. Run Prompt 1 on it tonight. The score will be lower than you want, and by the end of Prompt 2 you will know exactly what to do about it.