career-apply

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• SKILL.md

SKILL.md (first lines)

# /career-apply - prepare one application, stop before submit

Argument: a job posting URL, or a company and role from `Jobs/Job Leads.md`.

**Never click submit.** That click is always theirs. Also never answer on their behalf: attestations, consents, work authorisation questions, demographic surveys, and salary figures they have not confirmed stay untouched unless they have explicitly given a standing instruction to fill them.

One application per invocation.

## Phase 1 - The posting

Pull it from the ATS API rather than trusting a search result or a cached page, since postings get edited and closed without the public page catching up.

- Ashby: `api.ashbyhq.com/posting-api/job-board/<org>?includeCompensation=true`
- Greenhouse: `boards-api.greenhouse.io/v1/boards/<org>/jobs?content=true`
- Lever: `api.lever.co/v0/postings/<org>?mode=json`
- SmartRecruiters: `api.smartrecruiters.com/v1/companies/<org>/postings`
- Workday: `GET https://<org>.wd<N>.myworkdayjobs.com/wday/cxs/<org>/<site>/job/<job-path>` with `Accept: application/json`, which returns `jobPostingInfo`. The `wd<N>` shard and the `<site>` slug both vary per company and can be read off the careers URL.

If none of those apply, open the posting in Chrome and read it there.

Confirm it is live. Extract the exact title, compensation band, location and remote terms, the full description, and the list of fields the application form will ask for.

Check history: prior applications to this company in `Jobs/`, prior contact in Gmail, and anyone in `People/` who works there. Surface all of it. A previous rejection at the same company matters, because their applicant tracking system remembers even when nobody else does.

## Phase 2 - The note

Create `Jobs/<Company>/<role>.md` with `status: preparing`, the saved job specification, and a fit assessment that includes an honest gap list. The gap list is internal. It exists so nothing gets overclaimed, and it is exactly what to review before an interview.

## Phase 3 - Checkpoint with them, before drafting

This is the largest quality lever in the whole command, and skipping it to look efficient produces a generic application. Ask:

1. **Do they have a personal connection to this?** Have they used the product, met the team, know someone there, got a story about it. The vault cannot know this and it is frequently the thing that makes an application land.
2. **If they have not used the product**, offer the build-first path: a few days actually using it turns a cover letter from admiration into evidence. Then sequence the application after the build.
3. **Compensation**, for this specific role. Never put a number on a form they have not confirmed.
4. **Level and framing calls** the posting forces: individual contributor or leadership, and how to handle anything awkward in the history.

If there is a warm contact at the company, raise contact-first sequencing: message the person before applying. A warm introduction outperforms a strong application, and the conversation often answers blocking questions before the form is even started.

## Phase 4 - Resume

1. Read `Assets/resume-master.md`. Everything on the tailored resume must already exist there. If a fact is missing, add it to the master first, then use it.
2. Select rather than rewrite: pick the bullets whose tags match what this posting actually asks for, and retune them to the posting's own vocabulary without changing what they claim.
3. Every bullet must trace to a `Wins/` file. Anything that cannot be traced does not go on the resume.
4. Check the numbers against each other. Years of experience, team sizes, and metrics must not contradict either the master or the drafted answers. Interviewers do notice, and the contradiction costs more than the claim was worth.
5. Keep to one page unless the field expects otherwise. Verify the rendered output rather than assuming.
6. Feed anything new discovered during drafting back into `resume-master.md`.

## Phase 5 - Cover letter and written answers

Read `Voice/Voice Profile.md` first and write to it. This is the entire reason the voice profile exists.

- **Lead with the outcome or the judgment, not the mechanics.** Over-explaining implementation reads as less senior, not more.
- **Use specific stories.** Pull them from `Wins/`, especially the "why I am proud of it" verbatim. Distribute distinct stories across answers rather than reusing one anecdote three times.
- **Do not overclaim.** Watch for paraphrase drift, where "built reference applications for X" quietly becomes "built X". Check every sentence against the win it came from.
- **Do not name gaps in the prose.** No "I have not used X but I am eager to learn" hedges. They read as generated and they state the obvious. If a gap is genuinely load-bearing, raise it with the user directly rather than writing it into the letter. Close on a forward-looking note, never on a caveat.
- **Strip the tells.** After drafting, do a dedicated pass for meta-narration, "not just X but Y" constructions, "I'm excited to" openings, and everything in the tics-to-avoid section of the voice profile. This pass catches things the drafting pass cannot see.
- No em dashes or curly quotes, standard keyboard characters only.
- Enforce word limits by counting, not by estimating.

Store every draft in the job note. Expect to iterate: their edits win, and you fix only mechanical problems and tell them what changed.

## Phase 6 - Form fill

Fill what the vault answers conclusively: name, contact, location, links, most recent employer and title, resume upload, and the approved answer text.

Leave for them: account creation, background check and privacy acknowledgements, terms checkboxes, relocation attestations, anything the vault cannot answer conclusively, and the submit button.

Watch for forms where a mid-flow button is the real submission. Some applicant tracking systems put the final submit on a sub-form with no review page and no confirmation screen, and no visual cue distinguishing it from the per-page save buttons on earlier steps. When in any doubt about whether a button submits, stop and hand the click over.

## Phase 7 - Handoff

Report what is filled, what is left for them as a checklist in the note, and the strongest fit argument in case they get a call tomorrow. Leave the browser tab open.

When they confirm they have submitted: set `status: applied`, record the date, update `Jobs/Job Leads.md`, and fold any new facts back into `resume-master.md` and the vault.

If they abandon it, keep everything. It seeds the next application of the same type.

From bendechrai/career-brain, MIT.

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