A Brutally Honest Approach to Job Hunting With AI
Use AI to Know If You Qualify Before Applying
I’m currently in the market for my next role. Over the past several years, I’ve done community management, social media management, and worn a variety of other hats at cryptocurrency-based startups.
Applying for jobs is brutal, largely because the system is broken. There are plenty of open roles, but the application process encourages people to apply to jobs they aren’t qualified for. This overwhelms recruiters, who then miss the candidates who should be getting interviews in the first place. Those candidates don’t get hired, so they apply to even more roles, further overwhelming the system. It’s a bad cycle.
I still believe that a properly tailored resume dramatically increases your chances of being pulled out of the void and landing an interview. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to apply for jobs you aren’t qualified for. Even if you manage to get an interview, you’ll likely bomb it. And if you somehow fool the interviewers, you’re left with a job you’re not actually fit for. “Fake it till you make it” sounds good until it doesn’t.
So I built a simple system to make applying for jobs easier. All you need is ChatGPT (or another LLM), my prompt, and two specialized resumes (which I’ll explain shortly). With this prompt, you simply paste in a job description and the AI tells you whether you’re a real fit or whether you should move on. If it determines you are a fit, it automatically generates a role-specific resume using only experience and tasks you’ve actually done. Nothing is exaggerated. Nothing is invented.
Sound useful? I think so.
Step 1: The Prompt
I might as well give you the prompt now. If you already know what you’re doing, you may not need to read the rest of the article. I still recommend it, especially because this system requires two separate resumes, and missing that detail can break the process. If you find this prompt useful, feel free to give it a like and share it with your friends. Useful prompts deserve to be shared.
Please copy Paste everything below.
JOB EVALUATION & RESUME GENERATION PROTOCOL
Inputs
ULTIMATE RESUME: A comprehensive master document containing everything the user has ever done professionally, including all roles, responsibilities, skills, tools, accomplishments, metrics, and projects.
REFERENCE RESUME: A single one-page resume used only as a template for format, tone, structure, and brevity. This is not a source of experience.
JOB DESCRIPTION: The role to be evaluated.
STEP 1: FIT EVALUATION
Task
Compare the JOB DESCRIPTION against the ULTIMATE RESUME ONLY.
Do not speculate
Do not infer potential
Do not consider transferable skills
Do not stretch, reinterpret, or fill gaps
Evaluate only what is explicitly documented in the ULTIMATE RESUME
Critical Rule
If the job requires any skills, experience, or seniority not present in the ULTIMATE RESUME, the answer is No.
Output Requirement
The first line of your response must be exactly one word:
Yes
No
Complicated
Do not justify the decision.
Do not explain it.
Do not soften it.
Decision Logic
Yes
The role strongly aligns with documented experience, skills, and expertise in the ULTIMATE RESUME.
All core requirements are met.
No
The role requires skills, experience, or seniority not present in the ULTIMATE RESUME, or is misaligned with documented strengths.
Complicated
Only if all three conditions are true:
The role does not fully meet the requirements of the ULTIMATE RESUME and would normally be a No
The role is in the preferred industry
The role materially benefits long-term career growth
If any condition is false, treat as No.
STEP 2: RESUME GENERATION (CONDITIONAL)
Trigger Condition
Execute this step only if the final decision is Yes.
Task
Generate a one-page resume using:
Content exclusively from the ULTIMATE RESUME
Format, tone, and structure exactly matching the REFERENCE RESUME
RESUME STRUCTURE
1. Header
Use the user’s name, location, email, phone number, and LinkedIn URL exactly as provided.
2. Professional Summary (3–4 sentences max)
[JOB TITLE IN CAPS] | [INDUSTRY / SPECIALTY]
Write a concise summary describing hands-on experience, key strengths, platforms, and cross-functional collaboration style. Emphasize execution over strategy. Tailor to the job description.
3. Core Skills & Tools
Maximum 2 lines
Maximum 15 items
Use bullet separators (•)
Include only skills documented in the ULTIMATE RESUME
Prioritize relevance to the job description
4. Professional Experience
2–4 roles maximum
Prioritize relevance to the job description
Each role must include:
Company | Title | Dates in the same format as the REFERENCE RESUME
2–5 bullets per role
Bullets selected verbatim from the ULTIMATE RESUME
No invention, rewriting, or paraphrasing
Quantify results where possible
Compress bullets only if meaning is preserved
5. Education
Use education entries exactly as documented in the ULTIMATE RESUME.
HARD CONSTRAINTS
Total length: 1 page
Summary: 3–4 sentences
Skills: 2 lines, max 15 items
Experience bullets: ULTIMATE RESUME only
Format and tone: match REFERENCE RESUME exactly
Missing required skills: output No in Step 1
STEP 3: TERMINATION RULES
If decision = No, stop. Do not generate a resume.
If decision = Complicated, treat as No. Stop.
Do not offer suggestions, alternatives, or explanations unless explicitly requested.
Stop. Don’t copy/paste anything else.
Make the Ultimate Resume
Let me be clear about what I mean by an Ultimate Resume.
This resume is thorough. By thorough, I mean that for many roles I listed 30 or more bullet points describing exactly what I did. I also went as far back in time as was reasonably relevant. The goal is to give the AI a complete picture of everything you have ever done and know how to do. That way, when you provide a job description, the AI can accurately determine whether you are a fit.
Building an Ultimate Resume is time-consuming. There’s no way around that. What I did was tell the AI my role and then describe, in great detail, everything I actually did in that role. I did not worry about formatting or length at this stage. Once that was done, I asked the AI to turn my description into bullet points. I then included all of those bullet points under that job’s experience section.
This resume is not meant to be shared with recruiters. It exists solely to give the AI maximum context so it can make better decisions and generate honest, accurate resumes later.
Example: Normal Resume Entry
Ripple | Ecosystem Growth Contractor | 2024
Coordinated ecosystem data, partner communication, and community-relevant insights for XRPL.
• Built dashboards on ecosystem activity reviewed by Partner Success and leadership teams.
• Verified project metrics, communicated with global teams (U.S., France, Asia), and ensured accuracy of public ecosystem data.
• Helped funded projects improve clarity between product capabilities, community expectations, and marketing messaging.
Example: Ultimate Resume Entry
Ripple | Ecosystem Growth Contractor | 2024
• Onboarded XRPL ecosystem projects into Ripple’s data-sharing workflows.
• Applied community management principles to improve partner onboarding completion.
• Served as a relational point of contact for funded ecosystem partners.
• Guided DeFi, NFT, and infrastructure projects through onboarding requirements.
• Reduced onboarding friction by clarifying ambiguous data-sharing expectations.
• Followed up with stalled partners to resolve confusion and unblock progress.
• Tracked onboarding success and failure across funded projects.
• Prevented funded partners from falling through onboarding gaps.
• Collected structured partner data for internal ecosystem visibility.
• Ensured partner data visibility for Partner Success, Grants, BD, and leadership teams.
• Maintained centralized tracking of partner onboarding and participation status.
• Supported ecosystem accountability for multi-million-dollar grant programs.
• Performed data sanity checks on partner-reported activity and metrics.
• Identified discrepancies between reported data sharing and observed data availability.
• Investigated data gaps caused by launch delays, misconfigured forms, or misunderstandings.
• Coordinated with Partner Success to resolve data accuracy issues.
• Distinguished human and process errors from technical or compliance concerns.
• Tracked USD-denominated on-chain value moved by individual ecosystem projects.
• Monitored ecosystem performance on monthly and quarterly intervals.
• Analyzed growth, stagnation, and decline trends across funded projects.
• Built spreadsheet-based systems to track ecosystem performance over time.
• Created charts and graphs to visualize partner and ecosystem activity.
• Translated raw ecosystem data into clear summaries for non-technical stakeholders.
• Produced data storytelling summaries highlighting trends and ecosystem health signals.
• Synthesized quantitative data with qualitative partner context.
• Supported leadership understanding of ecosystem momentum and direction.
• Compared internal Ripple data with publicly displayed partner metrics.
• Reconciled discrepancies between internal tracking and external analytics dashboards.
• Supported initiatives to increase partner visibility on public data platforms.
• Improved alignment between Ripple’s internal ecosystem view and public perception.
• Acted as an intermediary between Partner Success and Data teams.
• Translated partner and business questions into actionable data requests.
• Communicated data availability and limitations to non-technical teams.
• Reduced cross-team friction caused by siloed information and priorities.
• Supported alignment across Partner Success, Grants, BD, Data, and leadership.
• Contributed data-informed recommendations on continued ecosystem funding.
• Evaluated project trajectory beyond surface-level performance metrics.
• Identified projects demonstrating strong growth and long-term potential.
• Highlighted underperforming or stalled projects for internal review.
• Created slide decks to support ecosystem funding and prioritization decisions.
• Improved internal partner tracking workflows using Monday.com.
• Adapted onboarding and tracking processes during tooling transitions.
• Worked within Salesforce to support evolving ecosystem operations systems.
• Maintained operational continuity during internal system changes.
• Translated human onboarding workflows into scalable internal systems.
• Adapted responsibilities as the role evolved to meet emerging ecosystem needs.
• Solved onboarding and visibility problems beyond original role scope.
• Maintained focus on partner success despite shifting internal requirements.
• Enabled ecosystem data visibility by first fixing human onboarding breakdowns.
So when I say “be comprehensive,” I mean be comprehensive. This will take a while. But once you do it, the AI will consistently be able to tell whether you are a good fit for a job and generate a tailored resume using only what you have actually done.
Your Resume Style
You will need to do two things if you want the AI to generate resumes in your style.
First, you must give the AI an example resume that you are proud of. This resume is used only as a style reference. It teaches the AI how dense your bullets should be, how concise your summaries are, and how you prefer roles to be structured.
Second, you will likely need to update parts of the prompt itself. The prompt contains hard rules about things like summary length, number of roles, bullet limits, and structure. If those rules do not match your preferred style, the AI will follow the rules, not your example.
If you rely on the prompt alone, the AI will probably fail to match your style. When you provide both a reference resume and a prompt that reflects your preferences, the output becomes very consistent.
My recommendation is to take the prompt and ask an AI to help you modify the resume structure rules to fit your style. I wish this could be made fully universal, but I do not see a way to do that without giving up control or accuracy.
Conclusion
This will take a bit of time to set up, but once it’s done it works like a dream. You won’t need to read every job description in detail, and you’ll quickly have resumes that match roles you are uniquely qualified for.
What do you think?
Final Thought
Find every time saving device you can.
“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.”
Abraham Lincoln
Double interesting IMO
I see tremendous business potential with this broken system…
Smart selective use of AI…