🔍 Job Hunting? Three AI Moves Before You Apply

Job hunting is mostly homework, and almost nobody does the homework. Not because people are lazy - because after the fourth application of the evening, “research the company properly” turns into skimming their homepage while the kettle boils, and “prepare your examples” turns into hoping something comes to you in the interview.

Meanwhile the ads themselves are written in a strange corporate dialect where “fast-paced environment” and “self-starter” are load-bearing phrases that definitely mean something, and it’s your job to guess what.

Here’s the shift: AI turns each piece of homework from an hour you don’t have into ten minutes you do. Not by applying for you (please don’t let it do that - hiring managers can smell a mass-generated application at forty paces), but by doing the reading, the digging and the remembering, so you walk in prepared while everyone else walks in hopeful.

Three jobs, three prompts. I call it The Job-Hunt Recce - because that’s what it is: proper reconnaissance before you commit your energy anywhere.

The Job-Hunt Recce

Move 1: The Decoder - find out what they actually want. Every job ad has two layers: the official list of duties, and the real shape of the person they’re picturing. The Decoder translates one into the other, and tells you which requirements are load-bearing and which are wishlist padding. How: paste the whole ad in with the prompt below and read the translation before you decide whether to apply. The non-obvious bit: the decoded version often reveals the job is really one problem wearing a job title - “this team is drowning in unprocessed orders” or “the last person left and took all the knowledge with them”. Speak to that problem in your application and you’re suddenly having a different conversation from every other candidate. Also, gently: “essential criteria” rarely all are. If you hit most of them, apply.

Nick this one:

Here's a job ad I'm considering. Decode it for me:

[PASTE THE FULL JOB AD]

Tell me:
1. THE TRANSLATION - what this role actually involves day to day, in plain words, reading between the lines of the corporate phrasing.
2. THE REAL PROBLEM - your best guess at the problem or gap that made them post this job, and the clues that point to it.
3. LOAD-BEARING vs WISHLIST - which requirements they'll genuinely select on, and which are nice-to-haves I shouldn't be put off by.
4. THE PERSON THEY'RE PICTURING - a two-sentence sketch of their ideal candidate.
5. YELLOW FLAGS - any phrases that hint at understaffing, churn, or chaos, said honestly but fairly ("fast-paced" alone isn't a red flag, three synonyms for it might be).
6. THREE QUESTIONS this ad leaves unanswered that I could ask at interview.

Move 2: The Recce - research the company in ten minutes. Interviewers consistently rank “they clearly knew about us” as one of the fastest ways to stand out, and it’s rare because proper research used to take an evening. Now it’s one prompt with web search doing the legwork. How: use the prompt below in Claude with web search on (works in other tools with browsing too), then spend your ten minutes reading the result rather than trawling for it. The non-obvious bit: you’re not researching to recite facts back (“I see you were founded in 2009” has never won anyone a job). You’re researching to ask better questions and to decide if you even want them. A recce works both ways… you’re choosing too, and interviewers can feel the difference in a candidate who knows that.

Nick this one, fill in the blanks:

I have an interview with [COMPANY NAME], a [WHAT THEY DO, ROUGHLY] based in [LOCATION/UK]. The role is [JOB TITLE]. Using web search, build me a 10-minute briefing:

1. WHAT THEY DO in one plain paragraph - product, customers, how they make money.
2. RECENT NEWS - anything from the last year: growth, new offices, layoffs, awards, funding, leadership changes.
3. THE LANDSCAPE - their main competitors and how they position themselves differently.
4. MOOD CHECK - what employee reviews and public chatter suggest about working there, summarised fairly (patterns, not one-off rants).
5. TWO SMART QUESTIONS I could ask at interview that show I understand their world - specific to them, not generic.
6. A STRAIGHT-TALKING CAUTION - anything I should weigh up before accepting an offer here.

Keep it skimmable. Flag anything you're unsure about rather than guessing, and include where the key claims came from.

Move 3: The Story Bank - get your examples ready before you need them. Interviews run on stories: “tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult customer / juggled priorities / made a mistake”. Most people improvise these live, which is why most people’s answers trail off into “…so yeah, that worked out okay”. The Story Bank digs your best material out of you in advance. How: run the prompt below and let the AI interview you - it asks, you ramble, it shapes your ramblings into tight, structured stories. The non-obvious bit: your instinct says “nothing I’ve done is impressive enough”, and your instinct is wrong. Covering three roles during a staffing crisis, calming a furious customer, spotting the invoice error nobody else caught… this is exactly the material interviewers want, and AI is genuinely good at helping you see your own week as evidence.

Nick this one:

Help me build a story bank for job interviews. I'm applying for [JOB TITLE] roles. Interview me, one question at a time, to dig out my best real examples for these classics:

- A challenge or problem I solved
- A time I dealt with a difficult person
- A mistake I made and what I learned
- A time I juggled competing priorities
- Something I improved without being asked
- A result I'm quietly proud of

For each: ask me follow-up questions until you have specifics (numbers, timeframes, what I actually did), then shape my answer into a story with this structure - the situation in one line, what I did in two or three, the result in one, ideally with something countable. Keep MY words and phrasing where you can; don't make me sound like a press release. If my example is weak, say so kindly and ask for another.

At the end, give me all my stories as a tidy list I can read the night before an interview.

A real-ish ad, decoded

Say this ad catches your eye: “Office & Operations Coordinator - dynamic, fast-paced distribution company. The successful candidate will be a self-starter comfortable wearing many hats, supporting the MD directly, owning day-to-day admin, improving processes, and mucking in wherever needed. Must thrive under pressure. Salary competitive.”

Run it through the Decoder and the translation comes back something like: the previous coordinator has left (possibly abruptly), things are held together with goodwill and spreadsheets, and the MD wants one calm person to own the chaos. “Wearing many hats” plus “mucking in” plus “thrive under pressure” is three synonyms for understaffed, so that’s a yellow flag worth probing. “Improving processes” is your way in - it means they know things are messy. The load-bearing requirement is organisational skill and unflappability; the software they list is wishlist. And “salary competitive” decodes, as ever, to “ask early”.

Ten minutes ago that was word soup. Now you know exactly what to write, and exactly what to ask.

Honestly, the limits

It won’t apply for you, and mass-generated applications actively hurt you - recruiters bin them on sight, so keep every application anchored to your real experience. Web research can be wrong or stale, so double-check anything that matters (like salary data or company news) before repeating it in an interview. And no prompt can want the job for you: if the Decoder and the Recce keep turning up yellow flags, believe them. Twenty minutes of homework that stops a bad six-month detour is the best result on this whole page.

Short on time? Do this bit

Next ad that catches your eye, run the Decoder before you do anything else. Two minutes, and you’ll never read a job ad the same way again… which, given how job ads are written, is entirely for the best.

Once the Decoder’s told you what they want, the next step writes itself: Tailor Your CV To Any Job In 10 Minutes turns that decoded ad into a CV that speaks its language. And when the interview lands, Practise The Interview Before The Interview has your back. Happy hunting, friend. ✨