Job search automation

The repeatable parts of a job search are genuinely mechanical: running the same searches across the same sources every morning, removing the duplicates, discarding the ones that fail an obvious criterion, and producing a first draft of a tailored resume. Those cost hours a week and reward nobody for doing them by hand.

The parts that don't automate well are the ones that decide outcomes: whether a role is actually worth your time, what to say to a specific person, and how to answer a question about your own history. Automation that reaches into those produces applications that read as machine-made — and the current generation of recruiters is good at spotting them.

The failure mode worth naming is auto-apply. Sending hundreds of untargeted applications produces a worse response rate, not a better one, burns your name at companies you'd have wanted later, and gives you no signal about what's wrong. Automate the funnel up to the point of judgment, then do the judgment.