Letting Claude Run My Morning Job Search

Anyone who's been on the job hunt at the senior level knows that finding the right role is a job in and of itself. For a while there, my mornings looked a lot like this: open LinkedIn, search for "head of developer relations," scroll past the same postings I'd seen the day before, and click into one that looked promising… only to find out it was hybrid three days a week in a city I don't live in, or the salary topped out well below what the title implied. Then I'd do it all over again on the next job board. By the time I'd made it through my usual list of sites, half the morning was gone, my coffee was long since empty, and I still hadn't done a single thing that actually moved my search forward.

After a few months of this, it finally clicked that the scrolling and screening process was the part of my search that needed the least of me. I know what I'm looking for, and I know what I'm not. So I wrote it all down, handed it to Claude, and asked it to take that first pass for me every morning.

Now, every day at about 7:30, Claude searches the job boards I care about, checks each posting against my criteria, and adds the good fits to my job search spreadsheet, along with fit scores, notes, and suggested resume edits for each one. By the time I sit down at my desk with a hot cup of coffee, my shortlist is waiting for me.

I've been tinkering with this setup for a while now, and in the spirit of sharing what's working (and what I learned the hard way), I thought I'd walk through the whole thing so you can build something similar for your own search.

Here only for the prompt? I won't make you wait… jump straight to it.

The Setup

The whole thing runs as a scheduled task in the Claude desktop app. (One quick note: it only runs while the app is open, so if my laptop is asleep, so is my job search!) Beyond the prompt itself, there are four pieces that make it work:

• The Google Sheets connector. Claude needs to be able to read my job search spreadsheet and add rows to it. I keep two tabs: "Open Jobs" for new finds, and "Status" for everything I've already applied to, which is how Claude knows not to show me the same role twice.

• Claude's built-in browser. Some job boards only show you the good stuff once you're signed in. Claude's browser pane in the desktop app keeps its own sign-ins, so I logged in to LinkedIn, Welcome to the Jungle, and Remote Rocketship once, and every run since has picked up right where I left off.

• Two resumes. I have a DevRel version and a Strategic version saved on my computer (more about this below), and Claude reads both before it judges anything.

• A Monday reminder. TrueUp, one of the sites I check, blocks automated visitors, so a second scheduled task simply nudges me to go look for myself each week.

Start With Who You Are (And Who You Aren't)

The prompt opens with a short profile of my background. It's tempting to skip this and jump straight to search terms, but in my opinion, this is the part that makes everything else work. Without it, Claude is just guessing at fit, which is how you end up with a list full of roles you'd never actually apply for.

Mine covers the basics:

• 15+ years in developer relations and community building, with a focus on strategic projects and programs.

• Director of Developer Relations at Camunda (2019–2024), where I built and led a 14-person global DevRel org.

• Principal Program Manager, Strategic Initiatives at Camunda (2024–2025), where I ran the company-wide product migration and chaired the executive steering committee.

• Founder of Persea Consulting, a DevRel strategy practice, and author of The Business Value of Developer Relations.

• Earlier community leadership at SparkPost, Chef, and O'Reilly.

• Where I live (California, but not in the Bay Area), so it can check location rules.

But the piece I'd really encourage you not to skip is the flip side: what you don't have. In my case, that's an engineering degree and a background in banking, hardware, or private equity. Telling Claude this up front means it treats those requirements as real gaps rather than glossing over them. After all, a list that's honest about where you'll get screened out is a whole lot more useful than one that tells you you're perfect for everything.

What I'm Looking For

I'm currently focused on two kinds of roles. The first is senior DevRel leadership: Director or VP, with a focus on strategy, building strong teams, and driving real business impact. What I'm not looking for is a role where the leader is also expected to produce most of the tutorials, demos, and on-camera content. (Lower titles like Senior Manager or Head of are still on the table at large companies, where the extra layers of leadership mean those titles often carry more scope than they would at smaller companies.)

The second is strategic programs and projects: cross-functional roles that connect Product, go-to-market, and what customers actually experience. Individual-contributor roles count here too, as long as they carry the same influence and cross-functional reach as a management role. Think Staff or Principal program roles, or Chief of Staff.

Speaking of which: if you're hiring for a role like either of these, or know someone who is, I'd love to hear from you!

From there, I gave Claude two non-negotiables. If a role breaks either of these, it's out:

• A minimum base salary. A range that starts lower is fine, as long as landing above my minimum is realistic. If there's no salary listed, Claude keeps the role only if the level and company make that minimum likely, and calls it out in the notes.

• Fully remote. Heading into an office a few times a quarter, or even monthly, is fine. But given that I live in the mountains, roughly three hours from San Francisco and an hour and a half from any major airport, "two days a week in the office" just isn't an option. If the policy is unclear, Claude keeps the role only if it's otherwise strong, and flags it in the notes.

There are also a few kinds of roles Claude rejects outright: ones that require extensive experience in an industry I haven't worked in directly, internal "Developer Experience" roles focused on engineering platforms (despite the name, they aren't DevRel!), and hands-on roles focused primarily on producing technical content.

Where Claude Looks

Claude searches in two steps. Most of its effort goes to a handful of sites I chose myself, where it looks for postings from the last two to three days, then opens each promising one to check salary, remote policy, scope, and requirements before deciding whether it makes the cut.

Site	How Claude reads it	Notes
LinkedIn Jobs	Claude's built-in browser, signed into my account	Searches filtered to remote and the last 3 days, with keywords like "head of developer relations," "chief of staff," and "director strategic initiatives"
Welcome to the Jungle	Claude's built-in browser, signed into my account	Shows one job at a time. Claude skips clear non-fits, saves fits and anything it's unsure about, and stops after 30 cards. It never skips a possible fit
Remote Rocketship	Claude's built-in browser, signed into my account	About two-thirds of listings sit behind a paid plan. Claude reads what's visible and never signs up or upgrades
Built In, DevRel Jobs, and Community Inc	Claude reads the page directly; no sign-in needed	Remote search, using the same keywords as LinkedIn
TrueUp	Skipped if blocked	Has a bot check. Claude never tries to get past it; the Monday reminder covers it

After that, it does a quick sweep of the wider web to catch anything my sites missed. I put a strict budget on this step, because left to its own devices, Claude would happily search the entire internet every morning. It gets at most six web searches, aimed straight at company application systems like Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, and it can open at most five postings. No other job boards, and no paging through results. Once the budget is spent, it stops and lists any leads it didn't get to, so I can decide whether they're worth investigating further.

Before adding anything, Claude checks both tabs of my spreadsheet so I never see a role I've already reviewed or applied to.

What Lands In My Spreadsheet

Each good fit becomes a new row in my "Open Jobs" tab with the company, title, and a link to the posting (the company's own application page whenever possible, rather than an aggregator). From there, it gets more interesting:

• Which resume to send. Claude picks whichever one's content best matches the posting, not just the job title.

• An ATS score (0–100). This is Claude's estimate of how well my resume, as it stands, covers the posting's keywords and requirements. (Note: this is, of course, an estimate, not a real ATS result.)

• My chance of getting an interview (1–5), based on my resume as it stands, with no referral or changes.

• Notes on salary, remote details, scope and reporting line, real gaps and how I might frame them, deadlines, and anything I should double-check.

• Two or three resume tweaks. These are numbered, copy-ready edits that point to the exact spot on that resume (the title line, a summary sentence, a specific bullet, Core Competencies) and use the posting's own language.

• Updated scores if I make every tweak, written like "ATS 82 · 3.5/5."

Note: I did get a little picky about the ATS & interview scoring, because a tool that tells you every role is a 90% match isn't actually helping anyone. So the prompt includes a few rules to keep Claude honest:

• Tweaks can only claim what my resume already supports, and anything Claude can't verify gets marked "only if true."

• Every bullet a tweak points to has to actually exist in the resume it names. (The two versions have different bullets, and I don't want to go hunting for one that isn't there.)

• Tweaks usually add 5–10 ATS points and at most half a point of interview chance, because rewording can't fill a real gap.

Claude also adds new rows directly under the existing ones, never overwrites or deletes anything, and reads the sheet back afterwards to make sure everything got put in the right place.

There's also an "Applied" column, but Claude always leaves this one blank. Once I've either applied or decided to pass on the role, I fill it in. The spreadsheet has conditional formatting that turns the cell green when I type an x (applied) or red when I type an n/a (passed). I then move any jobs I've applied to over to my "Status" tab for future tracking, and re-filter the "Open Jobs" tab by color (Fill Color = white) so it only shows the jobs I'm still considering.

The Guardrails (Don’t Skip These!)

Since Claude is working inside my signed-in accounts, guardrails aren't optional. The prompt spells out exactly what it should never do:

• Never type a password or sign in for me. If a site asks for a login, it skips the site and tells me.

• Never solve or get around a CAPTCHA or bot check.

• Never click Apply, Follow, or anything in a site's messages or inbox.

• Never sign up for or upgrade a paid plan.

• Never overwrite or delete rows in my spreadsheet.

• If the spreadsheet connection is down, save the results to a file and tell me, rather than creating a brand-new spreadsheet.

The Morning Summary

Each run ends with a short report, which you can find under "Scheduled tasks" in the desktop app by clicking into the task, then into the specific run you want to see. It's a quick way to get the lay of the land before I dig into the spreadsheet: how many postings Claude reviewed, which roles it added (each with a one-line reason), notable near-misses and why they didn't make the cut, any sites it couldn't search and whether signing in would fix that, and any leads from the web sweep it didn't get to.

How it Got Better

Here's the deal: the first version of this prompt was not the prompt you see here. Most of the rules above came from reading through a morning's results, spotting what Claude got wrong, and asking it to update the task. "IC roles are fine if they have real influence" came from one of those mornings. So did "pick the resume by content, not job title."

In other words, treat your first version like a first draft. Run it for a week, notice what bugs you, and fix one thing at a time. It's a lot easier than trying to get it perfect on day one!

My next step once I have this running for a few more weeks is to ask Claude to evaluate the roles I've applied to versus the ones I've skipped and point out any patterns (this is where those x's and n/a's come in handy!). My hope is this will reveal additional details I can add to the prompt to make the job search even more tailored to my specific limitations and desires.

Make It Your Own

The structure works for just about any job search, but the specifics are all mine. To build your own version, you'll want to swap in your own profile and resumes (including, just as importantly, what you don't have), the roles you're targeting and the ones you want to avoid, your non-negotiables, the sites you want searched, your spreadsheet and columns, and a budget for the web sweep. Small limits keep each run quick and cheap.

Whatever you change, I'd highly recommend keeping the guardrails as they are. They're what let me trust it to run while I'm not watching!

The Prompt

Ready to give it a try? I've got you covered! Before you start, you'll want to:

• Turn on the Google Sheets connector.

• Make a spreadsheet with a tab for new finds and a tab of past applications.

• Sign in to any job sites that need it in Claude's built-in browser.

Once you've done that, paste the prompt below into a new session in the Claude desktop app, filling in the bracketed parts. Claude will read your resumes and spreadsheet, show you the task it plans to save, and create the daily schedule.

Set up a scheduled task that runs every morning at [7:30 AM] to help with my job search. Each run, find new job postings that fit me, judge each against my criteria below, and add the good fits as rows in my Google Sheet. Before creating the task, read my resumes and my spreadsheet, show me the full task prompt you plan to save, and ask me about anything that's unclear.

ABOUT ME
- Resumes: [path to resume 1] (for [role type]) and [path to resume 2] (for [role type]). Read both before judging anything.
- Background in brief: [years of experience, recent roles, notable results].
- What I don't have: [e.g. an engineering degree, a banking background]. Treat requirements for these as real gaps.
- Where I live: [city, state, country], so you can check location and remote eligibility.

ROLES I WANT
1. [Role type and level, e.g. Director or VP of X function]. Not: [e.g. player/coach roles].
2. [Second role type].
Individual-contributor roles are [fine / not fine] when [condition, e.g. they carry cross-functional influence].

NON-NEGOTIABLES (reject if broken)
- Salary: [$X] base minimum. A range that starts lower is OK if [rule, e.g. the top is $Y+ or the midpoint is $X+]. If no salary is listed, keep it only if the level and company make $X+ likely, and say so in the notes.
- Location: [e.g. fully remote; in person about monthly is fine; hybrid is not]. If the policy is unclear, keep it only if the role is otherwise strong, and flag it.
- Also reject: [backgrounds I lack that are required, look-alike roles that aren't a fit].

WHERE TO SEARCH
Step 1, my sites, postings from the last 2 to 3 days: [list of job site URLs].
- Use the built-in browser for sites that need a login; I've signed in there. If a site shows a login page, skip it and tell me.
- Open each promising posting to check salary, location policy, scope and requirements before deciding.
Step 2, a small web sweep after Step 1: at most [6] web searches, aimed at company application sites like Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever and Workday, and at most [5] postings opened. No other job boards. When the budget runs out, stop and list the leads you didn't check.

SPREADSHEET
- Sheet: [link]. Add fits to the "[Open Jobs]" tab. Skip any company and title already in that tab or the "[Applications]" tab.
- Columns: [applied | company | title | url | which resume | ATS score | interview chance | notes | resume tweaks | with resume tweaks]. Read the header row first, and follow the sheet if I change the columns. Leave "[applied]" blank for me.
- Add rows directly under the existing data, never overwrite or delete a row, and read the sheet back afterwards to confirm.
- Which resume: the one whose content best matches the posting, not just the job title.
- ATS score: your 0 to 100 estimate of how well that resume, as it stands, covers the posting's keywords and requirements.
- Interview chance: 1 to 5, for the resume as it stands, with no referral.
- Notes: salary, location details, scope and reporting line, real gaps and how to frame them, deadlines, anything to verify.
- Resume tweaks: 2 to 3 numbered, copy-ready edits that name the exact spot on that resume (title line, a summary sentence, a specific bullet, the skills section) and use the posting's own phrases. Only claims my resume already supports; mark anything you can't verify "only if true". Every bullet you point to must exist in that resume.
- With resume tweaks: the same two scores if I make every tweak, written like "ATS 82 · 3.5/5". Be realistic: rewording can't fill a real gap.

GUARDRAILS
- Never type a password or sign in for me.
- Never solve or get around a CAPTCHA or bot check. Skip that site and tell me.
- Never click Apply, Follow, or anything in a site's messages or inbox.
- Never sign up for or upgrade a paid plan.
- If the spreadsheet connection is down, save the results to a file and tell me. Don't create a new spreadsheet.

SUMMARY
End each run with: how many postings you reviewed, which you added (each with a one-line reason), notable near-misses and why, sites you couldn't search and whether signing in would help, and web-sweep leads you didn't check.

If you build something similar, I'd love to hear what you changed and what worked for you!

And if your team is looking for someone to build systems like this one, whether for your developer community, your programs, or your exec team, I'm currently exploring my next role. If that sounds like a fit (or you know someone it might be a fit for), reach out on LinkedIn. I'd love to chat!