AI Job Search Kit

A prompt-and-template kit for job seekers who use an AI chat assistant, built on one rule: keep every claim true.

This kit gives general information and starting prompts. It is not legal or financial advice, and it does not promise interviews, offers or income. Never let AI invent experience, credentials, dates, metrics or references. Follow each employer's stated rules about AI in applications. Review all AI output before relying on it.

Companion files in the same folder: evidence-file-template.md, story-bank-template.md, application-tracker.csv.

Contents

• Before You Begin
• Part 1: The Honest Method
  • 1.1 What AI helps with, and what hurts
  • 1.2 How applicant tracking systems generally read resumes
  • 1.3 The evidence file
• Part 2: Resume
  • 2.1 The master resume
  • 2.2 Tailoring to a posting
  • 2.3 The bullet formula
  • 2.4 Twenty-five resume prompts
  • 2.5 Resume checklist
• Part 3: Cover Letters and Application Answers
  • 3.1 The cover letter formula
  • 3.2 Application questions
  • 3.3 Fifteen cover letter and application prompts
  • 3.4 Three worked examples
• Part 4: LinkedIn and Your Online Presence
  • 4.1 Headline formulas
  • 4.2 The About section
  • 4.3 Experience entries
  • 4.4 Fifteen LinkedIn and outreach prompts
  • 4.5 Outreach and networking scripts
  • 4.6 Tidy and protect your online presence
• Part 5: Interviews
  • 5.1 The STAR method
  • 5.2 Building a story bank from your evidence file
  • 5.3 One hundred common interview questions
  • 5.4 Mock interviews with a rubric you define
  • 5.5 Questions to ask the employer
  • 5.6 Video interviews, take-home tasks and tough moments
• Part 6: Offers and Negotiation
  • 6.1 Research prompts
  • 6.2 Understanding the whole offer
  • 6.3 Countering an offer
  • 6.4 Declining and accepting
• Part 7: Follow-Up and Tracking
  • 7.1 Thank-you emails
  • 7.2 Follow-up cadence
  • 7.3 Rejection-response notes
  • 7.4 Tracking everything
  • 7.5 References
• Part 8: A 30-Day Search Plan
  • Week 1: Foundation
  • Week 2: Materials and presence
  • Week 3: Interview readiness
  • Week 4: Momentum and decisions

Before You Begin

This kit is for job seekers who use an AI chat assistant such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. It gives you a method, more than 80 copy-ready prompts, templates and a 30-day plan. It does not give you a tool, a guarantee, or a shortcut around the work of knowing your own experience.

Three rules run through every page. Read them now, because every prompt in this kit depends on them.

1. Never let AI invent anything. No made-up experience, credentials, dates, metrics, tools or references. If a fact is not true and provable, it does not go into your application.
2. Keep every claim verifiable. Assume someone may ask you about any line, check a date, or call a reference. If you could not defend it in conversation, cut it.
3. Follow each employer's stated rules about AI. Some employers welcome AI-assisted applications, some ask you to disclose, some forbid it, and some forbid it during assessments or interviews. Read the posting and the application instructions. If the rules are unclear, ask or leave AI out of that step.

How to use the kit: read Part 1 and build your evidence file before you do anything else. Every later prompt starts from it. Then work through the parts in order, or jump to the part you need this week. The 30-day plan in Part 8 ties everything together.

Prompts are numbered so you can find them: E for evidence, R for resume, C for cover letters and application answers, L for LinkedIn and outreach, I for interviews, N for negotiation, F for follow-up. Replace anything in [brackets] with your own details. People and companies in examples are fictional and labeled as illustrative.

Part 1: The Honest Method

1.1 What AI helps with, and what hurts

After this section you will be able to use AI where it adds value and avoid the uses that damage your chances or your integrity.

Where AI helps

• Organizing your experience. Turning a messy pile of memories, old resumes and performance reviews into a clear record.
• Drafting and tightening wording. Getting from a blank page to a decent first draft, then sharpening it.
• Tailoring. Comparing a posting with your real experience and showing you what to emphasize.
• Practicing. Mock interviews, answer feedback and negotiation role-play are low-risk and high-value.
• Preparing. Research questions, outreach drafts, follow-up emails and a system for tracking it all.

Where AI hurts

• Inventing or inflating. Assistants will happily write a flattering line you cannot support. If you accept it, you carry the risk.
• Generic mass applications. Text that could apply to any job tends to read that way. Specific, true detail is what stands out.
• Copying the posting back. Parroting an employer's phrases without evidence adds nothing.
• Hiding AI use where it is not allowed. If an employer bans or restricts AI, honor that.
• Outsourcing your thinking. You need to understand and own your stories, because you will be the one in the interview.
• Pasting sensitive data. Keep identity numbers, full home address, and other people's private details out of the chat. Check the tool's privacy settings.

A simple test for any AI-assisted line: could you explain where the facts came from, and would you be comfortable if the employer saw exactly how you made it?

1.2 How applicant tracking systems generally read resumes

After this section you will be able to format and word your resume sensibly without chasing myths about any one system.

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