Job Application Kit

Job application kit

One skill for the whole application. It turns a job posting plus a person's real background into documents a recruiter reads in the first ten seconds and keeps reading.

The skill is built around three ideas that every serious source agrees on (Harvard Career Services, r/EngineeringResumes, The Tech Resume Inside Out, ex-FAANG recruiters, German HR practice):

1. Humans reject resumes, not robots. The ATS is a database. A resume gets skipped because a tired recruiter could not see the fit in five seconds. Write for that recruiter.
2. Tailored beats polished. A document that could be sent to fifty companies gets treated like it was.
3. Never invent anything. Every claim will be tested in an interview. Truth is the whole strategy.

What to read, and when

Read SKILL.md fully. Then load only the references the task needs:

Templates live in assets/. Scripts live in scripts/ and need only the Python standard library.

Step 0: Find out what you are working with

Before writing anything, establish these. Ask only for what is missing; do not run a questionnaire if the answers are already in the chat or in uploaded files.

• Target: job title, company, and the full posting text (or URL). Without a posting, work generically and say so.
• Market and language: which country, and does the posting want English or German (or both)?
• What exists already: current resume, LinkedIn export, old cover letters, references, Zeugnisse.
• Background: every role with dates, what the company does, what the person actually built or did, numbers where they exist.
• Constraints: page limit, deadline, salary expectation or start date if the posting asks, visa or work permit status if it matters for the market.
• Deliverable: chat text, Markdown, .docx, PDF, or a full application folder.

Ask about domain context for every role. "Built web apps" is nothing. "Built the credit-limit engine for a fintech lending app used by 40k SMEs" is a candidate. The single biggest upgrade to any resume is domain context, so dig for it: what industry, what data, who were the users, what changed because of the work.

If the person cannot give numbers, ask for estimates and label them [confirm]. If they still cannot, use scale words (thousands of users, daily releases, team of six).

Step 1: Decode the posting

Do this before touching the resume. Produce a short fit table in chat:

Requirement (from posting)      | Evidence (from candidate)          | Status
Python, production ML           | 3 yrs at X, shipped Y              | strong
Kubernetes                      | used Docker, no k8s                | adjacent
German C1                       | B1                                 | gap

Rules for the table:

• Split must-have from nice-to-have. Postings put must-haves in the first block and in phrases like "required", "you have", "Sie bringen mit".
• Note the exact vocabulary the posting uses. Mirror it where it is true.
• Mark red flags plainly (unpaid trial work, ten roles in one, salary far below market). The user decides.
• Give a rough fit: apply now, apply with a strong letter that addresses the gap, or skip. Below about 60 percent of must-haves the time is usually better spent elsewhere.

scripts/keyword_audit.py --resume r.md --job jd.md gives a deterministic keyword diff to start from. It is a helper, not a verdict.

Step 2: Write or rewrite the resume

Full detail in references/resume-format.md and references/writing-bullets.md. The rules that matter most:

Layout

• Single column, no tables for layout, no text boxes, no icons, no photo (except DACH, see the Germany reference), nothing in headers or footers.
• Calibri or Arial, 10.5 to 11 pt body, name 16 pt, margins about 2 cm. Black text, one accent colour at most.
• Standard headings only: Experience, Education, Skills, Projects, Publications. Nothing creative.
• Reverse chronological. Dates right-aligned, "Mar 2022 – Present", never "current".
• Length: one page under about five years of experience, two pages otherwise. Never three, except academic CVs.

Content

• No summary for juniors. A three-line positioning statement for mid and senior people, and for career changers.
• Skills section near the top for technical roles, grouped by category, only things the person can talk about for ten minutes.
• Every bullet: strong verb, what was done, in what context, with what result. "Cut checkout latency 38 percent by moving image processing to a background queue (Python, Redis)". Aim for measurable results in more than half the bullets.
• 4 to 6 bullets for the current role, 2 to 3 for roles older than five years. Old or irrelevant jobs get one line.
• Cut: objectives, "references on request", hobbies (unless they are relevant), Microsoft Office, high school once there is a degree, pronouns, "responsible for", "helped", adjectives about oneself.

Tailoring

• Move the most relevant bullets to the top of each role.
• Reorder skill categories so the posting's must-haves are first.
• Use the posting's own terms where they are true. "CI/CD" if they say CI/CD.
• Never add a tool, title, date, metric or degree the person does not have. If a keyword is missing and unsupported, it stays missing. Say so in the fit table.

Step 3: Write the cover letter

Full detail in references/cover-letter.md. Short version:

• Under one page, 200 to 350 words, three or four paragraphs, same header font as the resume.
• Address a named person if it can be found. Otherwise "Dear Hiring Team" (or "Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren" only as a last resort).
• Paragraph 1: a specific hook tied to this company or this role. Never "I am writing to express my interest".
• Paragraph 2: the two or three strongest proofs, with results, mapped to what the posting asks for. Not a rerun of the resume.
• Paragraph 3: why this company. Something concrete: their product, a recent launch, a team, a paper, a problem they publicly have.
• Paragraph 4: a plain close. Availability, start date and salary expectation if the posting asked. No begging, no "perfect candidate".
• Address the obvious question head-on if there is one (gap, relocation, career switch, overqualified). One or two sentences, no apology.
• Read it aloud. Every sentence that would fit any other company gets cut.

Then run the letter against references/human-voice.md. Recruiters in 2026 read hundreds of AI-written letters a week. The ones that get replies sound like a specific person.

Step 4: Region and language

Germany, Austria and Switzerland have their own conventions and they are where most foreign applicants get filtered out. Read references/germany-dach.md for anything DACH: tabular Lebenslauf, whether to include a photo, personal data lines, Zeugnisse, Bewerbungsmappe as one PDF, Anschreiben letter layout, Gehaltsvorstellung, Eintrittstermin, language levels, and how to present a foreign degree.

For everywhere else read references/regions.md.

Step 5: Build the file, check it, deliver it

• Deliver text in chat first so the user can react. Only then build files.
• For .docx use the docx skill if available. Build from a clean single-column structure. Convert to PDF and check the PDF with scripts/check_pdf.py: text must extract, page count must match, name and email must be present, no layout tables.
• File name: Firstname_Lastname_Resume.pdf, Firstname_Lastname_Cover_Letter.pdf. German: Lebenslauf_Vorname_Nachname.pdf, Anschreiben_Vorname_Nachname.pdf, Bewerbung_Vorname_Nachname_Firma.pdf for a merged Mappe.
• Run references/checklists.md before handing anything over. It is short and it catches the mistakes that get applications binned.
• End with a short list of things the user must verify (numbers marked [confirm], dates, spelling of the company and contact name).

Step 6: Optional extras

Only when asked or clearly useful:

• Interview prep pack and STAR story bank: references/interview-and-followup.md
• Follow-up and thank-you emails: same file
• Recruiter or hiring-manager outreach message: same file
• Application tracker: scripts/job_tracker.py

Rules that never bend

• Do not invent employers, titles, dates, degrees, certifications, tools, metrics, publications, awards, citizenship, visa status, language levels or references.
• Do not hide gaps with fake dates. Handle them in the letter or with an honest line on the resume.
• Do not stuff keywords, hide white text, or pad the skills list. It is detectable and recruiters treat it as lying.
• Do not recommend removing or changing information about protected characteristics to game a process. Do help remove personal data that is simply irrelevant for the target market.
• Do not promise outcomes. A better application raises the odds. Nothing removes rejection from a job search, and saying otherwise to the user is a disservice.
• Keep the person's voice. A polished letter that sounds like a chatbot is worse than a slightly plain one that sounds like them.

Output style

Give the finished draft first, then a few lines on what changed and what needs verifying. Plain English. Short sentences. No bold labels inside the documents, no em dashes, no headings inside a cover letter.