Job Search

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Search sweep runs daily · 7am and keeps the Applications dashboard fresh. Every morning — reads what recruiters and companies sent, moves each application from the evidence, puts interviews on the board.
• What is captured lands in the Application pipeline dataset, which lives at Data/Application Pipeline in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Interview log dataset, which lives at Data/Interview Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Practice questions dataset, which lives at Data/Practice Questions in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Contacts and referees dataset, which lives at Data/Search Contacts in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Applications dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: where each one stands · the pipeline, by stage · applications tracked · waiting on them · interviews ahead · practise for an interview · interviews · applications sent, month by month · offers on the table · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Application capture writes to Application pipeline · Search sweep writes to Application pipeline · Application capture writes to Interview log · Interview brief writes to Interview log · Application pipeline shown by Applications · Interview log shown by Applications · Applications kept fresh by Search sweep · Search sweep run by Kestrel · Kestrel holds Application capture · Kestrel holds Interview brief · Kestrel holds Role scout · Kestrel holds CV and applications · Kestrel holds Interview practice · Kestrel holds Offers and negotiation · Role scout writes to Application pipeline · Interview practice writes to Practice questions · Practice questions shown by Applications · Application capture keeps Contacts and referees.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Read Where each one stands after the morning Search sweep, not in the evening: the sweep has been through what recruiters and companies sent overnight, so the stage on the table is the stage as of today. Waiting on them beside it is the honest signal — a wait past a fortnight turns amber, and it is drawn from the register, so nothing nobody stated is on it.
• Say what happened the way you'd tell a friend — "applied to Northwind for the project role", "Aurora want a screening call", "Contoso turned me down" — and Application capture moves the pipeline. With several in flight, name which; if you don't, Kestrel asks rather than guessing.
• Ask for a brief the day before, not the hour before: "brief me for Northwind" and Interview brief writes one page into your Job Search folder — the application so far, the company from what is publicly written right now with its sources, the people, the questions this round tends to ask and the ones worth asking. Put your CV and any notes on the role in that folder first; what you have written outranks anything found on the web.
• Let the sweep move stages and keep your own hand for what it cannot see: an application made by phone or through a friend, a conversation at an event, a reply that came by text. Those are a sentence each to Kestrel, and the board is complete again.
• Read The pipeline, by stage once a week, not once a day: it answers whether the search is moving — how much is still at Applied, how much has reached an interview — and the monthly line beside it whether you are still sending applications at the pace you meant to.
• When one closes, say so — "I've accepted Fabrikam", "I'm withdrawing from Lakeside" — and it drops off the table keeping its history. When the search is over, pause the Search sweep from its screen; the register stays, ready for the next one.
• Tell Kestrel once what you are looking for, the kind of role, the pay and the place, and ask for roles whenever you want more. Role scout comes back with a few that fit, each with where it was seen, its date and the link, and puts on the pipeline as Saved only the ones you pick. "What does a programme manager earn round here?" gets the range from named, dated sources. If you would like your job alerts read for you, say so, and Monday's Search sweep lists up to five that fit.
• Put your CV and any earlier applications in your Job Search folder once, then paste an advert and say "write my cover letter for this", or paste the question on the form. CV and applications reads the advert the way the person hiring will, leads with the parts of your record that answer it best, and gives you the full text in the chat, ready to paste, with a copy in your Drafts folder. Everything in it comes from your own record; where one more fact would make it stronger, it asks. Already have a draft? Ask for a read and you get what is shown, what is thin, and the stronger version. After an interview, "draft a thank-you to Priya" puts a short note in your Drafts folder for you to change and send.
• The day before an interview, after the brief, say "ask me some questions for the Northwind panel". Interview practice writes the questions that interview is likely to bring, each with why it may come up, then asks them one at a time and tells you honestly what landed and what would make each answer stronger. Stuck on one, such as "tell us about yourself"? Ask, and it builds a strong answer from what you have actually done. To rehearse on your own, press Start on Practise for an interview: a question at a time, with room to jot how you would answer and how it felt.
• Mention the people as they come up, "Dana put me forward at Aurora", "Morgan said she'd be a referee", and Contacts and referees keeps them, so when an employer asks for references the sweep tells you who has agreed. When an offer arrives, ask to compare: Offers and negotiation lays the offers side by side, and the job you have if you want it there, on the things you said matter, every figure from the offer or a named source. Ask which to take and you get a straight view with its reasons. Want a better offer? Say so, and it prepares the negotiation: the figure to ask for and why, and the email that asks, for you to send.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• What you call each application — the name on the register is the word Kestrel uses back.
• When the Search sweep runs, or pausing it between searches and keeping the register by hand.
• How far back the first sweep looks, if three months is not the shape of your hunt.
• Where Kestrel keeps what you tell it: reads the shared picture and writes privately by default, chosen at install and changeable on the agent's screen.
• What you are looking for, and the things an offer is compared on: say so again whenever either changes, and the next search or comparison uses it.
• Whether the Search sweep lists roles from your job alerts: off unless you ask for it, and off again when you say so.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends at the first sweep's own screen, where the email grant is asked for — that is the whole pitch, so the ask sits in front, where it makes sense. Connect your calendar on the Connectors screen first if you want the sweep to read it. Start it and Kestrel reads back through three months of your email: every application you made and every reply, invite, rejection and offer that followed, plus the interviews on your calendar. The pipeline is rebuilt from history — each application at the stage the evidence puts it, who you are waiting on, the interviews ahead — and you watch the board fill. It is a real run and uses credits like any other.
2. When that first sweep finishes, Kestrel leaves one card with what it found — how many applications, at how many companies — and an invitation to spend a few minutes together on what email could not show: a stage it got wrong, an application it missed, the day you applied where no confirmation said it, one that isn't really live any more. Kestrel starts from what 1Presence already knows, including a CV or a list of applications in your vault, and asks only for the gaps. That is also where Kestrel asks, once, what you are looking for — the kind of role, the pay you need, where you will work, and whether the search is confidential — which lands in preferences, never on a row. It asks only once because the Role scout, the applications it writes with you and the offers comparison all work from that answer. The same card offers to run the sweep within minutes of new mail from the senders it read, as well as on its schedule: one tap says yes, up to 24 extra runs a day, Gmail only for now. Kestrel also asks once about job alerts, LinkedIn's first, and can add them so a new alert is read as it lands.
3. Skip the sweep and the pipeline still works by hand: Kestrel starts from what 1Presence already knows, offers what it finds for a yes, and then takes what is in flight one application at a time — company, role, stage, roughly when you applied and what happens next — asks once, in passing, what you are looking for, and nothing in that conversation touches your email. The Search sweep waits on your Routines screen until you choose to run it.
4. Whatever is still blank waits on the Kit page with a way back to Kestrel, and Kestrel offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, such as interviews or referees you do not have yet, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
5. After that the sweep runs every morning at seven, scans only what is new since the last one, moves a stage only where a message says so, puts each interview on the log with its date, and says something only when it filed an invite, a rejection or an offer, when an interview is within two days without a brief, when an offer deadline is within a week, when an email could not be matched to an application, or when someone asks for your references. Only if you ask for it, Monday's card also lists up to five roles from your job alerts that fit what you are looking for.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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