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3 Claude Moves
That Get You Hired

Mass-blasting AI resumes isn’t working. Here are three creative ways to use Claude to actually stand out, with the exact prompts to run for each one.

Please stop connecting Claude to a job board and firing off 500 applications a day. As a business owner who gets these constantly, I promise you it isn’t working. A resume rewritten by AI to match the job post word for word is painfully obvious, and it usually goes straight in the no pile.

The problem is using AI the same lazy way everyone else does. Used well, it’s the biggest unfair advantage a job seeker has ever had. These three moves make a hiring manager stop and pay attention.

Do This First

Pick one company you really want, not fifty. All three moves reward depth. Make sure Claude can search the web (in a chat, click + and check Web search; newer apps search on their own). It works on every plan, including Free.

(How Claude’s web search works)

Move 01. Do The Job Before You Get It

Everyone else says what they would do. You’re going to actually do it. Use Claude to find a real gap in their business, like a weak landing page, a clunky email flow or a competitor eating their lunch, then build the fix and send it over. Nothing proves you can do the work like handing them a piece of it, already done.

01

The One-Day Consultant

Copy this into Claude before you apply. It ranks the gaps by how much money they move, then builds the highest-impact fix so you show up with proof instead of a promise.

Prompt: The One-Day Consultant
You are acting as a sharp outside consultant I hired for one day to help me win a job by doing a piece of the work before I am even hired. The job: I am applying for [ROLE] at [COMPANY]. Their website is [PASTE URL]. Here is the job description if I have it: [PASTE JOB DESCRIPTION, OR DELETE THIS LINE]. First, get real context. Research [COMPANY] using web search. If you cannot fully load their site, stop and tell me, and I will paste the text of their homepage, pricing page, and about page so you are working from real information. Do not invent facts, features, customers, or numbers about them. If something is a guess, label it clearly as an assumption. Step 1 - Find the money leaks. Study their business like an operator whose job is to grow revenue. Look hard at every one of these and note where they are weakest: - Positioning and messaging: is it instantly clear what they do, for whom, and why it is better - Homepage and landing page copy: headline, core offer, proof, and call to action - Funnel and email: what happens after someone signs up, buys, or abandons a cart - Pricing and packaging: clarity, anchoring, and friction to buy - Retention and reviews: what real customers complain about - SEO and content: valuable topics competitors rank for and they ignore - One specific place a named competitor is clearly beating them Step 2 - Rank by impact, honestly. Give me the top 3 gaps as a short table with three columns: the gap, the likely revenue impact (high, medium, or low, and why), and the effort to fix (low, medium, high). Be honest and specific, not flattering. Step 3 - Actually build the number one fix. Pick the single highest-impact, lowest-effort gap and do the work for me. Depending on what it is, that means: rewrite the actual copy, write the full email sequence, rewrite the pricing section, or write a precise teardown with the exact changes. Show me the before and the after. Make it concrete and ready to paste in, never vague advice like "improve your headline." Step 4 - Make me sound credible. Write 3 to 4 sentences I can put in my own words explaining why this change matters, tied to a real business metric like conversion rate, open rate, churn, or average order value. Confident, not arrogant. Rules: No invented statistics or fake numbers, ever. If you estimate, say so. Write in plain, human language a hiring manager would respect. At the very end, list every assumption you made so I can fact-check it before I send this.

Then send it with this. Drop in what you built and send it straight to the hiring manager (Move 02 shows you how to find them). The second half is your follow-up if you don’t hear back.

Message: Send It With This
Hi [NAME], I saw you are hiring for [ROLE], and instead of just applying, I got a little obsessed with [COMPANY]. I spent an afternoon on one thing I think could move the needle: [ONE LINE ON WHAT YOU BUILT, for example "a rewritten version of your homepage hero and the first email in your welcome flow"]. It is attached, genuinely no strings. Even if the timing is not right for the role, I hope it is useful to you. I would love to talk about doing more of this for the team. [YOUR NAME] - - - - - Follow-up, 5 to 7 days later if no reply: Hi [NAME], floating this back to the top of your inbox in case it got buried. No pressure at all, I know hiring is chaos. The [THING YOU BUILT] is yours to use either way. Happy to walk you through the thinking behind it if that is helpful.

Now put it to work. Save the output as a clean one-page PDF, or record a two-minute Loom walking through the before and after. Keep it free, and never claim a result you didn’t verify.

Move 02. Skip The Portal, Go To The Person

Application portals are where resumes go to disappear. Go straight to the human instead. Have Claude research the hiring manager and the company (recent launches, reviews, real problems), then send one short message on LinkedIn or by email with a useful insight. Skip "I’m passionate and hardworking." Try "I saw you just launched X, here’s one way I could help it land."

02

The Warm Approach

Copy this into Claude once you know the company, before you touch the portal. It finds the likely decision-maker, builds a research dossier, and drafts every message.

Prompt: The Warm Approach
I want to skip the application portal and reach the actual person who owns hiring for [ROLE] at [COMPANY]. I may or may not know who that is yet. Step 1 - Find the right human. Using web search, help me identify the most likely hiring manager or team lead for this role, not a recruiter. Tell me exactly where to confirm it: which LinkedIn filters to use, which page of their site to check (About, Team, or Leadership), and what job titles to look for. If you already have a strong guess from public info, name it and show your reasoning. Do not fabricate a name. If I already know who it is, it is [NAME OR TITLE]. Step 2 - Build a dossier. Pull together what is publicly true about [COMPANY] right now: recent launches, funding or news, notable customer reviews (good and bad), and the specific business problem this role most likely exists to solve. Then, if I can identify the person, note anything they have recently posted or been quoted on that I could genuinely reference. Flag anything uncertain as "verify before sending." No invented facts. Step 3 - Write the outreach, three versions. Draft all three, each in a distinct voice that sounds like a real, sharp person who did their homework, never buzzwords, never "passionate and hardworking": - A LinkedIn DM, under 90 words: open with one genuinely useful observation tied to something specific they did, connect it to how I could help, end with a soft ask to chat. - A cold email, under 120 words, same spine but with a clear subject line. - A LinkedIn connection-request note, under 40 words, that earns the accept. Step 4 - Give me options. For the opening line of the DM, give me 3 different angles so I can pick the one that feels most like me. Here is a bit about me so you can connect it to their needs: [PASTE 2 TO 3 LINES ON YOUR BACKGROUND AND WHAT YOU ARE GREAT AT].

Then keep the thread alive. Most replies come from the follow-up. Copy these for the two moments that matter: no reply after a week, and the moment they respond.

Messages: Follow Up And Reply
If no reply after 5 to 7 days: Hi [NAME], I know your inbox is brutal, so no pressure. I still think [THE SPECIFIC OBSERVATION FROM YOUR FIRST MESSAGE] is worth a quick chat. If it is easier, I am happy to just send over a short idea for [THEIR ROLE OR PRODUCT] instead of taking your time. Either way, rooting for [COMPANY]. - - - - - When they reply and say "sure, let's chat" or "send more": Amazing, thank you [NAME]. Quick context on why I reached out: [ONE SENTENCE ON THE PROBLEM YOU CAN HELP WITH]. I actually put together [WHAT YOU BUILT IN MOVE 01 OR YOUR 90-DAY PLAN FROM MOVE 03] so you can see how I think, not just hear me say it. Here is a time that works for me: [TWO OPTIONS]. What is easiest on your end?

Fact-check it before you send. Claude can be confidently wrong, and one wrong detail about their launch or their name undoes the whole effort. Open every source and confirm anything marked "verify." Reference something real and specific, or don’t reference it at all.

Move 03. Send A 90-Day Plan, Not A Resume

A resume is a list of your past. A 90-day plan is a preview of your future with them, and it’s rare enough to make you memorable. Claude reverse-engineers why the role exists and the problems they need solved, then maps out your first three months. It quietly says "I already understand the job" before you’ve started.

03

The 90-Day Plan

Copy this into Claude once you have the job description. It builds a specific 30-60-90 day plan tied to their business and the metrics they care about.

Prompt: The 90-Day Plan
I want to send a 90-day plan instead of just a resume, to stand out for [ROLE] at [COMPANY]. Here is the full job description: [PASTE IT]. Here is what else I know about the company, if anything: [PASTE NOTES, THEIR SITE URL, OR DELETE THIS LINE]. Here is a short summary of my background: [PASTE 3 TO 4 LINES ABOUT YOU]. Step 1 - Read between the lines. Reverse-engineer why this role really exists. What are the 3 to 4 core problems they are actually hiring someone to solve, beyond the bullet points? For each problem, tell me how the company most likely measures success on it (the real metric a manager would be judged on). If you are inferring, say so. Do not invent facts about the company. Step 2 - Build the 30-60-90. Map a simple, confident plan to those problems, in three phases: - Days 1 to 30, Learn and quick wins: what I would learn, who I would talk to, and 1 to 2 fast, visible wins. - Days 31 to 60, Build: the core project or system I would create to attack the biggest problem. - Days 61 to 90, Deliver and measure: what ships, and the specific metric each phase should move. Every action must be concrete and tied to their actual business. No filler, no "attend meetings." Step 3 - Frame it. Open the plan with a one-sentence thesis: the single most valuable thing I would help them do this quarter. Then, at the end, add an honest short list of "open questions and what I would need from the team" so it reads like a real operator, not a fantasy. Step 4 - Format it. Lay it out as a clean, skimmable one-pager I could paste into an email or drop into a doc: a short header, the thesis, the three phases with bullet actions, and the open questions. Keep the tone confident but humble. Then give me a 2-sentence version I could say out loud in an interview. Rules: plain human language, no buzzwords, no fabricated numbers or fake customer names, and flag every assumption at the end.

Then hand it over with this. Attach it to your application, or better, send it to the hiring manager you found in Move 02.

Message: Send The Plan
Hi [NAME], Rather than just send a resume, I mapped out how I would actually spend my first 90 days in the [ROLE], built around what I think are your biggest priorities right now: [ONE OR TWO OF THE PROBLEMS CLAUDE FOUND]. It is attached as a one-pager. I would genuinely love your read on it, tell me where I am right and where I am missing context. [YOUR NAME] - - - - - To reference it in the interview, say this: Before we started, I put together a 90-day plan for this role. The one thing I would want to move in the first quarter is [YOUR THESIS]. I am happy to walk through how I would get there, and I would love to hear where your priorities are different.

Now put it to work. Read the whole plan and cut anything that sounds like a guess, because it’s going to someone who lives this job every day. Keep it to one page and bring a printed copy to the interview.

The Real Win

All three work because they flip the script. Instead of asking to be picked, you show up already contributing. Do this for one company you love and you’ll stand out more than someone who applied to a hundred.