Writing

How CareerBot writes resumes, cover letters, answers and messages from your approved record, and keeps them in step when a fact changes.

Everything CareerBot writes under your name is written from your approved record, and nothing else. Each line cites the approved facts it rests on; a citation of anything else is dropped. CareerBot never sends anything: you send letters and messages yourself, from your own email.

The steps

Everything written under your name.

19

Resume

You choose Write, Write again, Add what’s new or Update all on Resumes, Write the resume or Rewrite on Goals, or Tailor a resume on a direction or a role.

Reads

  • Approved onlyYour skills, tools and certifications
  • Approved onlyYour roles, facts, insights and context
  • Approved onlyYour career breaks, with the reason in your words
  • Approved onlyThe length to write to
  • Approved onlyHow each role shows on this resume: a role left out, or folded with its lines left out, gives no facts
  • Approved onlyThe direction’s positioning, for a direction or tailored resume
  • For a tailored resume, the direction resume it starts from; and the facts behind the lines you pinned, so the new version keeps them
  • Approved onlyYour projects and their facts
  • Approved onlyFacts that describe the same work, as one
  • PublicFor a tailored resume, the role’s title and place
  • PublicFor a tailored resume, the role’s company
  • PublicFor a tailored resume, the role’s description

May

Write a base resume, one for each direction and one tailored to a role, each line citing approved facts, with how well you cover each requirement: strong, partial or thin.

May not

Cite anything you haven’t approved. A line with no approved fact behind it is marked No approved basis.

Model settingWriting resumes
20

Cover letter

You choose Write a cover letter in a pursuit.

Reads

  • Approved onlyYour record: roles, facts, projects, context, insights, skills and directions
  • The resume tailored to the role, or the one you sent
  • The pursuit: its role, company, direction and what you sent
  • PublicThe role’s place
  • PublicThe role’s description
  • PublicThe company’s summary
  • Your name, to sign it

May

Write a first-person letter whose paragraphs cite approved facts. Your edits become a new version.

May not

Write one before a resume is tailored to the role, or once the pursuit was sent.

Model settingWriting cover letters
21

Ask about this role

You ask a question in a pursuit.

Reads

  • Approved onlyYour record: roles, facts, projects, context, insights, skills and directions
  • Your wordsThe conversation so far and your latest message
  • The resume tailored to the role, or the one you sent
  • The pursuit: its role, company and what you sent
  • PublicThe role’s place
  • PublicThe role’s description
  • PublicThe company’s summary

May

Answer application questions in the first person, ready to paste, and say when your record doesn’t support something.

May not

Claim what your record doesn’t support. Anything new you tell it comes back as proposals to review.

Model settingAsk about this role
22

Outreach

You choose Draft a message for a person in a pursuit.

Reads

  • Approved onlyYour record: roles, facts, projects, context, insights, skills and directions
  • Who it’s to: their name, title, group and whether they’re likely the hiring manager; who else you already wrote to there
  • The pursuit: its role, company and when you applied
  • PublicThe role’s description
  • PublicThe company’s summary
  • Your name, to sign it

May

Draft a short outreach message signed with your name: who you are, why this role, why you fit, and one small ask, for you to send from your own email.

May not

Send anything. You send it, then mark it sent.

Model settingWriting outreach
23

Follow-ups

A follow-up is due after a quiet application or an interview, and you choose Write the follow-up in its pursuit or Write follow-up on Today.

Reads

  • Approved onlyYour record: roles, facts, projects, context, insights, skills and directions
  • Where your application stands: its status, dates and timeline
  • Follow-ups you already sent
  • Who it’s to, and what you already sent them
  • PublicThe role’s description
  • Your name, to sign it

May

Draft a short follow-up email signed with your name, for you to send from your own email.

May not

Send anything. You send it, then mark it sent.

Model settingWriting follow-ups
24

Check against facts

You choose Check against facts on a resume line you put in your own words.

Reads

  • Approved onlyThe facts the line rests on (for the summary, the facts the whole resume rests on)
  • Your words, and where the line sits

May

Say whether your words say only what their facts support, and which words go beyond them.

May not

Change your words. It only answers.

Model settingChecking edited lines
25

Write a resume line

You choose Write it for this resume under Add a line on a resume.

Reads

  • Approved onlyThe approved fact you picked
  • The resume as it shows, and the role or project the line goes under

May

Write one line from one approved fact the resume doesn’t use yet, in the resume’s voice.

May not

Add a claim the fact doesn’t make, or change the resume’s other lines.

Model settingWriting resumes
26

Update lines

You choose Update lines on a document whose facts changed since it was written.

Reads

  • Approved onlyThe facts the lines cite, as they read now and as they read when the lines were written
  • Rejected, to skipA rejected fact a line cites, as what to take out
  • The resume in use: its lines, your own words and what it was written from
  • The newest version of a letter not yet sent
  • A pursuit’s answers, and whether it was sent (a sent one is left alone)

May

Rewrite just the lines that cite a changed fact.

May not

Change a document until you choose Apply.

Model settingWriting resumes · Writing cover letters

Resumes

Resume writes resumes at three levels:

  • The base resume, neutral: Write (then Write again) in Resumes.
  • One for each direction, from that direction's approved positioning: Write the resume (then Rewrite) on a direction in Goals.
  • One tailored to a role: Tailor a resume on a role or a pursuit in Pursuits. If the direction has no resume yet, it's written first, in the same run.

Each has a summary, experience with bullets, and skills. Bullets cite approved facts; a line left with no approved fact behind it is marked No approved basis. Skills come only from the skills you approved. Approved career breaks get an entry of their own. A resume is written to the length you set.

Facts stay plain and complete; a resume has a voice of its own, confident and quick to read. Each line leads with what came of the work and how big it was, then how; opens with the strongest verb your facts support; names the scope they give (the team, the budget, the accounts); and stays to a line or two on the page, with the lines of a role told in different ways. The summary is a short pitch: who you are at your best, then your one or two strongest proofs. It never goes further than the facts each line cites: no claim, number, tool, title, scope or result they don't hold, numbers exactly as you gave them (an estimate stays an estimate), "led" only where a fact says you led, a result tied to your work only where a fact ties them, and nothing called a first or the best unless a fact says so. Before it replies, it checks each line against its facts for those mistakes.

A tailored resume also maps the posting's requirements to your record, each graded strong, partial or thin. A requirement called strong with no approved fact behind it is at most partial. It may suggest, for a past role, a title your facts support in the posting's words; it's only a suggestion.

Every version is kept. When your record changes after a resume was written, Add what’s new writes lines for what's new, and Update all writes new versions for you to keep or discard.

Cover letters

Cover letter runs when you choose Write a cover letter in a pursuit. It writes in the first person, from your approved record, the resume tailored to the role (the one you sent, once sent) and the posting, and signs with your name from your profile. Paragraphs cite approved facts. It writes in the same confident voice as a resume, leading each point with what came of your work, and keeps to the same limits.

It won't write one before you've tailored a resume to the role: "Tailor your resume to this role first." Once the pursuit is sent, the letter stays as it was sent. Your own edit is kept as a new version; a paragraph you kept word for word keeps its facts.

Ask about this role

Ask about this role answers in a conversation kept with each pursuit. Paste an application question and you get an answer to paste back, in the first person; you can also ask about the role, the company, or how to present yourself. It rests on your approved record, the resume tailored to the role and the posting, and says when your record doesn't support something. One question at a time: "Wait for the answer to the last one."

If your message tells it something new about you, it doesn't treat that as true. Your message becomes a note in your own words, read like a story, and what it holds arrives in Review as proposals. Keep saves an answer to the pursuit under the question it answered.

Outreach and follow-ups

Outreach runs when you choose Draft a message for a contact at the pursuit's company. It writes a short outreach message, subject and text, from your approved record and the role, signed with your name: who you are, why this role, why you fit, and one small ask that suits the contact's group. It knows whether you applied and who else you already wrote to there, so a second contact gets a new message, never a copy.

Follow-ups writes a short follow-up when an application goes quiet or after an interview: from a reminder in Today, or Write follow-up in the pursuit. It goes to the person you last wrote to, else the likely hiring manager, and reads where your application stands: status, dates and what was already sent. A rewrite waits beside the draft until you keep it.

Both need approved facts first: "Approve some facts first; messages are written only from your approved record." Neither sends anything. Choose Copy and open Mail to send it from your own email, then Mark as sent. A follow-up marked sent goes on the pursuit's timeline and the next reminder counts from that day.

Checking your own words

When you put a resume line or the summary in your own words, Check against facts runs only when you choose Check against facts, with its cost beside the button. It reads your words beside the approved facts the line rests on and answers Supported, or Goes beyond with the words that go further than the facts. It changes nothing. Edit the words again and the answer is cleared.

When a fact changes

When you edit or reject an approved fact after a document was written, the lines citing it are found on every document in use: the base resume, each direction's current resume, and a tailored resume, cover letter and answers of a pursuit not yet sent. Update lines shows its cost; Update lines then rewrites just those lines from the facts as they read now. A line left resting on no fact that counts is dropped.

The new lines wait for you to Apply or Discard. A line you put in your own words stays yours unless you tick Use the new line. If a fact changed again since the new lines were written, Apply changes nothing: "A fact changed since these lines were written. Update them again." A document sent with a pursuit is never changed.

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