Project: AI-Powered Resume and Cover Letter Generator

In this project you will build a small prompt-driven system that takes your master CV and any job description and produces a tailored resume plus matching cover letter — ATS-friendly, honest, and ready to send. The deliverable is one prompt file you can reuse for every application.

1. Introduction

Tailoring a resume for every job is the highest-leverage thing a job-seeker can do — and the thing most people skip because it is tedious. AI fixes the tedium, but only if you set it up right. A naive "rewrite my resume for this job" prompt produces inflated, generic output that hiring managers can spot from the first line.

The goal is honest tailoring: same facts, sharper emphasis, language that matches the job. We will also produce a one-page cover letter that does not sound like a corporate brochure.

2. The Concept Explained

Three inputs feed the system: your master CV (one long Markdown file containing every job, project, and skill you have), the job description, and a style brief describing the tone you want. Four prompts run in sequence: extract the job's signals, map your experience to them, draft the resume, draft the cover letter.

Three inputs feed two intermediate prompts (signal extraction and mapping) which produce both the resume and the cover letter.

3. The Problem Without Tailoring

Generic prompt

Rewrite my resume to be more impressive. Here is the resume: ...

What you get is inflation: "led" becomes "spearheaded", "wrote" becomes "architected", and your role grows two seniority levels. Hiring managers see this constantly and discount it. Worse, it is dishonest — and dishonest resumes are the fastest way to lose an offer at reference-check time.

4. The Solution: A Four-Prompt Tailoring Chain

Step 1 — Signal extraction

You are a senior recruiter. Read the job description below and
extract its signals.

Return:
- Top 8 keywords / tools mentioned (verbatim)
- 3 "must-have" requirements
- 3 "nice-to-have" requirements
- Inferred seniority level and one-line rationale
- Tone of the company (formal, casual, mission-driven, etc.)
- 5 verbs the job description uses repeatedly

Job description:
"""
{paste the job ad here}
"""

You now have a structured profile of what the employer actually wants — not what you assume they want.

Step 2 — Mapping

You are my honest career coach.

Below is my master CV (every role, project, skill I've ever had).
Below that are the signals from the target job.

For each must-have and nice-to-have, find evidence in my master CV
that demonstrates it. Output a table:

| Requirement | Strength | Evidence (from CV) | Gap? |

Strength scale: strong / partial / none.
Be honest about gaps — do NOT invent experience. If I have no
evidence, write "none" and suggest how I might address it
(transferable skill, training, project I could build).

Master CV:
"""
{paste master CV}
"""

Job signals:
"""
{paste output of step 1}
"""

This is the heart of the system. The mapping table is what you should look at before writing a single line of the resume. It tells you which gaps to address and which strengths to lead with.

Step 3 — Resume draft

Draft a one-page resume using the master CV as the source of truth
and the mapping table to prioritise emphasis.

Rules:
- Honest. Do not invent any role, tool, or metric.
- 4–5 bullets per role, each starting with a strong verb.
- Quantify wherever the CV has a real number. Do not invent metrics.
- Lead with the strengths the mapping table flagged for this job.
- Use the keywords from the job signals naturally (no keyword stuffing).
- ATS-friendly: plain text, no tables, no columns, no graphics.
- Section order: Summary (3 lines), Experience, Projects (if any),
  Skills, Education.

Output as Markdown.

Sample summary line generated: "Backend engineer with 4 years building payment systems in Python and Go. Shipped the fraud-detection pipeline now handling 2.3M daily transactions at FinSimple." Honest. Specific. Mirrors job language. No "synergy".

Step 4 — Cover letter

Write a 300-word cover letter that pairs with the resume above.

Structure:
1) Opening (2 sentences) — name the role and ONE specific thing
   about the company you actually noticed (from the job description
   or their public site).
2) Middle (2 short paragraphs) — pick the TWO strengths from the
   mapping table most relevant to this job. For each, tell one
   concrete mini-story (situation → action → result) drawn from
   the CV.
3) Closing (2 sentences) — what you'd want to learn / build in the
   first 90 days, and a polite call to talk.

Voice: confident, conversational, no buzzwords. No "I am writing
to express my interest". No "passionate".

Style brief: {paste your style brief — e.g. "warm but professional,
slight British understatement"}

What you get is a cover letter that reads like a thoughtful note from a candidate who has actually read the job description — because that is exactly what you fed in.

Save these four prompts in resume-generator.md. The master CV lives in master-cv.md. Every time you apply somewhere, you swap only the job description and the style brief. A full tailored application takes about 12 minutes instead of two hours.

5. Step-by-Step Breakdown

Maintain a master CV. One long Markdown file with every job, project, achievement, tool, and metric — even ones you would not put on a one-pager. This is your source of truth.
Extract signals first. Do not feed the AI both the job ad and your CV in one prompt. Extract the job's signals separately so you can read and trust them.
Map honestly. The mapping prompt explicitly forbids invention. The "gap" column is a feature, not a bug — it tells you what to learn next.
Draft using the mapping. The resume prompt uses the mapping table as its prioritisation guide. That is why the output ends up tailored instead of generic.
Pair the cover letter with the resume. The cover letter should reference the same two strengths the resume leads with. Consistency matters.
Always do one human pass. Read the resume aloud. If a bullet feels inflated, dial it back. The AI is a draft engine, not a final editor.

Tip: Add a "fact check" prompt at the end of the chain: "Read the resume and the master CV. List any claim in the resume that is not directly supported by the master CV." Anything flagged either needs a citation in the master CV or must be removed.

6. Practice Exercises

Exercise 1

Write your master CV today. Do not skip this step. Spend an hour dumping every role, project, and skill — even the ones from years ago. This single document makes every future application five times faster.

Exercise 2

Pick a real job posting you are interested in. Run all four prompts. Read the mapping table — what is the biggest gap? Plan one concrete action this week to close it (a course, a side project, a conversation).

Exercise 3

Run the same chain on two very different jobs — one technical, one less technical — using the same master CV. Compare the two resumes. The differences are exactly the differences a good human recruiter would make.

7. Key Takeaways

The master CV is the asset. The prompts are the multiplier. Maintain both.
Extract signals from the job description before touching the resume. Otherwise you tailor to assumptions, not requirements.
Honesty beats inflation every time. Recruiters can smell over-claimed bullets.
The mapping table is the secret weapon — it tells you what to lead with and what gaps to close.
The cover letter and resume should reinforce the same two strengths. Consistency reads as confidence.

Discussion

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