Job search, week 1: The shotgun approach

I don't have a lot of runway. Without going into the gritty financial details, my goal is to land a new position by Monday, December 7th - about four weeks from today. In light of that compressed timeline, my first order of business was to get as many leads as possible, as quickly as possible.

To make this work, I needed to communicate with a lot of recruiters and hiring managers very quickly. For that, I turned to my agent, Henry.

Lead sources

So far, I have three primary lead sources: LinkedIn, a colleague who offered to forward my information to his archive of recruiters that have cold-emailed him in the past, and Clera, a job board that I discovered today.

LinkedIn has served me well in the past, but I was saddened to see that they prohibit automated tools and don't seem to offer an MCP server that I could find. I considered these higher-quality leads due to the ability to filter them and choose the best, but they take a great deal of my time to find, research, and apply.

Clera looks very promising, and doesn't charge for job seekers which is important to me. It has an MCP server to which I've connected my agent, but I stopped there at least until I'm able to handle the inbound leads I already have. When I exhaust those, I expect Clera will be a very effective way to find more.

Of my existing leads, the colleague's email referrals were most pressing. I have ~150 total referrals hitting my inbox, in batches of 30. That's enough to serve as my initial lead source, and to let me build my funnel.

Automating inbound lead handling

This was my first big win.

When a recruiter emails me, Henry handles everything up to scheduling an initial meeting. He makes it clear that he's an AI, working on my behalf, and uses his own email address ai@lyndsysimon.com. He replies to the recruiter's initial email, provides any information they request (and asks me directly if he doesn't yet have it), and arranges the meeting.

Henry doesn't respond unless it's a recruiter, and politely declines to proceed if my hard requirements aren't met (salary band; no relocation). He also stops responding immediately if I email the recruiter from my own address - that means I'm stepping in and taking over the lead.

Workflow example: recruiter emails

flowchart TD
classDef endClass fill:#900
classDef goodEnd fill:#060

start[/START/]
  --> new_email[New email arrives]
  --> is_manual{"Has Lyndsy replied in person?"}

is_manual
  -- yes --> stop1[/"END: Lyndsy is handling this conversation"/]:::endClass
is_manual -- no --> is_lead{"Is this an email from a recruiter or hiring
manager?"}

is_lead -- no --> stop2[/"END: not an inbound lead"/]:::endClass
is_lead -- yes --> lead[Valid lead]
  --> is_qualified{"Does this match my hard requirements?"}

is_qualified
  -- not enough information --> clarify[Reply, asking for more information]
  --> stop3[/END: wait for reply/]:::endClass
is_qualified
  -- no --> decline["Reply to politely decline"]
  --> stop4[/END: not a good fit/]:::endClass
is_qualified
  -- yes --> set_up_meeting[Coordinate initial meeting]
  --> stop5[/END: initial meeting scheduled/]:::goodEnd

Next steps

I'll continue letting this run in the background, and add leads by sending them to Henry as I come across them. Upcoming improvements to my workflow include properly configuring Clera as a leads source, and establishing a process through which new leads can be automatically identified. Clera's site alone shows 707 openings that fit my requirements, so I expect that to be sufficient for my search.

Best of all - by the middle of this week I expect that I'll not need to touch this process again. It will continue to identify leads, respond or reach out directly if necessary, and setting up interviews for me. I'll continue focus on higher-impact tasks.