# Perspective review: the desperate job seeker

Who uses this at v1.0? Not a senior dev fielding recruiter InMails. Someone who is unemployed, stressed, maybe burned through savings, possibly on A-kassa, who needs to land a job in weeks. Reviewed against the POC, here is what they actually experience:

## What breaks for them today

1. **They don't have a structured CV to edit.** Their CV is a PDF or Word file, possibly years old, possibly bad. A tab that asks them to hand-type every section is dead on arrival. They need: drop in the old file, the system extracts sections, they fix mistakes. CV import is THE onboarding feature.

2. **They can't config an API key hunt.** "Add three provider keys to .env" filters out 90% of desperate job seekers. v1.0 must run fully with zero keys (mock LLM + demo data) and work with a single free key for real use. Cost must be visible per action ("this scoring costs ~1 cent") — someone counting kronor will not press a button marked "maybe $$$".

3. **Volume AND tailoring.** They might need 30 applications out in a week. One-at-a-time paste-URL flow too slow, mass-auto-apply gets them flagged as spam. Middle path: a real source connector that pulls relevant postings nightly (Sweden: Arbetsförmedlingen's official free API), batch-scores them cheap, and presents a ranked morning digest ("3 worth your time today, 2 borderline"). Their scarce resource is writing energy, not job links.

4. **Rejection management.** A kanban full of red columns crushes morale. They need follow-up tracking that acts FOR them: applied 7 days ago, no reply -> "nudge them, here's a 2-line follow-up draft". Small forward motion daily.

5. **The interview is the bottleneck.** Weeks of silence, then "can you do Tuesday?". They panic. Interview prep must be one click per application: likely questions from the posting + their profile, draft answers in THEIR voice (they edit, system critiques).

6. **They can be scammed.** Desperation attracts fraud postings (fake employers harvesting personal data, pay-to-apply schemes). Scoring should include cheap red-flag checks as a visible "⚠" on postings.

7. **LinkedIn gray zone.** Mass-automation gets accounts banned; a desperate person losing their LinkedIn account is catastrophic. Official APIs (Arbetsförmedlingen) and read-paste flows only at v1.0.

8. **Swedish AND English.** Many will write applications in both. Artifacts and critique must handle both without mangling å/ä/ö (proven in POC) and the UI must not shame imperfect Swedish.

## What they do NOT need at v1.0

- Multi-user, auth, SaaS, billing. Single-user self-hosted.
- Auto-apply anything. Ever.
- Mobile app. Responsive web is enough.
- Interview scheduling integrations.

## Consequences for design (v1.0 deltas over POC)

| Need | Feature | Owner component |
|---|---|---|
| Import old CV | `POST /cv/import` (PDF/DOCX text -> LLM extract -> section drafts -> user confirms) | api + llm-gateway |
| Zero-config start | demo seed data + mock mode already default; first-run wizard | web + api seed |
| Volume | Arbetsförmedlingen connector (official, free, keyless), nightly fetch + batch score + digest endpoint | connectors + scheduler |
| Burn transparency | `/telemetry/cost-estimate` returning per-task token+cost totals | api |
| Follow-up engine | `follow_up_rule` on application; `GET /today` returns nudges + digest + open nudges count | api |
| Interview prep | `POST /applications/{id}/interview-prep` -> markdown Q&A in user's languages, saved as artifact | api |
| Scam shield | scoring task v2 adds red_flags array (unpaid trial, asks for money, harvesters) | llm-gateway + api |
| Real send | SMTP transport behind existing approval gate (unchanged gate semantics); clipboard fallback transport when SMTP unconfigured | api |
| Onboarding | wizard: welcome -> import CV -> first digest -> first approval | web |