jobhunt-platform/docs/user-research/desperate-jobseeker.md

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