JAWB HUNT User Guide

Complete documentation for JAWB HUNT, the local resume-to-openings hunter.

1. What it is and how it works

JAWB HUNT is a small app that runs on your own computer. A local Python server does the work; your browser is the screen. Nothing is hosted, there are no accounts, and no API keys are required for the core features.

When you run a hunt, the server pulls live openings straight from each company's own public hiring feed (the same feeds their careers pages use), scores every role against your resume, and shows you a ranked list with the reasons for each match. From there it can prefill application forms in a browser window you control and draft answers to custom questions.

Eight kinds of hiring feed are supported: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable, SmartRecruiters, Workday, Amazon Jobs, and Eightfold (Netflix).

2. Install and launch

Mac, the easy way

• Unzip the download. Keep the whole JAWB HUNT folder together; the app looks for server.py next to itself.
• Double-click JAWB HUNT.app.
• First launch only: macOS may block an app from an unidentified developer. On macOS 15 (Sequoia) or newer: click Done on the warning, open System Settings, Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway beside the JAWB HUNT message, then confirm with your password or Touch ID. On macOS 14 or older: right-click JAWB HUNT.app, choose Open, then click Open in the dialog. You will not be asked again.
• If macOS offers to install the Command Line Tools, click Install. That provides Python 3, which the app needs.
• Your default browser opens http://localhost:8914.

Relaunching the app while the server is already running simply reopens the browser tab. Nothing is started twice.

Mac, without the app

Double-click Start JAWB HUNT.command, or in Terminal:

cd "/path/to/JAWB HUNT"
python3 server.py

Then open http://localhost:8914.

Windows and Linux

The server is plain Python 3 with no dependencies. In a terminal inside the unzipped folder:

python3 server.py

On Windows the command is usually py server.py or python server.py (install Python from python.org and tick "Add python to PATH"). Then open http://localhost:8914 in your browser. The .app and .command files are Mac only. Windows and Linux are supported by design but have not been tested by the makers; if something misbehaves there, the message in the terminal says what. Prefill apply and the Question coach work anywhere their power-up setup is done (sections 9 and 11).

Stopping

Close the browser tab and quit the Python process (Ctrl+C in Terminal, or Activity Monitor: the process is Python running server.py). The app binds to 127.0.0.1 only, so nothing on your network can reach it.

3. Step 1: Resume

Drop a file on the shark or click it to choose: .pdf, .docx, .txt, .md. Or paste the text directly.

• The text box shows exactly what was read. Matching uses this text, so fix anything that looks wrong.
• PDF reading is best effort. Simple, text-based PDFs work well. If a PDF comes out garbled, paste the text instead; the app tells you when extraction looked weak.
• Chips under the box show what the app detected: your seniority level, role titles it recognised, and skills. These drive the matching.
• The text is saved in your browser's local storage so it is there next time. It is not written to disk by this step.

Replacing or clearing a resume

• Replace: drop or choose a new file, or paste over the text. The new resume takes the place of the old one straight away; the drop zone says "Drop a new resume to replace this one" whenever one is loaded.
• Clear: the "Clear resume" link under the box empties the text and removes it from your browser's storage. Your profile is not touched.
• When the new resume disagrees with your saved profile (a new email or phone number, or a different person's resume altogether) JAWB HUNT does not quietly keep the old details and does not quietly overwrite what you typed either. It shows both values and asks: "Update profile to match this resume" or "Keep my profile". A phone number written in a different format does not count as a difference. Choosing Keep is remembered, so the same question is not asked again.
• A new resume for a different kind of role usually needs a new cover letter too. Draft from resume, under the cover letter in the Profile panel, writes one from it (section 7).
• To empty everything at once, use Start fresh in the Profile panel (section 7).

Target job title

Optional. Type one or more titles, comma separated, for example Chief Operating Officer, VP Operations. A target does three things:

• The largest boards (Workday companies, Amazon, Netflix) are searched for the target first, so the right roles actually get pulled down.
• Exact title matches receive the biggest score bonus, with partial credit when all the words appear in a different order.
• The target's seniority overrides the resume's. A COO targeting "Product Manager" will not see manager-level roles penalised.

A target works with no resume at all for a pure title hunt.

4. Step 2: Hunting grounds

Hunt all companies (default) or pick a set. The picker has a filter box and select-all / clear buttons. Your selection is remembered.

Every company in the roster verified live with real postings when it was added. Companies that use closed hiring systems (Apple, Google, Meta) cannot be included without scraping and are deliberately left out. Some big names (for example Groq, Midjourney) expose no public feed and are out as well.

Data center hunt

Under the company picker, "Hunt for" switches between "Roles that fit my resume" and "Data center jobs only". The second is a different kind of hunt: it lists only data center jobs, across every company in the roster, and the role does not have to be an exact match for anything.

• The title does not have to say "data center". Critical facilities, commissioning, electrical and mechanical, construction, power and energy procurement, strategic sourcing, site selection, real estate, network and hardware deployment, program management: all of these count when the posting itself is about data centers.
• The title does not have to match your resume. Every qualifying role is listed. Your resume and target title only decide the order, so the hunt works with no resume at all (the cards then show how directly each role is a data center job, and the page says so).
• The roster includes data center operators and colocation firms (Equinix, QTS, Vantage, Aligned, EdgeConneX, Cologix and others), GPU clouds (CoreWeave, Crusoe, Nebius, Lambda, Vultr and others) and the companies that build, cool, power and supply them. At a pure operator every opening counts, whatever the title. In the company picker these show as "data center".
• On the largest boards (Workday companies, Amazon, Netflix) the hunt searches for data center terms, sharpened by your target title when you typed one: "data center procurement manager", for example.

How a role qualifies, strongest first. Each card carries the matching badge:

• DATA CENTER: the title or department names the industry ("Data Center Technician", "Critical Facilities Engineer", "Colocation Sales").
• DC ROLE: a telling title ("Power Procurement Manager", "Commissioning Engineer") and a posting that is about data centers.
• DC COMPANY: any opening at a pure data center operator.
• MENTIONS DC: no telling title, but the posting is heavily about data centers, at a company that is visibly hiring for them.

What keeps it honest: whole phrases only, so "Call Center" never matches. A company's own boilerplate is cancelled out, so a payroll role at a GPU cloud does not qualify just because the "About us" paragraph says data center three times. Software titles never qualify on description alone. "Mission critical" by itself proves nothing (it is defense and telecom language too) and needs a second telling word. Feeds that give no description qualify on the title only.

Results come with role family chips (Procurement and supply chain, Construction and commissioning, Facilities and critical operations, Engineering and design, Operations and site leadership, Program and project management, Energy, land and development, Network, hardware and IT, Security and safety, Sales, finance and corporate). Click one to narrow the list; it combines with the USA / International switch and the other filters. The minimum score slider drops to 0 for this hunt so nothing is hidden, and goes back to 30 for a resume hunt. A full data center hunt takes about a minute the first time and lists well over a thousand roles.

5. Running a hunt

Press RELEASE THE JAWB. A progress bar shows companies scanned. A first full hunt takes two to three minutes; results are cached for six hours per company, so repeats take seconds. Tick "Skip cache" to force fresh pulls.

Huge boards are not downloaded whole. Workday, Amazon, and Netflix are searched with the top role and skill phrases from your resume (or your target title) and the best few hundred results are scored.

If a feed does not respond, the hunt continues and the insights panel names the companies that were skipped this run.

6. Results

Each card shows:

• Match score, 0 to 99. Green at 60 and above, blue at 40 and above.
• Title (links to the posting), company, location, department, date.
• Match chips: the terms from your resume that produced the score.
• Prefill apply button, when the company's feed supports it (section 9).

Filters: minimum score slider, title text, location text, remote only. Show more loads the next 50.

Region switch: All, USA, or International. Every card carries a USA or INTL badge worked out from the posting's location (a role listing both, say Paris and Austin, shows USA + INTL). Roles with no stated country, such as a bare "Remote", have no badge and appear under All and USA. The count line above the list shows how many of the visible roles are USA and how many international.

Insights above the list:

• Where your matches cluster: companies with the most strong matches.
• Keywords your top matches use that your resume does not: a resume gap list worth reading before you apply.
• Feeds that did not respond this run.

How scoring works

Title word matches weigh most, then skill phrases, then department, location, and (where the feed provides it) description terms. Rare words count more than common ones. A typed target title is the strongest signal of all. A seniority gap of two or more levels between your resume (or target) and the role costs points. Description-heavy feeds are capped so they cannot crowd out title-only feeds.

7. Step 3: Profile

The profile powers Prefill apply. Save it once.

• Fields: first and last name, email, phone, location, current company, LinkedIn URL, website URL, and your latest cover letter.
• Draft from resume: the button under the cover letter writes a fresh letter from the resume text in step 1, your target title and your background notes, in the voice of your current letter. Facts only, no company named and no placeholders, so it works pasted into any form. It appears as a draft first; your saved letter changes only when you click Use this letter, and Undo brings the previous one back. JAWB Fill picks up the new letter on its own (if Chrome blocks its local fetch, it falls back to the profile it was made with, so drag the bookmark to your bar again after changing the letter). Needs the Claude Code setup in section 10 and sends your resume, target title and notes to Claude when you click.
• Application resume: attach the exact file you want uploaded into forms (.pdf or .docx). This is separate from the matching text in step 1, although uploading here also fills step 1 when it is empty. Click the slot again to replace the file. Remove drops JAWB HUNT's stored copy; your original file, wherever you keep it, is never touched.
• Auto prefill: uploading or pasting a resume (here or in step 1) reads your contact details and fills any EMPTY profile field: name, email, phone, location, LinkedIn, website, current company. Fields you typed are never overwritten. The status line lists what was filled; check it.
• Background notes: free text for the Question coach. The stories behind the resume, numbers you are proud of, why you are looking, what you want next, anything a form might ask that a resume does not say. The coach treats these notes as fact, exactly like the resume, so keep them true. A counter under the box shows the length; the coach reads the first 60,000 characters and the counter turns gold past that.
• Storage: profile/profile.json and profile/resume.<ext> inside the app folder. They never leave your machine.

The Profile and Question coach panels sit below the results and fold closed once you are set up. The panel header shows your name and whether a resume file is attached.

Start fresh

For a new resume, a new search, or handing the app to someone else. The Start fresh button sits at the right of the Save profile row. It opens a confirmation that says exactly what will happen; nothing happens until you click "Yes, start fresh".

What it empties: the resume text and target title in step 1, the stored resume file, every profile field, the cover letter, the background notes, the results on screen, and the JAWB Fill setup (so the bookmark gets set up again for the new profile). Tick "Also clear the applications tracker" to empty that too; otherwise your application history stays.

What it never does is delete. The old profile, stored resume and (if ticked) tracker are moved into a dated folder, profile/_backups/2026-09-20_123212 for example, inside the JAWB HUNT folder. To bring something back, quit JAWB HUNT and copy the files from that folder back into profile/. To erase your old data for good, delete the _backups folder yourself.

Other tabs and browsers: a JAWB HUNT page left open in another tab empties itself the next time you look at it, and a browser that still holds the old resume text drops it on its next visit, with a one-line notice saying why. A page from before the reset can never write the old resume or profile back; the server refuses it.

8. Prefill apply

Click Prefill apply on a result card. The real application form opens in the tab right next to JAWB HUNT, in your own browser. Click the JAWB Fill bookmark in that tab and the form fills itself: your profile fields, your cover letter where the form has a cover letter box, and your resume attached. You finish anything remaining and click Submit yourself.

What it never does:

• It never clicks Submit.
• It never answers dropdowns, checkboxes, or yes/no questions. Work authorisation, sponsorship, "have you worked here before" and other knockout questions are left for you, because a wrong automatic answer is not retractable.
• It never touches a CAPTCHA.
• It declines cookie banners rather than accepting them.

Coverage: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, and Workable forms (roughly two thirds of the roster, including all the AI companies). Workday, Amazon, and Netflix require a per-company account, so those cards have no Prefill button; use the title link and copy from your profile.

A small JAWB HUNT notice in the corner of the application tab reports what happened, for example "Filled 7 fields and attached resume.pdf. Review the form and submit." Fields it could not fill are left for you.

Setup (one time)

Save your profile first: until it has at least a first name and an email the button reads "Save your profile first" and cannot be dragged, because the bookmark carries a copy of your profile as its offline fallback and an empty one would be useless.

Then open Profile & Prefill and drag the gold JAWB Fill button to your browser's bookmarks bar. If the bar is hidden: View menu, Show Bookmarks Bar (Safari and Chrome both call it that). Click "I added it" so JAWB HUNT stops reminding you. Nothing to install.

If you later change your name, email or phone, the panel warns that the bookmark is out of date. Delete the old bookmark, drag the button up again and click "I re-added it". Cover letter edits do not need this; the bookmark fetches those live.

How the bookmark works: it runs only when you click it, on the page you are looking at. It asks JAWB HUNT on this machine for your current profile and resume using a private token that only your bookmark contains, fills the fields it recognises, and attaches the resume to the resume slot. Websites cannot trigger it and cannot read your profile without the token.

The first time you use it on each hiring site, Chrome asks whether that page may access your local network. Click Allow: that permission is what lets the bookmark fetch your resume from JAWB HUNT. If you click Block, or your browser does not offer the choice, the bookmark still fills the text fields from a snapshot of your profile and asks you to attach the resume by hand.

If the form lives inside an embedded frame the page will not let the bookmark reach (some company career sites embed Greenhouse this way), it offers to open the form directly. Click OK, then click JAWB Fill again.

Automated mode (optional)

Prefer a separate window that fills and attaches everything on its own? Switch Prefill mode in the Profile panel to "Separate automated window". That mode drives a browser through Playwright and needs a one-time install:

pip3 install playwright
python3 -m playwright install chromium

Then relaunch JAWB HUNT. Without it, the Prefill button explains exactly this. The in-browser mode is the default because the form opens next to the app in the browser you already use.

Good practice

• Read the whole form before submitting. Prefill is a time saver, not a proof reader.
• Ten tailored applications beat a hundred fired blind. Recruiters notice volume patterns.
• Close the form window when done, or leave it; the next Prefill opens a new tab in the same window.

9. Applications tracker

Every Prefill is logged at the bottom of the page: role, company, date, how many fields were filled, and a status you can change (Opened, Prefilled, Applied, Interview, Offer, Rejected, No reply). Opened and Prefilled mean you have not submitted yet.

Housekeeping: the × on a row removes it. Clear incomplete removes every row still at Opened or Prefilled in one go, after asking. Removing a row you have marked Applied or beyond asks first, because that is real history. Stored in profile/applications.json.

10. Step 4: Question coach

Paste an application's custom questions, one per line, optionally with the company and role title. Click Draft answers. Claude drafts a brief first person answer for each (60 to 120 words) built strictly from your resume text in step 1 and your background notes in the Profile, using your cover letter for voice. Each answer has a Copy button.

Facts only: when neither your resume nor your notes contain the answer, the coach says NEEDS YOUR INPUT and tells you what is missing, rather than inventing experience. The fix is usually to add the missing story to your background notes and draft again. Always read and edit before pasting into a form.

Setup (one time)

The coach uses the Claude Code command line tool with your own Claude login, so no API key is stored in the app. Install Claude Code, sign in once (claude in Terminal, then /login), and the coach and Draft from resume (section 7) both work. Without it, either Draft button explains that the tool was not found.

Privacy note

The coach and Draft from resume are the two features that send your resume text off your computer, to Claude, and only when you click Draft.

11. Privacy and data, exactly

On your machine:

• Browser local storage: resume text, target title, company selection.
• profile/: profile.json, your application resume file, applications.json.
• profile/_backups/: appears the first time you use Start fresh. Each dated folder inside holds what the app held before that reset. JAWB HUNT never deletes these and never reads them again; they are yours to restore from or to delete.
• cache/: fetched job listings, refreshed every six hours. Safe to delete at any time.

The local server only answers pages it served itself. A request that arrives under another host name, or a form post from any other website, is refused, so a page you happen to have open elsewhere cannot read or change your profile.

Leaves your machine:

• Search keywords sent to the companies' own public hiring feeds during a hunt (the same requests their careers pages make).
• Resume text and background notes sent to Claude by the Question coach and by Draft from resume, only when you use them.
• When you click the JAWB Fill bookmark on an application page, that tab fetches your profile and resume from the local server using the private token inside your bookmark, and puts them into the form in front of you. Nothing reaches the company until you click Submit.
• Whatever you yourself submit on an application form.

Nothing is sent to the makers of JAWB HUNT. There is no analytics, no account, no telemetry.

12. Maintaining the company roster

companies.json holds only companies that verified live with at least one posting. To refresh or add companies:

python3 tools/build_roster.py

Add candidate slugs or Workday tenants to the lists at the top of the script; the probes keep whatever responds. The builder merges with the existing file, so a company that times out during a rebuild is kept rather than silently dropped. A company whose board answers "not found" (it moved or renamed its board) is retired and named in the output; find its new board, add the slug to the tables and rerun to bring it back.

Data center employers have their own candidate tables in the same script. To refresh only those:

python3 tools/build_roster.py --datacenter

An entry marked True there is a pure data center operator; it is written to companies.json with "focus": "datacenter", which is what makes every one of its openings count in a data center hunt. Use it for operators and colocation firms only, never for GPU clouds or suppliers, or their software and sales roles will flood the list.

13. Troubleshooting

• Browser opens but the page will not load: the server did not start. Run python3 server.py in Terminal inside the folder and read the message.
• "Address already in use": something else holds port 8914. Quit the other JAWB HUNT process, or change PORT near the top of server.py.
• The app will not open (unidentified developer): on macOS 15 or newer use System Settings, Privacy & Security, Open Anyway; on macOS 14 or older right-click, Open, Open. The same applies to Start JAWB HUNT.command. python3 server.py in Terminal always works.
• "python3: command not found": install Python 3 from python.org or accept the Command Line Tools prompt. On Windows use py server.py.
• PDF text is garbled: paste the text instead.
• "JAWB HUNT was reset. It is empty and ready for a new resume." appeared on its own: Start fresh was used (in another tab, another browser, or earlier), and this browser was still holding the resume from before it. The old text was dropped on purpose. Add the new resume and carry on.
• Save profile says the app "was reset since this page loaded": the page is from before a Start fresh. Reload it.
• Used Start fresh by mistake: nothing was deleted. Quit JAWB HUNT, copy the files from the newest folder in profile/_backups/ back into profile/, and launch again.
• A company shows in "did not respond": transient. Run again, or tick Skip cache.
• Prefill opened the tab but nothing filled: you still need to click the JAWB Fill bookmark in that tab. No bookmarks bar? View menu, Show Bookmarks Bar, then drag the button from the Profile panel.
• JAWB Fill filled the fields but not the resume: the page was not allowed to reach JAWB HUNT. In Chrome, look for the local network permission prompt (or the icon in the address bar), choose Allow, and click JAWB Fill again. Otherwise attach the resume by hand; everything else is done.
• JAWB Fill offered to "open the form directly": the form was in an embedded frame. Click OK, then click the bookmark again on the new page.
• Clicking JAWB Fill on the JAWB HUNT page itself just shows a reminder; it is meant for application pages.
• Automated mode says Playwright is needed: run the two commands in section 8, or switch back to the in-browser mode.
• Automated mode opened the page but filled nothing: the site probably changed its form or requires a login. Use the title link and your profile.
• The coach or Draft from resume says the claude tool was not found: install Claude Code and sign in, or use them on a machine that has it.
• Start completely fresh: quit the server, delete profile/ and cache/, and clear the site data for localhost:8914 in your browser.

14. FAQ

How do I switch to a new resume? Drop the new file in step 1; it replaces the old one, and the app asks before changing any contact detail that differs. Replace the application resume file in the Profile panel too, and click Draft from resume there if the old cover letter was written for a different role. To wipe everything (new search, or someone else's turn on this Mac) use Start fresh in the Profile panel. It keeps a dated backup.

I only want data center jobs. Use "Data center jobs only" under Hunt for in step 2 (section 4). Add a target title such as "procurement manager" to push that kind of role to the top.

Does it apply for me? No. It fills forms; you review and submit.

Why a bookmark instead of a browser extension? A bookmark needs no install, no store approval, and no permissions over every site you visit. It runs only when you click it, on the page you are looking at.

Can it hunt companies outside the roster? Only ones with a public feed. Add them to tools/build_roster.py and rerun it.

Is my resume uploaded anywhere? Only by you, into a form you submit, and to Claude if you use the Question coach or Draft from resume.

Can two people share one install? The profile is one per install. Copy the folder for a second person.

Why is a score not 100? 99 is the ceiling by design; the score is a ranking aid, not a verdict.

15. File map

JAWB HUNT/
  JAWB HUNT.app          double-click launcher (Mac)
  Start JAWB HUNT.command  alternative launcher (Mac)
  server.py              the whole backend, Python standard library only
  index.html             the whole interface
  companies.json         the verified roster
  tools/build_roster.py  roster verifier and builder
  docs/GUIDE.md          this guide
  README.md              quick start
  profile/               created on first use, your data
  profile/_backups/      created by Start fresh, dated copies of old data
  cache/                 created on first use, safe to delete