Client & sales work
Applications → Shortlist
The problem
Sixty applications, no structured criteria, and a shortlist that ends up reflecting who wrote the best CV rather than who can do the job.
- Who it's for
- Hiring managers, Founders, Small teams
- What it produces
- Weighted criteria, a consistently scored shortlist, and tailored interview questions per candidate.
- What you need
- The role and what success looks like at 6 months; Applications or CVs; Your constraints
- Tools
- Claude · ChatGPT
- Level
- Intermediate
- Format
- 6 steps · Intermediate
The workflow — 6 steps
- Step 1
Define success at six months first
Write what the person will have accomplished, then derive criteria from that. Job-description-driven screening selects for CV writing.
For this role, describe what a clearly successful hire will have accomplished by month six. Then derive 6 weighted screening criteria from those accomplishments only. Reject any criterion that is a proxy for pedigree rather than capability.
- Step 2
Score every application identically
Apply the same rubric to each application with evidence quoted for every score, so you can audit your own bias afterwards.
Score this application against the weighted criteria. For each criterion: score 1–5, the exact evidence from the application, and MISSING where there is none. No overall impression, no inference about personality.
4 more steps in the full workflow
The remaining steps include the exact prompts, the Notion template and the worked example. They're part of the AI Workflow System — a one-time purchase, no subscription, 30-day money-back guarantee.
What changes when you run it
Before
60 CVs skimmed, a gut-feel shortlist of 8, inconsistent interviews.
After
6 weighted criteria, 60 consistently scored applications with quoted evidence, a shortlist of 5 and tailored questions for each.
Free prompts used in this workflow
Prompts are the ingredients; this workflow is the recipe. Each of these is free to copy.
- Professional EmailQuick, clear emails that get a reply
- Polite DeclineSay no without burning the relationship
- Follow-up NudgeRe-open a stalled thread without nagging
- Difficult FeedbackDeliver hard feedback with care
- Meeting RecapTurn raw notes into a clean recap
- Cold OutreachPersonal first message that lands