Welcome back to Data and AI with Mukundan, where
you learn AI by building and where I try to tell
you the truth about what is happening actually
in my life, my experiments, my career and my
journey. Today's episode is very personal because
it comes from a place of exhaustion, frustration
and honestly a little bit of fear. A few weeks
ago, I hit a point in my job search where I felt
like I was just spinning. Not failing, just spinning.
I wasn't moving forward. I wasn't making progress.
I wasn't even sure if I was applying to the right
jobs anymore. Every application felt like I was
lifting a heavy rock and rolling it uphill. And
during that moment, I built three small AI agents.
They were tiny, simple, almost too basic. But
they changed everything. Today's episode is the
story of how they were built and how they saved
my job hunt and how they might even save yours
too. Well, let me start here. The job search
is one of the most psychologically destructive
experiences that people have to go through. Not
because we are not qualified, not because we
are not even skilled, but because the process
is built on... three ingredients that exhaust
people no clarity no feedback no momentum now
when you apply to a job you have no idea if your
resume is a match well these days actually linkedin
does try to help you with some of this right
it says like oh you're a 60 match or 70 match
but i don't think it's as clear yet because well
60 70 percent Yeah, there's ton of other people
with the same percentage. You do not know if
the recruiter will see you. You do not know if
your answer is strong enough. You do not know
what they care about most. And in the absence
of that clarity, the mind fills that space with
doubt. Every rejection that they give, it feels
like they're attacking you. Feels very personal.
Even though logically, you know that it is not.
Every silence that you get, you know, like when
you apply to a job and they don't respond back,
that kind of silence, that feels like a failure.
Every new job description feels like a new mountain
that you have to climb from scratch. So you see
maybe a new tool coming up in the job description
which you haven't seen before. That would feel
like... A new mountain that you have to climb
from scratch. And at some point in my job search,
I did hit that stage. I started to fear opening
job boards. I procrastinated on the easiest of
applications. I kept rewriting the same resume
lines, hoping they would magically become more
impressive. Now, the biggest pain that I was
facing... was not skill related it was more psychological
the question was just simple but heavy what is
wrong with me and i know so many of us who apply
to jobs probably feel the exact same thing now
the breaking point for me came on a weekday morning
i opened the job description it was a senior
data analyst role something exactly in my lane
I stared at the responsibility section. Six bullet
points. But my mind felt blank. Now, I kept thinking.
What do they actually want? What should I highlight
in my resume? What project fits what? Is this
worth even applying to? Is this going to be another
rejection? And then, I closed the tab. And I
just sat there for 20 minutes. Not doing anything.
And that is when I realized something. This is
not a skills problem. This was a systems problem.
I did not need more skills. I needed clarity.
I needed direction. I needed something that reduced
the mental friction between me and hitting a
player. And that is when the idea came. What
if I built tiny AI agents that each handle one
part of the job search process? So I sat down
and defined exactly what I needed. Not a giant
AI app. Not even a complicated platform. Just
three small agents that do one job each. And
they do it well. One is the researcher agent.
The second is the writer agent. And third is
the reviewer agent. Now let me break them down.
The one that reads the job description and extracts,
this is the researcher agent. It extracts the
responsibilities, top skills needed, tools. Signals
hidden in the text, what the hiring manager is
actually looking for, keywords that matter, red
flags, and what project to highlight. This agent
gave me clarity instantly. No more staring at
the job description for 15 minutes. No more guessing.
No more trying to interpret vague corporate language.
The second is the writer agent. This agent takes
what the researcher finds and helps me write
it helps me with resume bullet points star interview
answers so this is situation task action and
result so you know the interview format that
you use to give interviews accomplishments summaries
cover letter framing positioning and even messaging
this agent gave me momentum now instead of writing
or basically rewriting the same bullet points
from scratch i had a structure I had a direction.
I had a baseline. And once the writer agent gave
me the structure, I rewrote it in my own voice.
Now this is important. AI does not replace your
voice. It gives you a starting point when your
energy is low. The reviewer agent. This is the
truth teller. This agent looks at everything
the writer agent produced and asks, does this
sound confident? Is this clear? Is this specific?
Does this match the job? Does this feel human?
Is this actually strong enough? And the reviewer
gives blunt, honest feedback, the type that even
your friends would hesitate to give. This agent
gave me that quality that I needed. It gave me
clarity. It gave me momentum. And more importantly,
it gave me quality. Three agents, one system.
And overnight, my job search approach just changed.
Now let me take you through what happens when
I use this system. Now imagine I find a job description.
Let's say it's a product analyst role. I drop
the job description into the researcher agent.
In less than a minute, I know this role cares
most about experimentation, dashboards, user
funnels, and business impact storytelling. And
then step two would be I ask the writer agent
to propose a resume bullet that matches the experimentation
requirement. A star story. Key metrics to highlight.
A one paragraph summary for the top of my resume.
And step three, I ask the reviewer agent to tell
me if this sounds like someone they would hire.
If it does, I refine. And if it does not, the
reviewer calls out the issues and I fix them.
I want to make something clear. This is not cheating.
This is coaching. Again, this is subjective,
right? This is structure. For me, this is how
I look at it. This is clarity when your brain
is tired from overwhelm. Because, well, building
these agents did something unexpected. It changed
my relationship with the job search. I stopped
feeling like I was alone in the process. I stopped
feeling like I had to get clarity out of just
thin air. I just can't generate that clarity,
right? I stopped feeling like every job description
was an entirely new challenge. Instead, I had
a predictable system. And this gave me something
I did not expect. Confidence. Now, when you have
clarity, you move with confidence. When you move
with confidence, you take action. And when you
take action consistently, you start to build
momentum. Don't take my word for it. Read every
self -help book for this. And that's what they'll
always tell you. Because momentum is everything.
Momentum is their antidote to burnout. And that
is when I realized something deeper. One of the
people in the self -help space that I follow,
from their past work at least, is Napoleon Hill,
you know, the author of Think and Grow Rich.
Now this is a very old book and it's had a lot
of recent edits. But some of the principles that
were mentioned in the book, still apply to this
day. For me, in this particular case, the principle
that applies is the power of a mastermind. Except,
instead of a room full of people, I had three
tiny AI agents who were my mastermind, my virtual
mastermind, each taking away one layer of mental
friction. Well, here's what I learned after doing
this exercise. You do not need more willpower.
You need a system. AI, for me, helps accelerate
that clarity. Momentum comes from removing friction,
not adding motivation. Because you will run out
of motivation on some days. What will help you
is consistency, discipline. Because discipline
beats... motivation every single day. Job searching
becomes lighter when you take thinking out of
low value tasks. Your mind is a terrible place
to store uncertainty. AI becomes powerful not
when it writes for you but when it reduces confusion.
The biggest lesson I got from this is that job
search is not a rejection problem. It is a clarity
problem. This episode was uncomfortable to record
because it comes from a very real place in my
life that something that I felt recently that
something I'm continuing to work on. But I hope
sharing this helps someone else who is stuck,
overwhelmed or losing confidence. Now, if you
want me to publish the exact prompts for these
agents, let me know. I can release them as templates.
And more importantly, thank you for listening.
Thank you for supporting the show. If you like
this episode, please do rate 5 stars. And I will
see you in the next episode.