How to write a job posting and screen resumes with Claude
A step-by-step way to draft a job posting, build screening criteria, and prep interview questions with Claude in one evening, without drowning in resumes.
Hiring eats more of a small business owner's time than it looks. First you write a job posting that pulls in the right people instead of everyone. Then you read fifty resumes, half of them off-topic. Then you figure out what to even ask at the interview. Claude, the AI assistant from Anthropic (claude.ai), clears this whole grind in one evening. You walk away with a finished job posting, a scored comparison of candidates, and a list of questions tailored to the exact role.
What should you give Claude before you start?
A weak posting comes from an empty request like "write a sales manager job ad". Claude will hand back something generic, and the replies will match. Give it context, the way you would brief a new person in HR:
- what your company does and who your clients are;
- what the person will actually do day to day, not a vague "grow the department";
- what is required (experience, skills, schedule) versus nice to have;
- the terms: pay range, work format, city;
- how to apply and what to attach.
The more specific the input, the fewer edits at the end. Five minutes on context saves an hour of rewriting.
How do you write the posting itself?
Open claude.ai, describe the role in your own words, and ask for structure at the end. For example: "You are a recruiter at a small business. Write a job posting from this data. Split it into blocks: about the company, what the person will do, who we are looking for, what we offer, how to apply. Keep it plain, no buzzwords like fast-growing company."
Claude returns a ready draft. From there, edit in the chat instead of rewriting yourself: "drop the degree requirement, we don't need it", "add that it can be remote", "cut it by a third". Each change is one sentence, not a fresh request from scratch.
Ask for two tones at once: a tighter one for a job board and a livelier one for a Telegram post. Claude builds both from the same data.
How do you screen out the wrong resumes fast?
The longest part of hiring is reading the replies, and this is where Claude saves the most. First ask it to turn your criteria into a table: "For this role, build a 6-point candidate scorecard, each point weighted 1 to 3, where 3 is critical." Now you have a clear frame for what actually matters.
Then feed in resumes and ask for a score against that frame: "Rate this candidate on our scorecard, give a score per point and a one-line verdict: yes, maybe, or no." Run the stack through this and you get a table that shows who to call and who to skip.
One real caveat. Claude makes mistakes and can misread a line in a resume. It is a tool for the first pass, not a judge. The final call on people is always yours, and read borderline resumes with your own eyes. Do not dump extra personal data into the chat: an ID number, a home address, or a phone number add nothing to the screening, experience and skills are enough.
How do you prep interview questions?
Once the list is short, ask for questions built around the specific role and person: "Write 8 interview questions for this job. Half about real work situations, not strengths and weaknesses. For each, add what a good answer sounds like." You show up with a script instead of improvising.
You can go further and give Claude a specific candidate's resume: "Here is their background. Ask 3 follow-up questions aimed at their past roles." That catches gaps you would not spot in the text.
Where do you start right now?
Take one role you have been putting off. Describe it to Claude in three paragraphs, get the draft, polish it with edits in ten minutes. Separately, build the screening scorecard. When replies come in, run them through that scorecard instead of rereading every resume in full. Hiring turns from a week-long headache into an evening task.
If you want to work with Claude this way not just in hiring but in sales, finance, and content, grab our free materials at /guides and take the first free lesson at /try/b0-01-unit.
AGINE Academy is an independent product, not affiliated with Anthropic. Claude is owned by Anthropic.
Questions
No. Claude is great at filtering out clearly unfit resumes and saves you hours, but you hire the people. Read borderline replies yourself and decide based on the conversation, not on a score from an AI.
If you give it an empty prompt, it adds generic ones. So describe the role concretely: what the person will do, what is required, what is optional. Then the posting reflects your job, not the market average.
Only upload what the screening needs: experience, skills, achievements. Strip out ID numbers, home addresses, and extra contacts. The professional part of a resume is enough for a first pass.
The one your candidates speak. Claude writes equally well in English and Russian and can produce both versions from the same data if you are hiring in both.