“Open to Anything” Is Not a Strategy: Defining the Target Role
WEEK 101 :: POST 1 :: GOOGLE GEMINI
Directions Given To The A.I. This Week+
Instructions Given to each A.I. — Please provide 3 prompt variations that share this objective:
Each A.I. also received two static attachments: the blog post template (structure) and the authoring instructions (voice and standards). The text below is the week-specific assignment as sent — reflowed for the web; wording unchanged.
I'd like you to write this week's Ketelsen.ai post. Two files are attached: the blog post template (the structure to follow) and the authoring instructions (context, voice, and standards). Please read both before you begin, then produce the complete post in a single response.
This week's theme: "Defining the Target — What Job Are You Actually Hunting?"
This is Week 2 of an eight-week series on running a job search with AI. Week 1 ended with a written decision to go (or a decision to stay, in which case this series waits patiently). Week 2 exists because of the most common mistake in job searching: "open to anything" is the job-search equivalent of walking onto the car lot with no budget. It produces scattershot applications, generic materials, and a search that runs on other people's job postings instead of the reader's own criteria.
This is also the week to let the series frame surface as good news rather than a warning: the spec sheet is exactly the private, behind-the-scenes analyst work this series says AI is for. No hiring human will ever read it, so the reader gets AI at full analytical power with zero authenticity risk — and the post can say so, briefly and in its own voice.
The work this week is definition: same role somewhere better, a pivot to a different role, or a level-up; full-time employee or contract; remote, hybrid, or onsite; big company or startup. These are trade-offs, not preferences — more of one usually costs some of another — and the reader needs them scored against their own priorities before the search starts, because every later week in this series filters through this answer.
The deliverable the reader should walk away holding: a target-role spec sheet — the role (or two) they are hunting, the must-haves, and the deal-breakers — the document every later week references, from the résumé build to the final offer matrix.
THE SERIES CONTRACT — identical every week; it binds every prompt you design. This series' tagline is its editorial contract: "Use AI like an analyst, not a ghostwriter." It is written for a reader in a market unsettled by AI itself — some readers are searching precisely because AI eliminated their last role. Write with that reader at the table: no AI-efficiency cheerleading, no automation jokes, no promises that AI will "do it for you" anywhere a human hiring decision is involved. And hold one line in every prompt: the AI is the reader's private analyst, coach, and sparring partner — it structures, researches, rehearses, and questions. It does not ghostwrite. Anything a hiring human will read or hear — résumé lines, cover letters, outreach messages, interview answers, negotiation emails, resignation letters — must end in the reader's own words and be true. Prompts should drive toward drafts the reader rewrites and owns, and should say so explicitly. Employers increasingly restrict how AI may be used in their own hiring decisions for legal and compliance reasons, and recruiters increasingly recognize — and discard — material that reads machine-written. A prompt that makes a reader look AI-generated hurts them twice. Posts that ignore this contract should expect to lose the week. Two practical notes. First: a standing “About this series” notice covering these same points is added to every published post automatically at publication — acknowledge the frame in your own voice where your week's prompt calls for it, but do not write a formal disclaimer block of your own, and do not open every post with the same acknowledgment paragraph: outside the weeks whose prompts explicitly carry the series frame, this contract lives in your tone and your prompt design. Second, the framing is POSITIVE: used this way — analyst backstage, reader on the page — AI is an advantage no hiring human will ever hold against your reader. Write like that is true, because it is.
The three prompts should help a reader:
- Define the ideal role from the inside out. A worksheet-style interview that pulls out what the reader actually wants more of and less of — drawing on the Week 1 audit where it exists — before any job title gets written down.
- Score the trade-offs honestly. A structured analysis of compensation vs. growth vs. stability vs. flexibility (and the sub-trades inside each: startup equity vs. big-company benefits, remote freedom vs. in-room visibility), scored against the reader's own stated priorities rather than a generic ranking.
- Build the target-role matrix. The full spec sheet: one or two target roles, the non-negotiable must-haves, the explicit deal-breakers, and the level and range the reader is aiming for — written down so the reader can reject a tempting-but-wrong posting in thirty seconds.
At the advanced tier, the strongest version of this week is a matrix the reader can actually filter with — target roles as rows, must-haves and deal-breakers as testable criteria, and a scoring rule that turns "hmm, maybe" postings into a yes or a no. Vague criteria produce vague searches; a spec sheet with teeth is the deliverable worth reaching for.
A constraint carried from Week 1. AI models cannot see live market data. No prompt may ask the AI to assert which roles are growing, what a pivot "typically" pays, or how a market is trending, as fact. Where the reader needs market reality — whether their target level is realistic, what adjacent roles exist — the prompt should have the AI generate the questions and name the kinds of sources to check (pay-transparency postings, official labor data, people actually in the role), with the reader doing the confirming.
Design the prompts so the AI does what it is genuinely good at: structured elicitation, making trade-offs explicit and scoreable, and turning preferences into testable criteria. The reader supplies their priorities and their Week 1 artifacts; the AI supplies structure and honest trade-off pressure. Posts whose prompts have the AI assert market facts or hand the reader a target without their input should expect to be marked down on Practical Utility and Content Accuracy.
Series dependency chain, for the Metadata block: Week 2 consumes Week 1's written decision and compensation baseline (the "go" decision sets the energy; the baseline sets the floor for the range). Week 2 produces the target-role spec sheet with must-haves and deal-breakers — consumed by Week 3 (assets built against the spec), Week 4 (companies screened against it), Week 7 (deal-breakers anchor the negotiation), and Week 8 (the final offer is scored against this sheet).
Because readers may arrive at this post without having read Week 1, the prompts should work for someone who simply knows they are looking, while making clear the spec sheet is sharper when it is built on a real Week 1 decision and baseline.
Three difficulty tiers as always — Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced — each a genuinely different approach to the same problem, not the same prompt at three lengths.
On examples: this is a career topic that touches every industry. The template lists tech startup / retail / freelance as suggested industry examples — those are marked MAY, and adapting them is expected here. An engineer deciding between a same-role move and an engineering-management level-up, a marketer weighing startup equity against enterprise stability, and a contractor deciding whether to go back to full-time are the right kinds of contexts. Choosing them over the suggested business examples is correct behaviour and will not be scored against you.
A note on supplied figures. Anything marked `[SUPPLIED — use as given]` above came from Ketelsen.ai's own research brief. Use it freely — you are not fabricating by repeating it, and you will not be marked down for leaving it uncited. Do not attach an invented source to it. (No supplied figures this week.)
## BEFORE YOU SUBMIT — STRUCTURAL CHECK
(This block is identical every week. It exists because these specific items are the ones posts drop, and a dropped structural item costs compliance points for something that takes one minute to add.)
Your post is parsed by a script before any human reads it. Confirm all seven:
1. ☐ Response begins with `PLATFORM: <your name>` and `WEEK: 2` 2. ☐ `## Lead` present once, at the very top, before Variation 1 3. ☐ `## In one line` present in all three variations 4. ☐ `## What this prompt gives you` present in all three variations 5. ☐ `## The Prompt` present in all three variations, with the prompt in double quotes beneath it 6. ☐ `## Introductory Hook` and `## Current Use` present in all three variations (three of each — not one) 7. ☐ Every template heading written as `##`, none bolded instead; prompt breakdown is running text split on ` : `, with no `###` headings inside it
A complete post has 57 `##` headings. If your count is well short, a section is missing or was bolded instead of hashed.
One extra check this week: confirm no prompt asks the AI to assert which roles or markets are growing, or what a role typically pays, as fact. Market questions get pointed at named sources the reader checks; the spec sheet is built from the reader's own priorities.
About this series. AI is reshaping work — for some readers, it's part of why you're searching at all. We don't pretend otherwise. And the hiring world is wary of AI-written material: many employers restrict how AI may be used in their own hiring decisions, and recruiters increasingly recognize — and discard — machine-written applications. So this series teaches a different approach: use AI as your private research analyst, interview coach, and thinking partner, while every word an employer sees or hears from you stays genuinely, verifiably yours. AI behind the scenes. You on the page.
"Open to anything" is the most dangerous phrase in a job search. It is the career equivalent of walking onto a car lot without a budget—you will drive away with whatever the salesperson needed to offload. This week is about defining your target before you ever look at a job board. We have three prompts at three different depths to help you build a target-role spec sheet: a beginner prompt to extract your true preferences, an intermediate prompt to score the hard trade-offs, and an advanced prompt to build a ruthless, filterable matrix. Used as your private analyst, AI can force you to be honest about what you want without the risk of a human judging your uncertainties.
The Inside-Out Role Definer
Find out what you actually want before you start looking at titles.
When you start a job search, the temptation is to immediately open a job board and see what is available. That is a mistake. Looking at external postings before defining your internal criteria leads to a scattershot search where you mold yourself to fit whatever is hiring. You need to define the ideal role from the inside out. This beginner prompt acts as your private career coach, asking you targeted questions to pull out what you genuinely want more of and less of in your next role, free from the pressure of an interviewer.
Why this matters now
Right now, the job market is flooded with vague job descriptions that can look appealing until you get into the interview process and realize the reality doesn't match your needs. By using this prompt today, you establish a firm baseline. It forces you to document your non-negotiables before the desperation or excitement of the hunt clouds your judgment.
Act as an expert career coach and analyst. My goal is to define my target job criteria before I start looking at job postings. Do not write a resume or cover letter for me, and do not guess at market trends or salaries. Instead, ask me a series of 5 questions, one at a time, about my previous roles: what energized me, what drained me, what kind of management I thrive under, and what my absolute deal-breakers are. Wait for my answer to each question before asking the next. After I have answered all 5, summarize my responses into a clear 'Target-Role Spec Sheet' detailing my must-haves, nice-to-haves, and deal-breakers. Finally, list 3 types of primary sources (like pay-transparency sites or specific industry contacts) I should consult to verify if my expectations match reality.
How the AI reads this prompt
Practical examples from different industries
An Endoscopy Technician currently at a large hospital wants to move to a specialized outpatient center. They use this prompt to figure out exactly why the hospital environment is draining them. The AI's questions help them realize their absolute must-have is predictable scheduling, and their deal-breaker is being on-call on weekends. A retail store manager is burning out and wants to transition into corporate merchandising. The prompt forces them to articulate that they love the inventory strategy but hate the customer-facing conflict. The resulting spec sheet gives them the confidence to ignore lateral retail management jobs and focus only on backend operations.
Creative use case ideas
Defining criteria for joining a non-profit board. Establishing boundaries for a community organizing volunteer role. Deciding what you want out of a new hobby or structured educational course.
Adaptability tips
You can change the focus of the 5 questions to fit a specific pivot. If you know you are staying in the same field, tell the AI to focus the questions purely on work environment, team size, and management styles rather than core competencies.
Pro tips
If the AI's summary misses the nuance of your answers, reply with: "Refine the deal-breakers section. You listed 'long hours,' but my specific issue is 'unplanned weekend deployments.' Make the spec sheet more specific."
Prerequisites
Ideally, complete a Week 1 career audit so you have a general sense of your baseline compensation and whether you are staying in your current field or pivoting.
Required tools
Any standard AI text model (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude). Free tiers are fully capable of this prompt.
Frequently asked questions
What if I don't know the answers to the AI's questions? That is the point of the exercise. If a question stumps you, tell the AI you are unsure and ask it to provide a few examples of how other professionals might answer. It acts as a sparring partner to help you figure it out. Can I do this without the AI? Yes, but the AI prevents you from staring at a blank page. The conversational interface forces you to articulate your thoughts, and the AI organizes your stream-of-consciousness into a usable document. Will the AI tell me what job to apply for? No. The AI is acting as an analyst to help you define your criteria, not a recruiter handing you a job title. You will use the output to evaluate titles yourself.
Recommended follow-up prompts
"Based on my spec sheet, what are 5 interview questions I should ask a hiring manager to figure out if their company violates my deal-breakers?"
Tags and categories
Tags: Career Planning, Self-Assessment, Job Search Strategy, Requirements Gathering Categories: Beginner Prompts, Career Coaching
Citations
NOT APPLICABLE
The Honest Trade-Off Scorer
Weigh compensation, stability, and flexibility against your actual priorities.
Every job is a bundle of trade-offs. You rarely get the highest salary, the most remote flexibility, and the most exciting startup equity all in the same package. When you look at job postings without a scoring system, it is easy to be seduced by a high salary and ignore the fact that you are trading away the remote freedom you actually care about. This intermediate prompt forces you to face those trade-offs honestly. It makes the AI present you with difficult scenarios, scoring your choices against your stated priorities so you know exactly what you are willing to sacrifice.
Why this matters now
As companies enforce return-to-office mandates and shift compensation structures, the trade-off between flexibility and base pay has never been sharper. Using this prompt now ensures you do not accidentally accept an offer that looks great on paper but costs you the specific lifestyle benefit you value most.
Act as a ruthless career analyst. I need to understand my true trade-offs before I begin my job search. Here are my top three priorities in order: \[Insert Priority 1\], \[Insert Priority 2\], \[Insert Priority 3\]. Here is my compensation floor: \[Insert Baseline\]. Generate 3 difficult, realistic job-offer scenarios that force me to choose between these priorities (e.g., high pay vs. poor flexibility, great title vs. unstable company). Ask me which scenario I would choose and why. Do not invent specific market data or typical pay rates; keep the scenarios conceptual. After I make my choices, analyze my decisions and provide a finalized 'Trade-Off Scorecard' that explicitly states what I am willing to sacrifice and what I will not compromise on.
How the AI reads this prompt
Practical examples from different industries
A Senior Cybersecurity Incident Responder at a Fortune 100 company in Minneapolis wants to know if they should move to a smaller tech startup. They input their priorities: Base Salary, Autonomy, and Team Size. The AI forces them to choose between a corporate role with high pay but massive bureaucracy, and a startup role with high autonomy but lower base pay. They realize autonomy is actually their number one priority. A marketer is deciding between agency life and going client-side. The AI presents scenarios trading rapid skill acquisition (agency) against work-life balance and stability (client-side), helping them realize they are ready to sacrifice rapid growth for a 40-hour workweek.
Creative use case ideas
Evaluating the trade-offs of going back to school full-time vs. part-time. Deciding between buying a move-in ready home vs. a fixer-upper. Planning a major life relocation and weighing cost of living against proximity to family.
Adaptability tips
If you are a freelancer or contractor, adjust the prompt to focus on trade-offs like "retainer stability vs. high hourly rate" or "long-term single client vs. multiple short-term projects."
Pro tips
If the scenarios are too easy, tell the AI: "These are too easy. Make the trade-offs much harder and closer to my compensation floor."
Prerequisites
You must know your absolute compensation floor (from Week 1\) and have a rough idea of your top three priorities before running this prompt.
Required tools
Standard text models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude).
Frequently asked questions
Why do the scenarios need to be conceptual? Because AI models do not have access to live, accurate market data. If you ask an AI for a "typical" salary for a specific role in a specific city, it will guess, and that guess might anchor your expectations incorrectly. Conceptual scenarios test your psychology, not market facts. What if I don't like any of the scenarios? Tell the AI exactly that\! Explain why all three scenarios are unacceptable. The AI will use that rejection to refine your Trade-Off Scorecard, noting that certain compromises are absolute deal-breakers for you. How do I use the scorecard later? Keep it next to you when you are reading job descriptions. If a job looks amazing but requires a trade-off your scorecard explicitly says you will not make, you can close the tab and move on.
Recommended follow-up prompts
"Based on my Trade-Off Scorecard, generate a checklist I can use to evaluate the benefits package of a prospective employer."
Tags and categories
Tags: Trade-off Analysis, Priority Scoring, Scenario Testing Categories: Intermediate Prompts, Analytical Frameworks
Citations
NOT APPLICABLE
The Target-Role Filter Matrix
Build a ruthless scoring system to instantly reject wrong jobs.
By the time you are deep into a job search, decision fatigue sets in. You start looking at job postings and thinking, "Well, maybe this could work," even when it violates your core requirements. Vague criteria produce vague searches. This advanced prompt solves that by turning your preferences into a hard, testable matrix. By using the AI to build a scoring rule, you strip the emotion out of scanning job boards. A posting either passes the matrix or it doesn't, allowing you to reject a tempting-but-wrong posting in thirty seconds.
Why this matters now
Job boards use algorithms to serve you high volumes of postings, many of which are only tangentially related to your goals. You need your own algorithm to filter the noise. This prompt gives you a proprietary, personalized tool to cut through the volume and protect your time.
Act as an uncompromising career analyst. I am going to provide my target roles, my non-negotiable must-haves, and my explicit deal-breakers. Your job is to create a 'Target-Role Filter Matrix' that I can use to score live job postings. Here is my data: \[Insert Roles, Must-Haves, Deal-Breakers\]. Build a matrix with testable criteria. Establish a scoring rule where a posting gets \+1 for must-haves, \-1 for red flags, and an automatic disqualification for any deal-breaker. Format this as a markdown table. Finally, generate a list of 3 specific questions I must answer myself using official labor data or pay-transparency postings to ensure my target level and compensation are realistic in the current market. Do not provide the market data yourself.
How the AI reads this prompt
Practical examples from different industries
An Identity Designer who has been an entrepreneur for 10 years is deciding whether to go in-house at an agency. They use the matrix to set deal-breakers (no mandatory weekend pitches) and must-haves (dedicated budget for software). The matrix allows them to scan agency postings and instantly disqualify roles that hint at "hustle culture." A software engineer is deciding between a senior individual contributor role and a management position. They use the matrix to weigh their requirements. A job posting for a manager role that still requires 80% coding hits their deal-breaker (unclear expectations), and the matrix tells them to walk away.
Creative use case ideas
Designing a vacation budget architecture and itinerary filter (e.g., deal-breaker: flights with 2+ layovers). Evaluating a potential car purchase against a strict dealership evaluation protocol. Scoring freelance clients before agreeing to a discovery call.
Adaptability tips
You can adjust the scoring weights. If a specific must-have is incredibly important, tell the AI to give it a \+3 instead of a \+1.
Pro tips
Once the matrix is built, you can feed a real job description into the AI in a new prompt and say: "Score this job description against my Target-Role Filter Matrix and give me the final number."
Prerequisites
You must have completed the work from the Beginner and Intermediate prompts (or done the equivalent thinking) so you have your must-haves and deal-breakers clearly defined.
Required tools
Any standard text model. Claude and ChatGPT both handle markdown tables exceptionally well.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the automatic disqualification so important? Because the human brain is wired to compromise when presented with a shiny object (like a high salary). The automatic disqualification protects you from yourself. If a job requires 75% travel and your deal-breaker is \>25% travel, the salary does not matter. The matrix makes that decision objective. Can I use this matrix in the interview stage? Yes. In fact, you should. When you are given time to ask questions at the end of an interview, ask questions that specifically target the criteria in your matrix. If the hiring manager's answers trigger a deal-breaker, you know how to score it. What if every job posting gets disqualified? Then your matrix is working perfectly. It means your requirements do not match the current available market. You then have a choice: wait patiently for the right role (if you have the financial runway), or consciously lower your must-haves and adjust the matrix.
Recommended follow-up prompts
"Using my Filter Matrix, write a script for a 5-minute informational interview designed to uncover if a company violates my deal-breakers."
Tags and categories
Tags: Evaluation Matrix, Scoring Systems, Job Postings, Filtering Categories: Advanced Prompts, Strategic Frameworks
Citations
NOT APPLICABLE
Which of the three should you use?
The Beginner prompt is about extraction. It is for the reader who is staring at a blank page and needs help pulling their subconscious preferences into the light. It uses conversational coaching to build a foundational list of needs. The Intermediate prompt is about pressure. It takes those needs and forces them into conflict, making the reader choose between competing priorities. It is best for someone who knows what they want but hasn't figured out what they are willing to sacrifice to get it. The Advanced prompt is about execution. It is for the reader who already knows their non-negotiables and needs a mechanical tool to process a high volume of job postings without emotional fatigue. It turns feelings into math. Readers should start at the Beginner level if they are unsure, and jump straight to the Advanced level if their requirements are already locked in.
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