How I Use AI automation to find me an AI Automation job

There’s something delightfully meta about using AI automation to find a job in AI automation. It’s like inception, but with robots. Let me tell you how I built a bot to automate my job hunt, because if you’re going to look for an automation job, you might as well automate the process, right?

The Irony Wasn’t Lost on Me

Picture this: I’m sitting at my desk, scrolling through countless job listings for AI automation roles, when it hits me - I’m manually searching for a job where I’d be automating things. The irony was too perfect to ignore. If I’m going to convince companies I’m good at automation, I should probably automate my own job search.

The Tech Stack

I built a job application bot using:

• Puppeteer for browser automation
• Node.js for the runtime
• Cheerio for HTML parsing
• My existing PDF resume (because who doesn’t love a good PDF?)

The bot does what I’d do manually, but faster and without the existential dread of job hunting:

1. Scrapes job listings from remote job boards
2. Filters for relevant positions (Svelte, AI, Automation)
3. Fills out application forms
4. Uploads my resume
5. Takes screenshots for my review

The Code (Because We’re All Here for That)

Here’s a peek at the heart of the bot:

async function processJob(page, jobUrl) {
  console.log(`Processing job: ${jobUrl}`);
  
  await page.goto(jobUrl);
  
  const applyButton = await page.$('a[href*="apply.workable.com"]');
  if (!applyButton) {
    console.log('No direct application link found');
    return false;
  }
  
  // More automation magic...
}

The Results (So Far)

The bot has been running for [time period], and here are some stats:

• Jobs processed: Many
• Applications submitted: Several
• Human intervention required: Minimal
• Coffee consumed while building this: Excessive

Lessons Learned

1. Automation Isn’t Perfect - Sometimes the bot encounters a form it can’t fill out, or a CAPTCHA it can’t solve. It’s like it’s being tested for its automation skills before I even get the job.

2. Ethics Matter - I made sure the bot respects rate limits and doesn’t submit applications without my review. We want to automate responsibly, not get banned from job boards.

3. Meta-Skills Are Valuable - Building a tool to automate your job search is itself a pretty good portfolio piece for automation jobs.

The Future

Will this bot find me my dream job? Who knows. But it’s already achieved something valuable - it’s given me a great story to tell in interviews about how I approach automation problems. And isn’t that what job hunting is really about?

Plus, if any potential employers are reading this - yes, this is exactly the kind of out-of-the-box automation thinking I’ll bring to your company. And no, I won’t automate myself out of the job once I get it. Probably.

Try It Yourself

The code is available on my GitHub, and I’m always open to improvements. Because if there’s one thing better than automation, it’s collaborative automation.

Remember: in a world of automation, sometimes the best way to stand out is to automate standing out.

P.S. If you’re hiring for an automation role and found this through my bot - let’s talk about how I can bring this kind of automation to your company (minus the job hunting part, of course).