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Your first week with the JobHakken desktop app
- Authors
- Name
- The JobHakken Team
- @jobhakken
JobHakken does a lot — job scanning, a résumé library, an applications pipeline, email tracking, AI tailoring, visa-sponsorship flags. That's a lot to land on at once. Here's the order that actually makes sense for a new install.
1. Build or import your résumé
Open Résumé Studio. If you're starting fresh, the editor drops you straight into a new résumé. If you already have one, use Import JSON if you exported it from the web builder at jobhakken.com/resume-builder — same shared format either way.
Résumé Studio opens on a gallery, not a single document: one card per résumé, tagged Main or Tailored. Keep one strong Main résumé here; JobHakken creates Tailored copies automatically later when you ask it to adapt one for a specific job (more on that below) — those stay read-only snapshots of exactly what you sent, so you always know what a given application saw.
2. Let it scan, then check your matches
The app scans the job boards and company pages you point it at on a schedule, scoring every listing against your résumé — a Fit number and, once you ask, an ATS keyword-match %. New matches land on the Jobs page. Switch between Cards (browse) and Table (sort/filter like a spreadsheet) with the toggle at the top — Table is the faster view once you have more than a handful of results.
3. Check the visa-sponsorship signal (if it matters to you)
If you're job-hunting on a visa, each listing carries an H-1B or UK skilled-worker flag when the employer shows up in the public sponsorship data. Treat it as a first filter, not a guarantee — a company not flagged hasn't necessarily ruled sponsorship out, it just isn't in the historical data. Set your region once in Settings → Region and the flags tune themselves to it.
4. Tailor, then apply
Open a promising job and use Tailor résumé — it creates a new résumé version aimed at that specific posting, without touching your Main résumé. Draft a matching cover letter the same way, and check the keyword gap to see exactly which terms from the posting your résumé is missing.
Every application move updates the pipeline board (Applied → Interviewing → Rejected) automatically, and the job's detail view keeps a permanent record of the exact résumé you sent — click Download résumé any time to get that precise version back, even months later.
5. Turn on email tracking (optional, entirely on-device)
Settings → Connected mail lets you connect a mailbox read-only. JobHakken scans it locally to spot interview invites, rejections, and offers, and proposes the matching status change — you approve or dismiss each one; nothing is applied automatically, and nothing about the contents of your inbox is ever uploaded anywhere. The same setting can flag a ghosted application — no reply after a timeout you choose — even with no mailbox connected at all, since it only needs your applied date.
6. Set up AI (optional)
Nothing above requires AI. When you want résumé tailoring, cover letters, or the Copilot to actually run, add a key — see getting a free AI key for exactly where to get one and where it goes.
7. Sync across devices (optional)
If you use JobHakken on more than one machine, Settings → Sync connects your own Dropbox or Google Drive as an end-to-end encrypted vault — JobHakken never holds the key, only you do. The same vault is readable (read-only for now) from the web app at app.jobhakken.com/settings/sync.
That's the whole loop: scan → score → sponsor-check → tailor → apply → track. Everything after step 1 is optional depth you can turn on whenever it's useful, not before.