Career coaches charge anywhere from £100 to £500 per hour. Mentors are hard to find, hard to keep, and rarely available at 11pm when you're panicking over a job application. Most young people navigate their careers by Googling vague advice, asking their mate who also has no idea, or just hoping for the best.

There is a better way. And it costs less than your monthly Spotify subscription.

Claude, made by Anthropic, has a feature called Projects. Think of it as a dedicated AI workspace, like a folder that has memory. Instead of starting every conversation from scratch and re-explaining who you are and what you want, a Project holds your documents, remembers your custom instructions, and applies them to every single conversation you have within it.

The difference between a regular AI chat and a Project is the difference between calling a new receptionist every time you ring the doctor, versus actually having a doctor who knows your history.

Here is the good news: Projects are available on the free plan. Free users get up to 5 projects and the core functionality described in this issue, which is more than enough to get started. Paid plans (Pro starts at around £17/month) unlock extras like expanded document capacity and team sharing, but you do not need to spend a penny to build your career coach today.

Step 1: Create a Project

Log into claude.ai, find the Projects section in the left sidebar, and create a new one. Name it something useful, like "Career Hub" or "Job Search 2025." Either works. "AAAAAA help me get a job" also technically works.

Step 2: Upload your documents

Inside your Project, there is a knowledge base section. Upload the following:

Claude will reference all of these automatically in every conversation you have within the Project, without you needing to paste them in each time.

Step 3: Write your custom instructions

This is where it gets powerful. In the Project settings, you can write a short instruction that shapes how Claude responds in every conversation. Something like:

"You are my personal career coach. You have access to my CV and career goals. Always give me specific, practical advice based on my actual background. Be direct. Do not give me generic tips I could find on any career website."

That is it. You are done. You now have a career coach who has read your CV, knows your goals, and is available at any hour without billing you for a 30-minute session that was mostly small talk.

Once your Project is set up, try these straight away:

"What skills am I missing for this job description?" Paste in a job listing and Claude will compare it against your CV and tell you exactly what the gap is, not a generic list of soft skills, but your specific gaps.

"Rewrite my CV bullet points to match this role." Tailoring your CV for every application is tedious. This makes it fast.

"Help me prep for a behavioural interview at a marketing agency." It knows your background, so it can create practice questions relevant to your experience rather than generic "tell me about a time you showed leadership" prompts that make everyone give the same tired answer.

"Write a cold outreach message to a senior designer at [company]." Give it context about why you admire the company, and it will draft something that does not sound like it was written by a robot. The irony of that is not lost on us.

"What should I negotiate for in this offer?" Paste in the job offer details. It can help you think through what is reasonable to ask for based on your level, the role, and the industry.

Most people use AI the same way they use a search engine: type question, read answer, close tab. That approach barely scratches the surface.

The real advantage is building something that knows you. A workspace that has your context baked in, so every interaction starts three steps ahead of where it would otherwise begin. That is the shift from AI as a novelty to AI as an actual tool.

Career coaches are genuinely valuable. Access to good mentorship is one of the biggest advantages some people have over others. This does not replace human connection or real-world experience, but it does mean that your starting point no longer depends on who you happen to know.

That feels worth £17 a month.

Your task this week: Set up your Career Project before the weekend. Upload your CV, write two sentences of custom instructions, and try at least one of the prompts above. Reply and let me know what worked.

Have a great week everyone,

Jamie

Enjoyed this? Forward it to one person who is job hunting right now. They will owe you.

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