Never write an application again - this app takes care of CV, cover letter and Co.

Let's be honest: Hardly anyone likes to write applications. The author must praise himself, praise the passage to the skies and hit the right note. And precisely because this is not a popular task, 23-year-old Konstantin Lobanov has built a slim, smart app that relieves applicants of this cramp.

And there's more: Applai.me turns a job advertisement and a current CV into an almost complete application. Using artificial intelligence - based on ChatGPT with the language model version 3.5 - the application optimizes the CV specifically for this job, generates a letter of motivation and also provides a few probable job interview questions for training that are also individually tailored to this position the interview.

If you talk to HR managers in start-ups, the cover letter becomes less and less important. Even a CV says a lot: Job titles have become so diverse and vague that you often can't find out much about a candidate's qualifications from them.

Konstantin Lobanov knows that too. In an interview with "Gründerszene", he cites studies according to which only half of HR managers read cover letters at all. "Isn't that crazy: The most time-consuming part of an application is only checked 50 percent of the time," he says.

Nevertheless, omitting one or even both completely is not an option. Employers often – consciously or not – evaluate the fact that someone has taken the trouble to write a cover letter as a positive thing.

Credit for the effort. In this respect, the approach of outsourcing effort, time and effort to an AI, letting it write a cover letter and CV and thus save energy, may be exactly the right one.

Unfortunately, the story of how he came up with the idea for Applai.me is "not as romantic as that of the guys who founded Uber while they were waiting for a taxi in Paris," Lobanov told "Gründerszene". Rather, while a friend of his was applying for various positions - unsuccessfully - he increasingly recognized which factors seemed decisive.

1. Accuracy of CV and job posting: Many job seekers are not aware of how important it is to adjust the CV with every application. Simply attaching the current CV is not sufficient. Because, explains Lobanov: “A lot of AI is already being used in recruitment, but against the applicant.” For many jobs, especially the advertisements from larger companies, to which many applications are received, an artificial intelligence searches all CVs for certain keywords in the first step. "If she can't find it, there's a good chance you won't be called for an interview," Lobanov explains. So you have to "outwit" the AI, as he says. Preferably even with AI. Applai.me scans the advertisement and identifies possible keywords, which it then suggests for the CV. "So this is a kind of AI against AI," laughs the founder.

2. Cover letter: Even if the importance of the cover letter is generally declining, there are still rules how this letter can be improved quickly, says Lobanov. "The difference between a bad and an excellent cover letter is not what you write and how you structure it, but how you phrase it." And that's exactly what generative AI is amazingly good at, formulating things correctly. Again, Applai.me matches information from the job description with the text of the cover letter.

3. Preparation for the first interview: In order to be convincing in the interview, an applicant must first know as much as possible about the company he is applying to, says Lobanov. This is easy to research for large companies, and platforms such as Glassdoor can help there. Secondly, it also helps to anticipate what could be asked about the relevant job profile. “As an example: I am applying for a position as a product manager in a small start-up in the field of green tech. Most likely, I won't find anything online," says the founder. “I can search for common questions for product managers. However, these will be too general.” His app generates questions tailored to the job in question, which applicants can use to practice.

Now writing applications, or more precisely: formulating the cover letter, is one of the most frequently reported nerve jobs that the popular chatbot ChatGPT from OpenAI can take away from people. In seconds. Couldn't everyone simply have their letter of motivation spit out by the tool?

Why pay extra for an app that is also based on ChatGPT? Lobanov is well prepared for this question: You have to consider a very general thing when using generative AIs, he says. "Prompts are the key to successful searches."

The prompt is the keyword, question or sentence that users type into the ChatGPT input line. It is crucial to formulate the prompt in such a way that the tool understands what it is about, what the focus of the user request is, what exactly is meant. "The better the input, the better the result," says Lobanov.

Of course, you can learn how to do that. "There are now courses on how to prompt better." Or you can use an app like his, which fires off a sequence of different pompts and knows the language processing processes of ChatGPT exactly. "All you have to do is copy and paste the job description and upload the CV and it takes just a few seconds."

Applai.me is currently working with the language model version GTP-3.5. "But I'm on a waiting list for GPT-4," says Lobanov. Once the interface is released, he wants to test whether the latest version of ChatGPT's language model improves his app's speed and results. "GPT-4 is much better at logical thinking, but in my use case I don't think it would make a noticeable difference," says the 23-year-old.

"I think the future is not in ChatGPT alone, but in tools based on these technologies," says Konstantin Lobanov. "And that's because of the ease of use."

The user friendliness, rather: You can undoubtedly use ChatGPT for everything. But the problem with tools that can do everything is that they're not easy to use — "unless you've mastered them and spent hours figuring out how to better structure the input for each specific scenario."

Lobanov works on Applai.me mostly at night and on weekends. During the day he is Product Strategy

Nevertheless, it is of course exhausting, he admits. On average, he works 16 hours a day, half on his own start-up and half in his real job. “I started setting myself an alarm clock that reminds me when I should go to bed,” says the young founder. But the passion for his business carries him through the hardships.

“I could also imagine doing Applai.me full-time in the long term. Because startups are my passion. And I also see the potential that lies in it.” He is currently bootstrapping.

His main focus is on reach and optimizing his product based on the feedback that the first users give him. In the next step, he wants to think about how best to scale the product, says Lobanov - maybe together with investors.

He sounds very thoughtful: “Investments are only needed when you know you need them and are ready for rapid growth. After completing the seed round, it is too late to understand that the product does not fit the market or that one still has to technically prepare for scaling.”

In any case, the 23-year-old has already planned his business model: a freemium model. Users have a certain amount of credits that they receive for free. When they are used up, you can buy additional credits. "The free limit is pretty generous right now and will be for a while to get as much feedback as possible and then see how to structure things better to be profitable," explains the founder.

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