Setting up your search
Intake takes about 5 minutes in eight steps: your resume, the job you want, companies, your leash, tailoring, standing answers, connections, and your voice and first search.
Hank reads your resume and drafts what he can. You correct anything in place, describe the job you want in your own words, and watch the count of jobs that fit update as you answer. Every answer stays editable in Settings.
At the end you pick a Quick search (about 10 minutes to a ranked list) or an Exhaustive one (about 40 minutes, every board read). Leads start landing on your Job Board straight away.
How ranking works
Every lead has to pass your sniff test first: Your rules, Pay, Level, Place and Company. A job that fails one check never reaches Today's Leads.
The leads that pass get a match score from 0 to 100, shown as the bone that fills to the score. Strong fit is 88 and up, Good fit 75 to 87, and Stretch below 75. Dream jobs sit on top, then More leads.
You choose what the score measures: The job you want, Your resume, or both averaged.
- The job you want: company growth (25), the seat (25), pay (20), your edge (15), title (10) and industry (5).
- Your resume: years (25), skills (25), results (20), industry (15), level (10) and title (5).
- Layoffs that hit your own field take 10 points. Layoffs elsewhere at the company take 3.
Hover the bone on any row to see why it ranks where it does.
Why a job was dropped
When a role fails the sniff test, you see why in one line that names the check: Your rules, Pay, Level, Place or Company. The Job Board shows how many leads are hidden by your preferences, and the Dropped list shows every one with its reason, so nothing is hidden from you.
If a rule drops jobs you want, change it in Your search. The count updates before you save, so you can see which jobs would appear or vanish.
Jobs at your current employer never appear, and neither do companies on your Do not apply list.
Dream jobs and Fetch the hiring manager
On Buy ahead and Pay when you're hired, the heart marks a dream job, up to 10 a month. Dream jobs sit at the top of your leads and wait for your final review on every leash, unless you turn on auto apply for dream jobs on its own.
On a dream job, one press of Fetch the hiring manager shows “Hank is fetching the hiring manager”, then a name, a title and High, Medium or Low confidence, or “No hiring manager yet. Hank keeps sniffing.” A find is kept for that job until it closes.
There is never a guarantee of a name, and how a name was found stays private. Other rows show “Hiring manager known” without the name.
Dream jobs also get optional Deep tailoring, which rewrites around the role and writes the cover letter in your voice, and prep for the hiring manager round.
The leash: how much Hank does on his own
- Short leash, the default: Hank tailors and fills everything, then stops before Submit until you say OK.
- Long leash: Hank applies start to finish to the jobs you check, inside your rules. Dream jobs wait for you.
- Off leash: Hank applies the moment a lead passes your sniff test, until your applications run out or a daily cap you set.
Apply and Final review both show every time you check jobs; the leash only decides which one is blue. You can set the leash per job or as a rule, and change it any time in Settings.
Whatever the leash, every submit waits 10 minutes before it goes, and you can cancel it in that time.
What “Needs you” means
An application shows Needs you when Hank can't continue without something only you can give: a form question he has never seen, a choice he can't infer, or a step on the employer's site that needs you.
Answer it in either place it shows, on the row or in Applications, and the same application picks up where it stopped. A new form question is asked once and saved, so the next form that asks it is answered the same way.
Applications waiting for your final review are listed under Needs you too. They go only after you press OK, submit.
What we send employers, and the receipt
Each application sends your resume, tailored as you chose (None, Light or Standard), a cover letter where the form takes one, and an answer to every question on the form. Every answer is tagged by where it came from: a standing answer, your resume, or a drafted answer you confirmed.
Tailoring reorders and rewords your real experience. It never adds a skill, title or number you don't have; a number that isn't in your facts brings a Heads up before anything goes.
After it submits, the receipt shows when it was sent, where, from which email, the exact files, every answer, and the employer's confirmation. Receipts stay for the life of your account.
Your email, your Hirehound inbox and employer accounts
Applications go out from your own email address. To let Applications see replies, verification codes, interview invites and offers, add a forwarding rule from your inbox to your Hirehound inbox address, shown in intake and in Settings with a Copy button.
- Gmail: Settings, then Forwarding and POP/IMAP, then Add a forwarding address. Paste your Hirehound inbox address. Hirehound confirms the code Gmail sends.
- Outlook: Settings, then Mail, then Forwarding. Paste your Hirehound inbox address and keep a copy of forwarded messages.
- Then press Send a test. The rule shows Forwarding verified once the test arrives.
If you'd rather not forward, your Hirehound inbox can be the email on your applications instead, and it forwards everything to you.
When a site needs an account, as Workday often does, Hirehound creates one with your applicant email, only if you allowed it, and keeps the password encrypted. Every account is listed in Settings, where you can reveal its password and sign in yourself. They are yours, exported with your data and deleted with your account.
Gmail, calendar, call recorder and the extension
Connect Gmail and the follow-ups Hank drafts send from your Gmail, only after you approve the exact words. Copy is always there for any draft. Hirehound never sends anything on LinkedIn.
Interview times in your forwarded mail come with Add to calendar. A connected Google Calendar adds them for you.
For interview notes, paste a transcript after a call, or connect a call recorder where it's offered. Hirehound records nothing itself.
The browser extension adds any job page to your leads, or applies with Apply for me, from your own connection.
Buying applications and pausing
Every account starts with 25 free applications, no card and no clock. After that, Pay as you go is $10 for each set of 10, billed as the set starts, and Buy ahead is $90 for 100. A partner code from a career coach adds free applications: enter it under Have a code? in Settings.
Only a submitted application counts. A skipped, cancelled or failed run is free, and every plan sends up to 100 applications a month.
Pausing stops the daily search, auto apply and the emails, and keeps your balance and everything you've done. Finishing keeps your account read-only until you resume or delete it.
The three plans and Pay when you're hired
- Pay as you go: $10 for 10 applications, any number of sets. No dream jobs.
- Buy ahead: $90 for 100 applications, with up to 10 dream jobs a month.
- Pay when you're hired: $0 up front and 275 applications (250 plus your free 25), with up to 10 dream jobs a month.
On Pay when you're hired, if you take a job Hirehound applied to within 3 months, you pay 1% of your first-year pay, billed on day 90 of the new job. You sign the written agreement, with its Right to Refund notice, when you choose the plan and before you owe anything. The agreement ends 180 days after you sign it.
When an offer arrives in your forwarded mail, Applications asks whether you took it. Short check-ins come at 30, 60 and 90 days. At billing you confirm the employer, start date and first-year pay by uploading the offer letter or connecting your payroll, read once with your consent. Interviews are never charged on any plan.
The hiring team: how to be corrected or removed
On dream jobs, Hirehound can show the person hiring for a role. It keeps professional information only: a name, a role or title, a team and an employer, never a home address, family or personal accounts.
That information is kept at least 12 months from the last time it was confirmed, and deleted when 12 months pass without a confirmation.
Anyone can ask to see what Hirehound holds about them and have it corrected or removed. A verified removal deletes the record and keeps it from being added again.
Privacy: who can see your search
Nobody at Hirehound reads your search, your resume or your mail. An admin sees account metadata only, such as your balance and whether a run failed.
If you want help with something specific, you can let a Hirehound admin view your workspace, read-only, for 72 hours. You can revoke it any time, and every view is listed in Settings.
Your resume, answers and mail are encrypted. Your content is never used to train models. You can export everything or delete everything from Settings.
Exporting your search, and the Job Plug plugin
Settings has Export everything. You get a zip of your whole search in the Job Plug plugin's folder layout: your profile, standing answers, resumes, every application with its receipt, your mailbox and the list of employer accounts. The download is ready for 7 days.
Already use Job Plug? Intake can import your Job Plug folder as it is, ledger included.