Resume & Application Claim Audit

A pre-submission quality gate that makes your agent a skeptical hiring manager and ATS screener of a resume or cover letter before it is sent.

What this skill does

Most resume tools rewrite or generate — they make text sound more impressive, which often adds the exact inflated, unverifiable claims that get a candidate caught in an interview. A skeptical reviewer does the opposite: they assume every metric is unsupported and every “led” or “spearheaded” is padding, then test whether the document survives scrutiny. This skill installs that posture as a final pass. The agent stops being the writer and becomes an adversarial auditor of the application.

The output is not a rewritten resume. It is a structured verdict: the weakest claim, every overclaim or unverifiable metric, every vague impact statement, the keyword gaps against the target role, and a clear decision — PASS, REVISE, or FAIL.

When to use it

Run the audit as the last step before submitting any application: a resume, a cover letter, a LinkedIn summary, or a written application answer. It is most valuable when the document has been polished or AI-generated, because that is exactly where unearned confidence and untestable claims accumulate.

The five audit passes

1. Overclaim scan. Flag inflated verbs and absolutes (single-handedly, revolutionized, expert in) and ownership claims a team likely shared, then downgrade each to a defensible version.
2. Unverifiable-metric check. Flag numbers with no defensible basis (300% increases, millions saved) and mark which need a source, timeframe, or scope before they are safe to keep.
3. Vague-impact audit. Find responsibilities written as duties rather than outcomes and mark where a concrete, measurable result is missing.
4. ATS & keyword-gap check. Against a target job description, list the required hard skills, tools, and titles that are absent or only implied, and flag formatting that breaks ATS parsing.
5. Interview-exposure rehearsal. Generate the three toughest questions an interviewer would ask to test the biggest claims, and flag any the candidate could not currently answer.

The verdict format

A compact, consistent block: the weakest claim, overclaims (each with a defensible rewrite), unverifiable metrics (with what is needed to defend them), vague impact, keyword/ATS gaps, the three toughest interview questions, and a final decision — PASS, REVISE, or FAIL — with a one-line justification.

Why it works

It separates the writing role from the reviewing role. The same model is far more critical when told to attack a resume’s claims as a hiring manager would, rather than to make the candidate “sound good.” The structured passes stop the review from collapsing back into flattery — the failure mode of every generate-and-rewrite tool.

What it is not

This is a reasoning-and-prompting skill, not a resume builder, an ATS, or a background-check service. It cannot rewrite your resume, score it against a live ATS, or verify that your claims are true. It surfaces what is indefensible, vague, or missing in the text you already have. Pair it with a writing skill if you want help fixing what it flags.