The Pragmatic Automation Blueprint

The visible problem was admin: about four hours a day, and 50 minutes for every candidate profile. I did the job by hand for four weeks before automating anything, and found two problems underneath. “Good” had no written definition, so every recruiter judged candidates slightly differently. And the firm had no memory: candidates who missed one mandate vanished, and were paid for again six months later.

So the first thing I built was a rubric, not code. Then I tested adoption for $27 a month instead of buying a platform: ClickUp as the backbone, custom JavaScript as the bridge, and Claude scoring CVs against the rubric. Nothing is scraped. Profiles went from 50 minutes to 15, and daily admin from four hours to 45 minutes. The full account, including what didn’t work, is in the Mankind Recruitment OS case study.