It was late Saturday night in August 2010. I couldn’t sleep in my new apartment in Los Angeles.

I was brand new to the city.

And I needed a job—any job. I’d tend bar. Wait tables. Wash dishes.

Things were not going well.

A thousand restaurants dotted the city, up and down the West LA, from the Santa Monica Pier to Century City.

And none of them knew I existed.

Here’s what you’ll learn today:

• How to search for your dream remote job without spending hours scrolling through LinkedIn

• A simple (and free) AI tool that finds relevant jobs for you while you sleep

• My exact workflow for automating applications and getting interviews faster

…and more!

👹 The Job Search Nightmare

Every day, I spent 8 hours a day scrolling Craigslist (that’s where the job postings were back in the day!)

I customized my resume and cover letter before every send.

Yet it was still WEEKS before someone decided I might be worthy of taking orders and serving food for them (FWIW it was Ozumo in the Santa Monica Promenade).

Here’s the actual email I sent:

Here’s the crazy part:

This was 15 years ago…

A lot’s changed.

Yet most people STILL search for jobs the exact same way.

They:

• Endlessly scroll through a job board

• Spend hours filtering through irrelevant postings

• Send resumes into the black hole of some bot-checked email inbox

The average job seeker still wastes 10-15 hours per week just searching, applying, and getting nowhere.

🤖 Automating Your Job Search Is Now Possible

Imagine a job search tool that:

• Automatically finds relevant roles

• Uses AI to provide a quick, digestible summary of each role

• And saves you hours of manual searching

Well. It exists.

It’s called Clay. You can start for free and use it to apply for the right opportunities faster.

Clay isn’t another job board or application tool.

It’s actually an AI-powered go-to-market outbound tool (think: using AI to help tech sales teams sell expensive software).

But if you know how to put it to use… It’s like having a full-time recruitment assistant working 24/7.

And you can start using it for free.

Here’s exactly how I set it up to transform my remote job search:

Now, full disclosure: I build courses at Clay on how to use the tool. But I was using it for months before I started. No affiliate links here—I just like the tool.

Step 1: Setting Up LinkedIn Filters

I set up a Clay table using multiple filters to nail down the exact roles I want:

• Job Titles: “Product Manager”, “Growth Product Manager”, “Senior Product Manager”

• Posted: Within the last 24 hours

• Keyword: Remote

If you have a list of companies you specifically want to work for (recommended) you can even only source from that company list.

Here are the roles that I pulled in today.

Step 2: Verify My Open Role Matches

Next, I pull in all the open roles that meet my criteria.

This pull isn’t perfect.

I’m going to get jobs that are no longer open. That are hybrid, not remote. Or, just plain aren’t a fit.

So next, I use their internal AI tools (called “Claygent”) to help me verify the following:

• Is the job actually open?

• Is the job actually remote?

• What’s a short summary of the job description?

The AI pulls the job description and helps me by answering these questions.

Then I can just focus on the open roles that are actually relevant for me.

By the way, here’s the prompt I use to get this. You can use this in Clay or elsewhere to help you find jobs:

#CONTEXT#

You are tasked with extracting specific job-related information from a job posting.

#OBJECTIVE#

Determine if the job role at

Job URL is still open, whether it is remote with any location restrictions, and list all the responsibilities of the role in one output.

#INSTRUCTIONS#

1. Access the job posting using the provided Job URL.

2. Check the job status to see if it is still open or closed. Specifically look for the words: “No longer accepting applications”. If you see that the role is definitely closed. If you don’t see those words, it’s open.

3. Identify if the job is remote and note any restrictions on the candidate’s location.

4. Extract and list all the responsibilities associated with the job role in a single output.

5. Return the findings in a structured format.

#EXAMPLES#

Example input:

Job URL

Expected output: “isOpen”: true, “isRemote”: true, “locationRestrictions”: “None”, “responsibilities”: “Responsibility 1, Responsibility 2, Responsibility 3”

Step 3: Automate My Job Search

Next, Clay gives me the option to automate this query. I can run it every 24 hours (or every week, 2 weeks, etc).

This allows me to automatically:

• Pull in the roles that are a good fit

• Apply the validation to check if the role is open and remote, and if the JD makes sense for me

All I need to do is review this list every day and pick which ones I want to apply to.

No more endless scrolling on LinkedIn to manually process dozens of open roles every day.

⚙️ Here’s The Full Workflow

Here’s a peek at my actual workflow, from Clay to sending in my application:

1. Use Clay to source open roles from LinkedIn based on my criteria, daily

2. Automatically verify if the job is a good fit

3. Export the results to Google sheet

4. Use Teal to compare my resume against the JD and get a Match Score

5. Use Claude to optimize my resume to increase my Match Score

6. Send in my application

That’s it in a nutshell.

Are you interested in seeing this full flow in more detail? If enough people tell me they’d like to see it, I’ll write it up for a newsletter.

✅ Caveats and Reality Checks

Okay, Clay is pretty awesome.

But it’s not magic. There is no voodoo here that’ll automatically grant you your dream remote job:

• You still need to customize your approach, use referrals, use other job boards, and be a good fit for these roles

• Clay is free for the first 1,200 credits. After that you have to pay.

• There’s a learning curve. If you’re not used to working across tables or databases, it’ll take some practice to get up to speed.

With all of that said:

It’s a great tool. You should get good at it now.

Lower-priced competitors are fast following. For example, my friend David Kelly from AppSumo Originals just launched CustomerFinder.ai a “simpler, more affordable version of Clay.”

💫 The Bottom Line

Before Clay: 10-15 hours of manual job searching

After Clay: 1-2 hours of refined, targeted job exploration

Your professional journey is still about your skills, network, and impact. Clay just helps you focus your energy.

Automation and AI won’t replace your job search, but they will supercharge it.