September Surge is here. Hiring picks back up after summer, and if you're going to run a faster search this month, stop starting every AI conversation from scratch. Here's a 10-minute setup that works in any tool: 1. Open a new Project (Claude), Custom GPT (ChatGPT), or Gem (Gemini). 2. Add Custom Instructions with: your target role, your top 3 transferable skills, your current location and remote preference, and your biggest search obstacle right now. (You can explain to the GPT in a separate chart what you want to do and have it write the custom instructions for you, then copy and paste). 3. Upload your resume as a reference file. 4. Every future conversation in that space now has your context loaded automatically. That's it. No more re-explaining who you are every single time you ask for help. This is the single biggest time-saver I found in my own search. Try it this week and drop a comment with which tool you used.

Surge month starts now. Before you get swept into application volume, spend 20 minutes doing this: 1. Open your AI tool of choice and ask it to help you list every role type you're realistically qualified for, not just your ideal title. 2. Pull your last 10 applications and ask it to spot patterns in what you've been applying to versus what's actually landing responses. 3. Pick your top 3 target companies for the month and set a research task for each. Twenty minutes now saves you from spraying applications for the next four weeks with no strategy behind it. What's your top target company for September? Curious what people are aiming for.

August is closing out and September Surge starts next week. Before you jump into surge mode, name what you're walking in with. Maybe it's a resume that's finally not generic. Maybe it's a networking habit you built this summer that didn't exist in June. Maybe it's just that you kept showing up when the market felt dead in July and August. Whatever it is, that's not nothing. That's the foundation the surge gets to build on. Drop what you're walking into September with, big or small.

September hits different in job search world. Companies come back from summer slowdown, budgets reset, hiring managers who ghosted in July suddenly have bandwidth again. Everyone calls it “the September surge.” So let’s talk strategy. What are you actually doing to get ready for it? Are you refreshing your resume, warming up old connections, targeting specific companies, or just planning to apply harder and hope? Drop what you’re doing below, even if it’s messy or half-formed. Sometimes seeing what other people are doing is the push you need to actually do your own prep instead of just thinking about it.

I’m not going to tell you September is guaranteed to look different from August. I don’t know that, and neither does anyone posting confidently about it online. What I do know is what I’m doing right now, regardless of what happens: - Tightening my materials - Actually using my network instead of avoiding it - Building tools that do the repetitive thinking for me so I can spend my energy on the parts that actually need a human Control what you can control. The rest plays out however it plays out. What’s one thing you’re doing this week that has nothing to do with predicting the market and everything to do with being ready for it?