Job hunting still sucks — but here’s what actually works

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Originally written by Ben Thoma — Marketing Leader and digital advertising professional (Atlassian, Khoros, Razorfish alum).
This post summarizes the strategies from his article published April 30, 2026. Read the original on LinkedIn ↗

Job hunting in 2026 is brutal — but not hopeless. Ben Thoma recently shared a detailed breakdown of what actually moved the needle for him during his spring job search. Here are the key takeaways.

  1. It’s a volume game — embrace it

The instinct to craft one perfect application for one perfect role will hurt you. The market has changed: sending tailored applications at scale is now the baseline expectation. Pragmatism beats idealism when you need to pay rent.

  1. Apply early, or don’t bother

Postings can close within hours of going live. If a listing is more than a week old, your odds are already thin. The real edge is catching roles in the first 24 hours.

LinkedIn tip: Add &f_TPR=r3600 to any LinkedIn Jobs URL to filter for postings from the past hour (3,600 seconds). For Indeed users, the JobScrub Chrome extension shows how long a posting has been live and how many people have already applied.

  1. Tailor every single resume

Applicant tracking systems now read your resume before any human does, and they’re looking for keyword alignment with the job description. Build a strong master resume with verb-led bullet points and quantifiable outcomes, then customize each version. Thoma used Resume Worded to score versions against the job description — aiming for 85+ before submitting.

Put the exact job title from the posting at the top of your resume. Trim your years of experience to match what the role specifies. Consider removing your graduation year.

  1. Referrals help — but don’t rely on them

A referral can get a recruiter to look at your resume. That’s it. Keep applying in parallel.

  1. Nail “tell me about yourself”

Every interviewer asks it. Prepare a tight, value-focused answer that leads with what you uniquely bring — not a recitation of your job history.

  1. Practice interviews out loud with AI

Give an AI the job description and what you know about the interviewer. Switch to voice mode and run a mock interview. Speaking out loud reveals where your thinking stalls and builds real confidence.

  1. Protect your time and energy

Thoma applied to 3–8 roles per week — not 40-hour grind sessions. Job searching has diminishing returns if you push too hard. He recommends The 2-Hour Job Search as a framework.

The bottom line: the system is frustrating, but you’re not. You are worthy of a good job, and you will find one.

Full credit to Ben Thoma for the original research and insights. Read the original article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/job-hunting-still-sucks-what-worked-me-ben-thoma-1d2rc/

Copy books from Kindle to Kobo

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Found this on internet: (March 2026) I imported my stuff from Kindle to Kobo, Here’s how i did it (repost)

(March 2026) I imported my stuff from Kindle to Kobo, Here’s how i did it

(March 2026) I imported my stuff from Kindle to Kobo, Here’s how i did it

DISCLAIMER: MAKE SURE YOU OWN THE CONTENT! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF JEFF BEZO APPEARS AT YOUR FRONT DOOR

  1. download calibre from the calibre website and old Kindle version from https://kindleforpc.s3.amazonaws.com/70904/KindleForPC-installer-2.4.70904.exe
  2. turn off your wifi and unplug ethernet
  3. run the kindle installer
  4. open kindle
  5. go to tools > options > turn off auto updates
  6. install calibre
  7. turn on wifi
  8. sign in to kindle
  9. download kfwinput by going to calibre > preferences > plugins > get new plugins > type KFXinput > select KFXINPUT
  10. download DeDRM zip from github ( google it)
  11. unzip the dedrm
  12. calibre > preferences > plugins > import plugin > select DeDRM\_plugin.zip inside the unzipped file (if you get an ___init.py___error make sure you unzip the original DeDRM file you downloaded)
  13. go to kindle and click the 3 dots on the book you want to transfer then select download
  14. go to calibre and click add books
  15. go to documents\\my kindle content\\\[Something with “EBOK” in it\] then select the azw file
  16. in calibre make sure you:

\- see the book cover (if you don’t download KFWinput)

\- see that the file type is “KFX” and NOT “KFX-ZIP” (if it’s KFXzip turn your WiFi off when you download Kindle)

17. click convert books

18. click ePub and press go or start or whatever

19. wait a few seconds

20. connect your kobo

20a. wait a few seconds until you see “kobo xx ” on the bottom left

21. right click the book

22. send to device

23. done!

How I Stopped Hitting Claude’s Usage Limits (10 Simple Habits)

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Originally posted by kaize on X

For a long time, I blamed Claude for being too restrictive. Then I realized I was thinking about it all wrong.

Claude doesn’t count messages — it counts tokens. Once that clicked, everything changed. Here are the 10 habits that dramatically cut my token usage and kept me well within my limits.

1. Edit Your Prompt — Don’t Send a Follow-Up

When Claude misses the mark, the temptation is to fire back with “No, I meant…” or “That’s not what I wanted…” Resist that urge.

Every follow-up message gets added to the conversation history, and Claude re-reads all of it on every single turn. The token cost isn’t linear — it’s quadratic:

Total tokens = S × N(N+1) / 2 (S = avg tokens per exchange, N = number of messages)

At ~500 tokens per exchange:

  • 5 messages → 7,500 tokens
  • 10 messages → 27,500 tokens
  • 20 messages → 105,000 tokens
  • 30 messages → 232,000 tokens

Message 30 costs 31× more than message 1.

What to do instead: Click Edit on your original message, fix it, and regenerate. The old exchange is replaced — not stacked on top.

2. Start a Fresh Chat Every 15–20 Messages

Long conversations are brutal on your token budget. A 100+ message chat at ~500 tokens per exchange burns over 2.5 million tokens — the vast majority of which is just re-reading old history.

One developer tracked his usage and found that 98.5% of tokens went toward re-reading context. Only 1.5% was actually generating output.

What to do instead: When a chat gets long, ask Claude to summarize the conversation, copy that summary, open a new chat, and paste it as your first message.

3. Batch Your Questions Into One Message

Splitting questions across multiple messages feels more natural, but it’s one of the costliest habits you can have. Three separate prompts means three full context loads.

Instead of:

  • “Summarize this article”
  • “Now list the main points”
  • “Now suggest a headline”

Write: “Summarize this article, list the main points, and suggest a headline.”

You save tokens and often get better answers — Claude sees the full picture from the start.

4. Upload Recurring Files to Projects

Every time you upload the same PDF to a new chat, Claude re-tokenizes it from scratch. If you work with contracts, briefs, style guides, or any long documents, this adds up fast.

What to do instead: Use the Projects feature. Upload your file once, and it gets cached. Every conversation inside that project can reference it without burning tokens again.

5. Set Up Memory & User Preferences

How many times have you opened a new chat and typed something like “I’m a marketer, I write in a casual tone, keep paragraphs short…”? Those setup messages are pure token waste.

What to do instead: Go to Settings → Memory and User Settings and save your role, communication style, and preferences once. Claude will apply them automatically to every new chat.

6. Turn Off Features You’re Not Using

Web search, connectors, and Explore mode all add tokens to every response — even when you don’t need them.

  • Writing your own content? Turn off Search and Tools.
  • Not doing complex reasoning? Keep Advanced Thinking off by default, and only enable it if your first attempt falls short.

Rule of thumb: If you didn’t turn it on intentionally, turn it off.

7. Use Haiku for Simple Tasks

Grammar checks, brainstorming, formatting, quick translations — Claude Haiku handles all of this at a fraction of the cost of Sonnet or Opus.

A simple mental model:

  • Haiku → quick, simple tasks (low cost)
  • Sonnet → real work (medium cost)
  • Opus → deep, complex thinking (high cost)

Routing simple tasks to Haiku can free up 50–70% of your budget for work that actually needs a more powerful model.

8. Spread Your Work Across the Day

Claude uses a rolling 5-hour window — not a midnight reset. Messages sent at 9 AM won’t count against you by 2 PM.

If you blow through your limit in one morning session, you’re leaving most of your daily allowance on the table.

What to do instead: Break your day into 2–3 sessions (morning, afternoon, evening). By the time you return, your earlier usage has rolled off and your limit has refreshed.

9. Work During Off-Peak Hours

As of March 26, 2026, Anthropic adjusts how quickly your 5-hour limit is consumed based on demand. During peak hours — 5–11 AM Pacific / 8 AM–2 PM Eastern on weekdays — the same query costs more against your limit than it would off-peak.

Your weekly allowance doesn’t change, but shifting heavy tasks to evenings or weekends stretches it significantly. If you’re in Europe, Latin America, or Asia, peak hours may fall during your afternoon — worth checking based on your time zone.

10. Enable Extra Usage as a Safety Net

If you’re on a Pro, Max 5x, or Max 20x plan, consider enabling Overage under Settings → Usage.

When your session limit runs out, Claude doesn’t cut you off — it switches to pay-as-you-go billing at API rates. You set a monthly spending cap so there are no surprise charges.

This isn’t about saving tokens. It’s about not losing your work at the worst possible moment.

The Bottom Line

These habits feel like a lot at first. But once they’re second nature, hitting your limit becomes a rare event. You may even find yourself downgrading from a max plan — because you simply don’t need it anymore.

Claude doesn’t count messages. It counts tokens. Use them wisely.

5 Tips of How to use AI to super boost your job interview preparation

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https://www.loom.com/share/bce85f4a27a04c53b3f7ed8d57b1bcd2

Here’s the transcript cleaned up and formatted for WordPress:

Preparing for Job Interviews Using AI: 5 Game-Changing Tips

Preparing for a job interview can be intimidating. You don’t know what questions they’ll ask, whether you’re fully prepared, or if they’ll throw tough curveball questions at you. And interviews aren’t just technical tests — they’re psychological tests too. Your level of nervousness directly affects the quality of your answers.

The good news? There’s one thing that can help you overcome that anxiety: good preparation. The more prepared you are, the more confident you’ll feel. And one of the most efficient ways to prepare is by using AI.

Here are five ways to supercharge your interview prep using AI.

1. Analyze the Job Description

Start by copying the job description into a tool like ChatGPT and asking it to extract key skills, phrases, and qualifications. This gives you an instant roadmap of what the company is looking for.

Example prompt:

Analyze this job description and identify the top skills, key responsibilities, and any specific qualifications mentioned. Be specific with examples.

The result will help you align your experience and skills to the role — which is exactly what employers care about.

2. Craft Your STAR Stories

The STAR method is a storytelling technique used to demonstrate your skills and experiences. STAR stands for:

  • Situation — the background context
  • Task — the challenge or responsibility you faced
  • Action — what you did to address it
  • Result — the outcome

Example prompt:

Generate 10 behavioral interview questions for a [Software Engineer / DevOps Engineer] role using the STAR method.

Once you have your questions, write out real stories from your own experience for each one. Then bring them back to AI to refine and improve them.

Follow-up prompt:

Here is my response to a question about overcoming a challenge. Can you improve the clarity and impact using the STAR method?

3. Practice with an AI Mock Interviewer

Mock interviews are the best way to prepare, but it’s not always easy to find someone to practice with. AI can fill that gap.

Example prompt:

Pretend you are an interviewer for a DevOps Engineer role that requires [list of skills and responsibilities]. Ask me five difficult questions, then analyze my answers and suggest improvements.

This lets you practice with an interviewer that understands the role and can give you expert, detailed feedback.

4. Research the Company and Your Interviewer

Interviewers often ask questions specifically designed to find out whether you’ve done your homework. Candidates who research the company show genuine interest — and that matters.

Example prompt:

Tell me about the company culture at [Company Name] and any recent projects or initiatives. Also provide any professional background on [Interviewer Name], if available.

This gives you conversation starters, helps you personalize your answers, and shows your interviewer that you’re serious about the role.

5. Prepare Thoughtful Questions to Ask the Interviewer

This is arguably the most overlooked tip — and it can give you a huge advantage. At the end of your interview, asking smart, thoughtful questions signals that you’re thinking about adding value, not just collecting a paycheck.

A great example question to ask:

“What are a few things I’d need to know to make sure I can do my job the best if I’m hired for this role?”

Example prompt to generate more questions like this:

Suggest some unique questions to ask my interviewer at [Company Name], focusing on culture, growth opportunities, and team dynamics.

Wrapping Up

Using AI for interview prep isn’t cheating — it’s smart preparation. By combining these five strategies, you’ll walk into your next interview more confident, more aligned with the role, and more impressive than the competition.