Purpose
Compare a candidate's current profile against a specific target role and surface the exact gaps that stand between them and a competitive application — then rank those gaps by impact and effort and deliver a concrete development plan to close them. Replaces vague self-assessment with a structured, evidence-based readiness score.
When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Benchmark their resume against a specific job description
- Find out what's missing before applying for a target role
- Decide which skills or experiences to build before a job switch
- Prepare a case for an internal promotion or lateral move
- Evaluate how competitive they are for a role they want
- Build a focused development plan tied to a career target
Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- Current resume: Full resume text, or a detailed summary of roles, skills, and accomplishments
- Target job description: The full posting or a detailed description of the target role
- Target timeline: When they want to be ready to apply (e.g., 3 months, 6 months, 1 year)
- Current title and level: Where they sit today vs. the target level
- Constraints: Time per week available for development, budget for courses/certs, geographic or industry limits
- Transferable assets: Adjacent experience, projects, or skills they think might count but aren't on the resume yet
If timeline or constraints are missing, assume a 6-month horizon with 5 hours/week of development time and note the assumption.
Instructions
Step 1: Decompose the Target Role
Break the target job description into a structured requirements map across four dimensions:
- Hard skills: Technical capabilities, tools, methodologies, certifications named or implied
- Experience requirements: Years, scope, team size, budget owned, domain depth
- Credentials: Degrees, certifications, clearances, licenses
- Impact signals: The outcomes the role expects (revenue grown, systems shipped, teams led, processes built)
For each requirement, label it Must-have (explicitly required or table-stakes) or Nice-to-have (preferred, differentiating). Distinguish stated requirements from inferred ones — most postings under-specify, so infer the unstated expectations of the level and function.
Step 2: Map the Current Profile Against Each Requirement
For each requirement from Step 1, find the strongest evidence in the resume and score the match:
- Strong — clear, recent, role-relevant evidence
- Partial — adjacent or dated evidence, or evidence at a smaller scope than required
- Missing — no evidence present
Be strict about evidence. A skill listed without a result attached to it is Partial, not Strong. Pull transferable assets the user mentioned into this mapping even if they aren't on the resume yet, and flag them as "present but unsurfaced."
Step 3: Calculate Readiness Score
Produce a single readiness percentage and a per-dimension breakdown:
- Weight Must-haves at 3x Nice-to-haves
- Score Strong = full credit, Partial = half credit, Missing = zero
- Report overall readiness % plus a score for each of the four dimensions
- State the verdict plainly: Ready to apply (≥80%), Apply with positioning work (60–79%), Build first (40–59%), or Significant gap (<40%)
Step 4: Prioritize the Gaps
Rank every Missing and Partial requirement on a 2x2 of Impact (how much it affects candidacy) × Effort (time/cost to close). Sort into four tiers:
- Close now — high impact, low effort (quick wins; often surfacing existing experience or a short cert)
- Invest in — high impact, high effort (the real development work; sequence these first by timeline)
- Opportunistic — low impact, low effort (do if convenient)
- Skip or de-emphasize — low impact, high effort (positioning around these beats closing them)
Step 5: Build the Development Plan
For each gap in "Close now" and "Invest in," specify a concrete action:
- What to do: A named course, project, certification, stretch assignment, or portfolio artifact — not "learn X"
- How long: Realistic time-to-competency given the user's weekly availability
- Proof of completion: The resume bullet or portfolio piece this produces
- Sequence: Order the actions into a timeline that fits the target date, front-loading high-impact items
Map the plan onto a 90-day milestone view (or the user's timeline if shorter), with a checkpoint at the midpoint.
Step 6: Positioning Recommendations
For gaps being skipped or de-emphasized, recommend how to position around them — reframing adjacent experience, leading with strengths, or addressing the gap proactively in a cover letter. Identify the 2–3 unsurfaced assets that should be added to the resume immediately.
Output Format
- Structure: Requirements map → readiness scorecard → prioritized gap matrix → development plan with timeline → positioning notes
- Length: 900–1,300 words
- Format: Mixed — requirements and gaps as tables; development plan as a sequenced numbered list; verdict and positioning as concise prose
- Sections: Target Role Breakdown → Readiness Scorecard (overall % + 4 dimensions + verdict) → Prioritized Gap Matrix (4 tiers) → 90-Day Development Plan → Positioning & Quick Wins
- Tone: Honest career strategist — direct about gaps, specific about the path, never inflates readiness to be encouraging
Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Every target requirement is labeled Must-have or Nice-to-have and scored Strong/Partial/Missing
- [ ] The readiness score includes an overall % and a per-dimension breakdown, with a stated verdict tier
- [ ] Each gap in "Close now" and "Invest in" has a named action, a duration, and a defined proof of completion — no "learn X" placeholders
- [ ] The development plan is sequenced to fit the stated timeline, not just listed
- [ ] At least 2 unsurfaced transferable assets are identified for immediate resume addition (or it's stated none exist)
- [ ] Skills listed without supporting results were scored Partial, not Strong
Notes
- The most common error is over-scoring the candidate — when in doubt, score down. A candidate who applies before they're ready loses more than one who builds for an extra month.
- Many "gaps" are actually positioning problems: the experience exists but isn't surfaced. Catch these in Step 2 before recommending new development work.
- For internal promotions, weight impact signals and scope over credentials — the bar is "can you operate at the next level," not "do you have the badge."
- If the target job description is thin, infer the unstated level expectations from the title and function rather than scoring only against literal text.
How to use this skill
This file is a Claude Code skill in Anthropic's standard format — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.
Installing in Claude Code:
~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)
Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.
Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:
- Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
- Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits
For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills