The IdealJob browser extension: ask Scout about any job you open, then fill the application

Most of a job search happens in a browser tab you did not open IdealJob in: a LinkedIn posting a friend sent, a role on a company's careers page, an Indeed search. The IdealJob extension puts Scout, our job search assistant, next to that tab. Open a job, and the panel reads it; ask, and it answers from the posting and your CV.

It is free, for Chrome and Firefox. Here is what it does and how to use it.

What you can ask on a job page

Open a posting and click the IdealJob icon. The panel opens beside the page with the role at the top: title, company, location, the pay the posting states, and the company's logo when the page shows one. Underneath, Scout waits with a few questions you can tap:

• Am I a good fit? Scout reads the posting against your CV and answers in sections: what matches, what is missing, and what to say about the gaps. If you analyzed the role on the web, its score out of 100 is there too.
• What does it pay? The posting's own figure when it states one. When it does not, Scout answers from IdealJob's salary data for the role and the place, and says that is where the number comes from.
• Likely questions and a prep plan: the questions this kind of company asks for this kind of role, and a plan for the days before the interview, built from the posting's wording.
• Who else is hiring? Other companies with the same role open now, from the postings IdealJob gathers every morning.
• People I know there (Premium): people at the company who share your school, a past employer or your country, with a note you can send.

You can also type anything. "Save it to my applications", "I applied to this one", "remember I can't relocate" and "what are my applications" all work, because the extension talks to the same Scout as the web, with the role in front of it. Every role becomes a thread in Scout on the web, under a chat called Roles from the extension, so you can carry on there.

Filling the application

Switch to the Autofill tab on an application form. The extension finds the form, including the Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby forms embedded on company sites, and fills what it knows: your name and contact details, your links, your CV as a file, and every job and school from your CV with dates in forms that ask for each one, such as Workday's work experience.

The questions every form asks, you answer once in Your answers: where you can work without a visa, whether you need sponsorship, your salary, your notice period, relocation. They are kept on your browser and filled on the next form. Without an answer set, the extension leaves the question to you; it never guesses.

Multi step forms such as LinkedIn Easy Apply and Workday are read again at each step. On Premium, Draft my answers writes the open questions and a cover letter from your CV, and Tailor to this job makes a CV for the posting, change by change, that the form gets as a PDF.

Two things it never does: overwrite what is already in a field, and press Submit. You review every answer and send the application yourself. When the site confirms it, the job is marked applied in your tracker.

Where it works

The panel reads a job the way search engines do, from the structured data most careers pages publish, with readers for the big sites on top. LinkedIn (including the two pane job search and Easy Apply), Indeed, Glassdoor, Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable, Workday and SmartRecruiters work, and so does a posting on a company's own site. On LinkedIn and Indeed result lists, roles you analyzed on the web show their score next to the title.

What it reads and keeps

The extension reads the page you have open, in your browser, to tell whether it is a job posting or an application form. When the panel is open on a job, the posting's link, title and text go to IdealJob so Scout can answer. Your sign in, your saved answers and the drafts you edit stay on your browser; your chats are on your IdealJob account, like on the web. It asks for access to every site because job postings live on any domain, and it only acts on postings and forms. Signing out ends its access on every browser.

Installing it

1. Add it from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons. Edge, Brave, Opera and Arc install the Chrome version.
2. Click the IdealJob icon and sign in with your email or with Google. A free account is enough; the CV on it is what Scout and Autofill use.
3. Open a job posting. The panel reads it, and the first question is a tap away.

All of it is on the extension page, with the questions people ask before installing.