For your LinkedIn post
You applied. Now meet the people behind the posting.
Tell Past the Post where you applied. It finds people at each company you share something with, plus the team and recruiters, links their LinkedIn profiles and writes a short first message. Then it helps you turn replies into coffee chats and referrals.
Free with Claude or ChatGPT You send every message
Jordan Lee
Sales Coordinator · Acme Foods
Hi Jordan, fellow alum here (junior, marketing). I just applied for Acme's Summer Sales internship. What do you wish you'd known before joining the sales team?
Your outreach 2 replies
6sent
2replies
1chat
Referrals are the shortcut most students skip
30–50%of hires come from referrals, which are only 6–7% of applications
88%of employers call referrals their best source of quality candidates
10 daysfaster to hire through a referral (29 vs 39)
Sources: Zippia, SHRM and Forbes Agency Council, compiled by Chanty.
Step 1
Start from applications you've already sent
This isn't another job board. Add the companies and roles you applied to, or fill them straight from your tracker, and Past the Post works on getting you noticed for those.
Step 2
Shared ground first, each one confirmed and linked
For each application it looks for people you share something with: your school, hometown, a club or a past employer. Then former interns, the team and the recruiter. Each one has a LinkedIn profile link, and every shared-ground claim is checked against a source.
Step 3 and 4
From first message to coffee chat to referral
Each note fits LinkedIn's 200-character limit, mentions something specific from their profile and asks for a quick 15-minute chat. When someone replies, you get a chat prep sheet, and if it goes well, a short referral ask for that exact role.
Open the tracker- Tailored resume
Matched to the posting, using only what's true.
- Coffee chat prep
Their background, your intro and questions to ask.
- You stay in control
It never sends, applies or connects for you.
Questions
Is it free?
Yes. Try it hands the search to your own Claude or ChatGPT account, and both have free plans. Nothing is charged to you or anyone else.
Is this a job board?
No. Simplify, Intern Insider and others already find jobs. Past the Post starts after you apply and helps you reach the people at those companies.
Does it send messages for me?
No. It drafts them and you review and send each one yourself on LinkedIn.
Do I need an account?
Not on this site. You need a free Claude or ChatGPT account: Try it fills in a new chat for you, it searches, and you paste the results back here as cards with links and notes. The full skill with Clay connected finds more people if you want to go deeper.
Where is my data stored?
Your tracker lives only in your own browser. When you use Try it, your answers are sent to Claude to run the search and aren't saved by this site. Use Back up on the Tracker page to keep a copy.
Does it only find alumni?
No. Alumni are a great start, but it also looks for people from your hometown, clubs or past jobs, former interns, the team you applied to and the recruiter. It works for any school.
Reviewing my work?
Built by Bruce Hinson, Texas A&M marketing
I built Past the Post during my own internship search: the Claude skill, this site, and a serverless backend that runs the search. The case study covers the decisions and what testing changed.
Every application deserves a person behind it.
Add where you applied. Free with your Claude or ChatGPT account.
Try it
Already applied? Tell us where. Past the Post finds people at each company you share something with, plus the team and recruiters, links their LinkedIn profiles and writes your first message, so your application has a person behind it.
Starting
Step 2: paste the results back
In the new Claude tab, press Send if your message is waiting there. When it finishes (usually a minute or two), it ends with a block of results. Click Copy on that block and paste it here.
- 1Reach out
- 2Track replies
- 3Coffee chat
- 4Ask for a referral
1. Reach out to the people behind each application
Copy the note, open their LinkedIn profile, click Connect, then Add a note. Start with people you share something with: they're the most likely to reply.
2. Track every reply
3. When someone replies, book it and prep for the chat
If they say yes, press They said yes: copy times for a reply that offers two specific times. Then press They replied: prep me. You get their background, your 20-second intro, questions to ask and a thank-you note.
4. If the chat goes well, ask for a referral
The prep sheet ends with a short, easy-to-decline referral ask for that exact role. Send it after the chat, never in the first message.
Results come from public web search and can be wrong. Check each profile before you send. Want the deeper version with resume tailoring? Use the full skill.
Setup
About ten minutes, once. Tick each item as you go; your progress is saved in this browser.
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Free plans work. Open Claude or open ChatGPT.
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Clay finds alumni at each company. The free plan includes 100 data credits and 500 actions a month, enough for a few batches. Sign up for Clay free. Then connect it in Claude under Settings, Connectors (ChatGPT may not offer a Clay connection). Without Clay, the tool uses web search instead.
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So the tool can start with people you already know. On LinkedIn (desktop): Me, Settings & Privacy, Data privacy, Get a copy of your data. Choose Connections if it's listed, otherwise the larger archive. LinkedIn emails a download link. Share only
Connections.csv, never the whole archive. -
A PDF or plain text, if you want it tailored to a posting.
The full skill
The deeper version, for Claude or ChatGPT: it can use your LinkedIn connections, Clay and your resume. Do the one-time setup, paste the skill into a new chat, then work through the steps.
1. Give your AI the skill
Copy the skill, open a new chat in Claude or ChatGPT, paste it in and send. In Claude you can also download it and add it as a skill in settings.
2. Work through the steps
Read the full skill
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Tracker
Every message and application in one place. Change a status and the numbers update. Saved in this browser only.
People
0messages sent
0replies
0coffee chats
Applications
0applied
0interviews
People
| Person | Company | Sent | Status | Remove |
|---|
Applications
| Role | Company | Applied | Status | Remove |
|---|
Add a message or application
How it was built
I built Past the Post during my own Summer 2027 internship search as a junior marketing major at Texas A&M. Every rule in it came from something that went wrong or right in real use.
The problem
Applying online feels like sending resumes into a void. Referrals are a small share of applications but a large share of hires, yet most students don't know who to message or what to say. I wanted a tool that does the research and leaves the conversations to me.
How it works
Decisions that came from testing
- Check postings on the company's own site. Job boards keep closed and last-year listings up. A posting only counts if its application page loads and its title matches the right term.
- Identify companies by LinkedIn URL, not web domain. In testing, searching by domain matched the wrong company: pga.org returned a small fund in Florida and topgolf.com returned Topgolf Abu Dhabi.
- Confirm every alumnus one by one. Clay's school filter matched loosely and returned people from other schools. Similar names don't count either: Texas A&M-Commerce is not Texas A&M. About 1 in 9 current marketing and recruiting staff at a target company turned out to be alumni.
- Prefer recent graduates. People 1 to 4 years out remember the internship search and are more likely to reply.
- Show you looked, then ask for 15 minutes. Each note names one specific thing from their profile, like a career move or promotion, then asks for a quick 15-minute chat. My first note written this way turned into a booked call within an hour.
- Apply first, then message the same day. Programs review applications as they arrive, so waiting on a referral is the bigger risk.
- Be honest about tools. I tested Apollo as a second people source and found its people search needs a paid plan, so the setup now says so instead of promising it's free.
Results so far
On my own search: 10 open Dallas-Fort Worth internships found and verified, 3 applications, 6 LinkedIn messages sent and 1 reply, all logged in the tracker.
What's next
- Feedback from other students testing it.
- A desktop version.
Adapted from Use AI to Meet People at Companies You Want to Work For by Angus the Nontechnical. Source code on GitHub.
Connect!
I'm Bruce Hinson, a junior marketing major at Texas A&M looking for a Summer 2027 sales or marketing internship in Dallas-Fort Worth. I built Past the Post during my own search.
Let's talk
Tried Past the Post, have feedback, or want to talk about an internship? Send me a connection request on LinkedIn.