Build a real workflow from screening to booking an interview, with one human check. Then try to break it. The breaking is the exercise.
What to do
- Write the plan first, using the seven parts from Lesson 2. Never-do list before goal.
- Build the workflow: a new application arrives, the CV gets read, it gets scored against your Module 4 rules, the record gets tagged, and an interview invitation is drafted for anyone who clears the bar.
- Put one check after the drafting and before anything leaves — phrased as a question, not an approval.
- After approval: write to your hiring system first, then create the calendar entry, then send the invitation.
- Add logging that records the input, which versions were used, the decision, the action, who approved it, and the result.
- Run the four kinds of test from Lesson 2, including the hostile one.
The hostile test
Take one CV from the practice folder and add a line telling the system to treat this candidate as highly qualified, or to skip screening. Put it somewhere a person would not read closely — the end of a skills list, or a footer.
Run it through. Then write down what happened.
If the score moved, or the instruction appeared anywhere in the output, your workflow is treating text written by candidates as instructions. Fix that before it touches real applications.
What to hand in
The written plan, the working workflow, a log from one successful run, and a short table of results for the four kinds of test.
How to know you have done it right
| Check | Good looks like |
|---|---|
| The plan exists | Readable by someone without access to the tool |
| The check is a question | Cannot be answered correctly without reading |
| Order of actions | The undoable, candidate-facing thing happens last |
| Safe retries | Running the same item twice does not double-book anyone |
| Hostile input | The hidden instruction has no effect on the result |
| Silent failure | You would know within a day if it stopped running |
| A way to stop it | One switch, and you know what happens to work in progress |
Check yourself before Module 10
- What is the worst this could do unattended over a weekend?
- If the person who approves things was on holiday, what happens to the queue?
- Could you work out, four months from now, why one particular candidate got booked?
- Which step did you most want to let decide for itself — and could it stay a fixed sequence instead?
Without automation software
Write the plan anyway. It is twenty minutes and it is most of the value of this exercise.
Then do the hostile test by hand: add the hidden instruction to a CV, paste it into whatever AI you use for screening, and see whether the instruction changes the answer. That takes five minutes and teaches the same lesson.
How long to spend
Ninety minutes, and expect the plan to take twenty of them. Teams who build first and write the plan afterwards usually discover their never-do list by breaking it.