Start with The Forge
"I got a record and I need a job."
Bring your resume, a phone pic of a paper one, or nothing at all. Walk out with a resume, a cover letter and a career report. Free. No account.
steelman v3.0 -- session start
whoami
Your record is not your resume.
We forge the difference.
Got a record. Got a gap. Got doors shut in your face. We know. We built this for that. Tell it your real story. Walk out with a resume, a cover letter and a plan you can defend. Then keep going: tailor it, practice the hard conversation, find the work, track every shot you take.
Free. No account. No email. No card. No catch.
Four real Steel Man screens taped to a dark wall, numbered in order. One: a checklist asking what is in your way, with criminal record, gap in employment and recovery journey checked. Two: a career profile listing strengths and skills. Three: the Application Tailor with a live resume preview and buttons to download Word and PDF. Four: interview practice with a hiring manager.
01 / routing
Where you at right now?
Pick the one that sounds like you. Skip the rest.
Open The Refinery
"I got a plan. I need to move on it."
Free account. Everything you built in the Forge is already there. Aim the resume at the job. Plan what you say about your record. Practice the interview out loud. Find jobs. Track every one.
Coming home
"I did the Mini Forge inside. I got my code."
Your plan made it out with you. Punch in your code and PIN. It opens in The Refinery.
For organizations
"I run a program. My people need jobs."
Your people get a private workspace. Your staff get one beside it: caseload, outcomes, funder reports. Each person decides what you see. Send them through The Forge before the first meeting and start with something real instead of a blank page.
02 / the system
WHAT YOU GET
Tell us where you are. The Forge gives you papers and a direction. The Refinery helps you use them. If a program is helping you, they see only what you share. t.ROY walks you through it. Want a real person? Call Troy.
- 01The ForgeFree. No account. Tell it your story. Leave with a resume, a cover letter and a career report.
- 02The RefineryFree account. Your own private shop for the whole job hunt.
- 03t.ROYYour guide. Knows where you are. Knows what it is not allowed to know.
- 04The Mini ForgeSeven quick questions on a shared or facility device. You leave with a code. The code brings your plan home.
- 05CrucibleFor programs. Case managers work beside you and see only what you choose to share. Available to programs by arrangement.
- 06GuidesSeventeen free guides. Straight answers to the hard questions.
- 07Research150+ peer-reviewed citations behind the method. We did the reading.
03 / no games
Here is what is real
Six things you can check for yourself.
NO ACCOUNT. REAL PAPERS.
A resume, a phone pic of one, or nothing. You leave with a resume, a cover letter and a career report, in Word and PDF. You never have to sign up.
EVERY LINE CHECKED AGAINST YOUR WORDS
In the Forge a second AI checks every line against what YOU said. If it cannot trace a detail to your own words, it cuts it, and the page tells you what it found. A job posting is never proof. Only you are.
YOUR RECORD STAYS YOUR CALL
Planning how to talk about your record? We ask before any detail goes to the AI. Say no and you still get a solid script, written without the AI seeing a thing about it.
NO FAKE BADGES
A job gets marked as an employer that hires people with records only when the employer's name exactly matches one a real person on our team put on the list. The AI does not get a vote.
LOCKED AT THE DATABASE
Your resumes, applications, profile, the index of your vault files and your progress history can be read only through your own account. That is a rule in the database itself, not a line in a policy.
YOUR PROGRAM SEES WHAT YOU SAY IT SEES
Off until you turn it on. Even then they see how far along you are. Never your resume, your plan or your practice. No program can see or demand your disclosure plan, your interview practice or what is in your vault.
Open source / AGPL-3.0
The Forge, The Refinery and Crucible source code is public under AGPL-3.0, so organizations can inspect it, learn from it, deploy it, and build on it.
04 / for organizations
A workspace beside theirs.
Crucible is the organization side of Steel Man. Your participants get a private workspace for the whole job search. Your staff get a workspace beside it: a caseload, outcomes and funder reporting. Each person decides what crosses between them.
Organization boundaries are enforced by the database itself, not only by application code.
Available to programs by arrangement.
Three bell curves shifted progressively to the right
05 / field evidence
Real work. Real results.
"Turned my resume from a bland resume and gave it life. They used the Steel Man approach and got me back into the workforce after years of gaps."
Berto R -- Google Review
A finished resume and evidence of forward progress.
Built with community behind it
Thank you for helping move the curve.
With thanks to Reentry United 2026, our host, and EXPO of Wisconsin, our sponsor. Support like this helps keep the tools free and moves the work into rooms where it can be challenged, improved, and used.
Quit waiting. Start.
No account. No email. No card. Bring a resume, a phone pic of one, or nothing at all.
start nowBack for your Refinery work: go to your dashboard →
Coming home with a Mini Forge code: enter it here →