How to use Hired Aura
Five minutes, once
Hired Aura is not a normal app. It has no window sitting on your desktop, no icon in your taskbar, and no entry in Alt-Tab. That is the entire point — but it does mean the first thing to learn is where it actually is.
Finding it: the tray icon
Look for a small blue gear with a wrench in your system tray, next to the clock — it looks like an ordinary system tool, which is the point. On Windows you may need to click the ^ arrow to show hidden icons; Windows hides new tray icons by default. Drag it out to keep it visible.
Hover it and it says “System Utility”. Right-click for the menu: show or hide the assistant, start a practice run, open settings, restart, or quit.
Why it's a generic icon and not our logo
This is deliberate, and worth understanding before you decide whether the product is for you.
The tray is visible in a screen share. So is the process list, the taskbar, and the Alt-Tab switcher. A branded icon with our mascot sitting next to your clock would announce exactly what you are running to everyone on the call — which would defeat the feature you installed the app for.
So the tray icon is an anonymous gear-and-wrench that reads as a system tool, the process is
named SystemUtility, and the tooltip reads “System Utility”. Nothing about any of
it points at us. Our branding appears only inside the app's own windows,
which are excluded from capture. You will see the logo in Settings and the setup wizard; you
will not see it anywhere the operating system might put it on screen.
A generic name is not invisibility. Anyone with access to your machine — or any monitoring or proctoring software installed on it — can see the process running, whatever it is called. The capture exclusion protects the overlay window in a screen share. It is not a defence against software that inspects your computer, and it is not a guarantee. Run the built-in stealth test on your own machine before relying on it, and read the Terms.
Downloading and installing
Hired Aura is a Windows desktop app. Download the installer, run it, and the setup window opens by itself the first time.
You will see a blue “Windows protected your PC” screen. Click More info, then Run anyway.
That is Microsoft SmartScreen. It appears because the app is not yet code signed, and SmartScreen shows it for any installer it has not seen downloaded enough times to recognise — regardless of what the software actually does. It is a statement about how new and how rare the file is, not a finding about whether it is safe.
We would rather tell you this now than have it ambush you. A signing certificate is coming; until then, if clicking past a warning is not something you are comfortable doing, waiting is a perfectly reasonable choice.
One consequence worth knowing: until the app is signed, it cannot apply an update silently the way most apps do. It still fetches one for you — a banner appears in the setup window when a new version exists, and pressing Download pulls the installer down inside the app, checks it against the published checksum, and offers to run it. Your settings, resume and history are kept.
Nothing installs on its own, and nothing interrupts a session. The check runs in the background about a minute after launch; you can also force it from Settings → About.
Is there a Mac version?
Not yet — and we would rather explain why than leave it at “coming soon”.
A macOS build exists and runs. The problem is not the app, it is the operating system: macOS provides no way for an app to record what other applications are playing. On Windows, that is how Hired Aura hears the interviewer. Without it, the app can transcribe you and read your screen, but the other side of the call is silent to it — which is most of the product.
There is a workaround, and we are not going to pretend it is a pleasant one: a loopback audio driver such as BlackHole, with the meeting routed through it. It works. It is also a kernel extension, several steps of setup, and not something we are willing to put in front of someone minutes before an interview and call it ready.
So the honest position: the Mac build is not recommended yet. We are working on making the screen-reading side good enough to stand on its own there, which would make the audio gap survivable rather than fatal. When that lands, the Mac version ships properly — signed, notarised, and without a list of caveats.
If you are on a Mac and want it, say so at support@hiredaura.com. Knowing how many people are waiting is what decides how fast it moves.
Setting up
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Install and open it
The setup window opens on first launch. If you close it, reopen from the tray icon: right-click → Setup & Settings.
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Connect the AI
Either sign in with your Hired Aura account under Account, or add your own OpenAI and Deepgram keys under API Keys. Keys are verified before they are saved, so a typo surfaces there rather than mid-interview.
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Add your resume and the job description
This is what separates a useful answer from a generic one. Every answer is built from your actual roles, projects and numbers — with no resume, it has nothing to work with.
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Run the stealth test
It hides the overlay, captures your screen, shows the overlay, captures again, and compares the two. If the panel appears in the second capture, it tells you plainly that stealth is not working on your machine. Do this before you rely on it.
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Practice first
Run a practice round before anything real. It teaches you the keyboard shortcuts while nothing is at stake, and shows you how the answers read.
During a session
The overlay stays hidden until you ask for it. Everything is driven by keyboard, because reaching for a mouse mid-answer is the most obvious thing you can do on camera.
- Press Ctrl + Shift + Space to start listening.
- When the interviewer asks something, the answer streams into the panel on its own.
- For a question shown on screen rather than spoken — a coding prompt, a diagram — press Ctrl + Shift + S to read the screen instead.
- If you need it gone now, Ctrl + Shift + P hides everything instantly.
Every shortcut
All of these work while another app has focus. Remappable in Settings → Shortcuts.
| Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+Shift+Space | Start or stop listening |
| Ctrl+Shift+H | Show or hide the overlay |
| Ctrl+Shift+P | Panic hide — everything disappears immediately |
| Ctrl+Shift+S | Read the screen and answer what's on it |
| Ctrl+Shift+C | Copy the current answer |
| Ctrl+Shift+R | Regenerate the answer |
| Ctrl+Shift+M | Cycle size: full → compact → dot → hidden |
| Ctrl+Shift+T | Show or hide the live transcript |
| Ctrl+Shift+O | Raise the overlay opacity |
| Ctrl+Shift+↑ / ↓ | Scroll the answer |
| Ctrl+Shift+1 / 2 / 3 | Answer style: concise, detailed, STAR |
| Ctrl+Shift+N | New session — clears the transcript and answers |
| Ctrl+Shift+Q | Emergency quit. Reserved and not remappable, so there is always a guaranteed way to close the app even if the tray icon is missing. |
If something goes wrong
You can't find the tray icon
On Windows, click the ^ arrow next to the clock to show hidden icons, then drag the gear icon onto the visible part of the tray so it stays there. If it is not in the hidden tray either, the app is not running — launch it again.
The app is stuck or behaving oddly
Right-click the tray icon → Restart Assistant. That is a clean restart, not a force quit. If the tray icon has gone entirely, press Ctrl + Shift + Q to quit and launch again.
Nothing is being transcribed
Live mode needs your computer's audio output, which usually means wearing headphones. Without them, the interviewer's voice reaches your microphone as well, both channels carry both voices, and the app cannot tell who said what.
The stealth test fails
Some GPU configurations, remote desktop sessions, and virtual machines prevent capture exclusion from working. If the test fails, the overlay will be visible to anyone you share your screen with. Do not use live assistance on that machine.