Job Hunting With Intention: Part 2 — During the Application
Many people treat job searches with the same apathy that they treat their lives. It's no wonder very few people get any results. JADE Consult, your academic and career consultancy, has resolved to take you through a 3 part series to educate you about the things that you need to know in order to job hunt with intention and find a great job quickly and effectively. In Part 1, we covered what to get right before you send a single application: knowing what you want, building a target company list, treating the search like a job, and auditing your digital presence. If you've done that groundwork, you're no longer applying blindly; you're applying with direction. Now comes the part most people rush through: the application itself. This is where intention either shows up on the page or it doesn't.
Tip 1: Tailor, Don't Template
A CV that's been adjusted for every role will always beat one that's been sent fifty times unchanged. This doesn't mean rewriting your CV from scratch each time; it means reordering your achievements, adjusting your language to match the role, and making sure the first third of the page answers the question, "Why is this person the best for this job?" before the reader even gets to your work history.
Tip 2: Mirror the Job Description's Language
Most companies use applicant tracking systems before a human ever sees your CV. Beyond the technical reason to mirror keywords, there's a simpler one: hiring managers wrote that job description in the language they think in. If your application speaks back to them in that same language, it reads as a natural fit rather than a translation exercise.
Tip 3: Write a Cover Letter That Earns Its Place
A cover letter that restates your CV is wasted space. A good one answers a question your CV can't: why this company, specifically, and why now. This is where the research from your target company list in Part 1 pays off because now, you're not guessing at what they care about, you already know it, and you can put that knowledge to good use.
Tip 4: Apply Early, Not Just Often
Many roles are reviewed on a rolling basis, which means being among the first well-qualified applicants can matter as much as being the best one. This is another reason a focused list of 20–30 companies works better than mass applying since you can move quickly on the roles that matter most instead of spreading your attention thin.
Tip 5: Track Everything
A simple spreadsheet with company, role, date applied, contact, status, and follow-up date will turn a chaotic search into a manageable pipeline. It also means you'll never lose track of who you've already reached out to or forget to follow up at the right time. There are times when I have lost good offers simply because I did not see the invitation for an interview or follow-up test early enough.
Want help putting this into practice?
A great strategy still needs strong materials behind it. If your CV, cover letter, or LinkedIn profile aren't telling a clear, compelling story yet, that's where we come in. We help job seekers turn scattered applications into a focused, professional presence that gets noticed through tailored CV writing, cover letters that actually earn their place, and LinkedIn optimisation that holds up to recruiter scrutiny.
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This is Part 2 of a three-part series on intentional job hunting. Part 3 covers what to do after you've applied – including follow-ups, interviews, and how to handle silence.