How to apply so that you get a reply

How long to spend

Five to seven minutes per application. Less and it becomes a template, which shows. More and you won't have the stamina for the necessary volume.

In those minutes: read the posting, find where it overlaps with your experience, write three or four sentences.

What to write

First sentence — why you. Not "hello, I was interested in your vacancy", but straight to it: "I'm writing about the junior Python developer role."

Second — what you have of what's needed. One or two overlaps with the requirements, in their own words.

Third — the proof. A link to the project where you did it. Not a list — the single most relevant link.

Fourth — the practicalities. When you can start, what availability, city or remote.

That's it. Four sentences get read; ten don't.

An example

Hello. I'm writing about the junior Python developer role.

From your requirements I've worked with FastAPI and PostgreSQL: I built an expense tracker where those are the core — intake, storage, reports. It's live here, code is open: link.

I haven't worked with message queues yet, but I'll pick them up.

I can start within a week, full time, remote or on site.

Everything is there: the overlap, the proof, honesty about a gap, and the practicalities.

What not to write

• A retelling of the CV. It's attached; it will be read.
• The story of your journey into IT. Interesting to you, not to them.
• Apologies for lacking experience. They can see that from the CV.
• "Fast learner, willing to work for experience." Everyone writes the first; the second devalues you.
• Demands of the employer in the very first message.

On admitting gaps

One line — "haven't worked with this, but I'll pick it up" — works better than pretending to command the whole list. Anyone experienced spots the embellishment immediately and stops believing the rest.

Admitting a gap, conversely, raises trust in everything else.

Where to apply

Not only to advertisements. Some roles are never published. What works:

• writing directly to a small company whose product you use;
• through people you know — the highest response rate of any route;
• in professional communities where roles get posted.

A direct letter to a company with no open role sometimes works better than answering a public advert: there you're one of a queue, here you're the only one.

What strengthens any application

The ability to check your claims in a minute. A link that opens. A description of your contribution written not by you but by the person you worked with. To someone processing forty letters, that's rare — and it gets noticed.