Junior developer job search: read the job ad before you apply

Where should a junior developer job search start? In my view, with reading job ads carefully. Separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves, score which ads fit, then apply to fewer places with a resume tailored to each one. How many applications are you sending each week? Let's see how Minh does it.

The profile is tidy, so where do you apply?

In the previous post, Minh finished fixing his GitHub and LinkedIn pages. Together with a one-page resume and an expense-tracking project with real users, Minh's profile now tells the same story in all three places. Minh is a made-up character, pieced together from situations that are very familiar to new IT graduates in Vietnam. The job ads, scores and results in this post are also examples I wrote, not market data.

Last time, Minh sent the same resume to about 30 job ads over two weeks and heard back from nobody. His profile is different now, but if the way he applies stays the same, the result probably won't change much. This post fixes the way he applies.

What's wrong with applying everywhere?

Minh told me that last time he opened a job site, typed "React", and clicked apply on every ad that came up. Each took about two minutes. That sounds efficient: 30 applications in an hour.

I asked Minh three questions about those 30 ads. Which ones asked for things he'd never done? Which companies did he actually want to join? Which ones had replied, even with a rejection? He couldn't answer any of them, because he hadn't read any ad carefully and hadn't kept track of where he'd applied.

Applying like that has three costs. People reading resumes can spot a mass-sent one immediately, because it says nothing about their ad. Minh applied to ads that didn't fit, so even if he got a call, he'd fail or not want the job. And because he recorded nothing, he learned nothing from those 30 applications: not which kinds of ads tend to reply, not which version of his resume worked better.

I suggested Minh count differently. Instead of counting applications sent, count applications tailored to the ad. Five of those a week, each taking about 30 to 40 minutes including reading the ad.

What parts does a job ad have?

Almost every ad has four parts, whatever they're called: the job description, the requirements, the benefits and how to apply. Newcomers tend to skim the first part and linger on the requirements, then get discouraged because they don't meet them all. I recommend reading them in a slightly different order.

The job description is the part most worth reading carefully, because it says what you'll do every day. An ad that says "build new features for the company's web app" is very different from one that says "maintain and fix bugs in clients' systems", even if both are titled Frontend Developer.

The requirements usually mix two kinds of things. The first kind is required, meaning without it you'd struggle to do the job in your first week. The second kind is preferred, usually after words like "a plus", "preferred", "nice to have" or "bonus". Many people read both as one list they must fully meet, and skip ads that would have suited them well.

What about "1 year of experience"? For a junior role, I think that line usually describes the level of the work more than a hard requirement. The person who wrote the ad wants someone who has built something that runs and can work with Git, not someone who just finished learning syntax. A project with real users, tests and a README explaining its technical decisions is evidence of exactly that.

I won't claim every company sees it that way. Some filter strictly by years, and you only find out after applying. But ruling yourself out first guarantees you won't be called.

Reading three ads with Minh

These are three ads I wrote as examples, based on the kinds of ads Minh often sees in Ho Chi Minh City. I kept the tone you typically find in job ads there. Salaries are monthly, in Vietnamese đồng: 10 to 14 million is roughly $400 to $550, and 3 million is about $120.

AD A — Junior Frontend Developer (React) · product company, 25 people · Ho Chi Minh City, 3 days in the office
The job: build features for a web app for managing expenses; write tests for your own work;
  take part in code review with a team of 4 frontend developers.
Requirements: React, TypeScript, Git; understanding of REST APIs; 0–1 year of experience or an equivalent personal project.
Preferred: Next.js; has written unit tests.
Benefits: 10–14 million đồng; a mentor for the first 2 months; 2-month probation at 85% of salary.
How to apply: send your resume with a GitHub link; 2 rounds (a small take-home task, then a technical interview).

AD B — Frontend Developer · outsourcing company working for overseas clients, 200 people · Ho Chi Minh City
The job: work on web projects for clients; follow the team lead's instructions.
Requirements: at least 1 year of React experience; Redux; strong HTML/CSS; can read English documentation.
Preferred: knowing Vue is a plus.
Benefits: salary negotiable; full insurance; 2-month probation.
How to apply: apply through the job site; 2 interview rounds.

AD C — Fullstack Developer (fresh graduates welcome) · 8-person company · Thu Duc
The job: build and run the company's entire website, mobile app and admin system.
Requirements: React, Node.js, PHP/Laravel, React Native, Docker, AWS; Photoshop;
  able to work under high pressure, willing to work overtime.
Benefits: 3-month probation with a 3 million đồng/month allowance; official salary to be discussed after probation.
How to apply: message us on Zalo.

(Zalo is the most popular messaging app in Vietnam.)

For each ad, Minh underlines what he has evidence for. I want to stress the word "evidence": not things Minh has heard of, but things he can point to in a project.

In ad A, Minh has all four required items. React and TypeScript are in the expense app, Git is in its commit history, and REST APIs are in his graduation project. He also has both preferred items, since the app is built with Next.js and has 21 tests. The job description even mentions "a web app for managing expenses", almost the same as Minh's project.

In ad B, Minh has React, HTML/CSS and can read English documentation. He hasn't used Redux, and doesn't have a year of work experience. Two of the four required items are missing, but one of them is the years-of-experience line I talked about above.

In ad C, Minh has React and a bit of Node.js. The other six he doesn't. But the reason Minh should stop at this ad has nothing to do with the tech list.

How do you score an ad?

So Minh doesn't have to decide on gut feeling, I wrote five questions, each worth 0, 1 or 2 points, like the project scorecard in the portfolio projects post.

Question one asks how many required items you have evidence for. Under half is 0 points, half or more is 1, nearly all or all is 2. I only count required items, because preferred ones aren't a reason to reject you.

Question two asks whether the daily work is what you want to be doing for the next year. Unclear what the job is: 0. Doable but not exciting: 1. Exactly what you want: 2. This one is easy to skip when you're anxious to find a job, but your first year shapes a lot of how you grow.

Question three asks whether there's anyone to learn from. An ad that mentions no team or mentor is 0, a team in the same field is 1, and a clearly stated mentor or code review is 2. For a junior, I consider this the most important question. Working alone at a company where nobody reads your code makes it very hard to know where you're going wrong.

Question four asks whether the ad is clear: a salary range, an interview process, a location and a way of working. Missing almost all of it is 0, some of it is 1, all of it is 2. A clearly written ad usually comes from an organized workplace.

Question five asks whether you can actually work there, considering commute, hours and contract type. No: 0. Yes but it's a struggle: 1. Comfortably: 2.

The total is 10 points. At 7 or more, apply and spend real time tailoring your resume. From 4 to 6, apply if you have room that week. Below 4, skip it.

This scorecard isn't any company's standard. It's just my way of turning the things worth considering into a list you can check, and you can absolutely change the weights to suit your situation.

Minh scored the three ads like this:

Question                          Ad A    Ad B    Ad C
1. Evidence for requirements        2       1       0
2. Daily work                       2       1       0
3. Someone to learn from            2       1       0
4. Clear ad                         2       1       0
5. Can actually work there          2       2       1
Total                              10       6       1

Ad A scores 10, and it's the one Minh will spend the most time on. Ad B scores 6. It loses points because the job description is fairly generic and the salary says "negotiable", but a 200-person company almost certainly has a team to learn from, so it's still worth applying. Ad C scores 1.

Which signs say you should skip an ad?

Ad C has a few signs I want you to recognize, because they show up in a lot of other ads.

The first is the tech stack of three roles piled onto one person. Web, mobile, backend, design and operations are the work of a whole team. When an ad that "welcomes fresh graduates" asks for all of it, there's probably nobody ahead of you to ask, and you'll be the only one responsible for everything.

The second is in the probation line. In Vietnam, Article 25 of the 2019 Labor Code says probation for jobs requiring a college degree or higher must not exceed 60 days. Under Article 26, probation pay must be at least 85% of the salary for that job (the link is in Vietnamese). If you're elsewhere, your country's rules will differ, but the same question applies.

Ad C says 3 months of probation with "a 3 million đồng allowance", and the official salary is "to be discussed later". Without an official salary, nobody can work out what 85% of it is. I'm not a lawyer, and every case can have its own details, but an ad written like that is enough for me to ask questions before investing time.

The third sign is "able to work under high pressure, willing to work overtime" right there in the requirements. Every job has busy periods. But when it's written as a hiring condition, it usually describes a normal day.

There are a few other signs not in ad C that you should know. An ad asking for a multi-day test before even a first conversation, especially when the task looks exactly like a real feature of their product. An ad asking for a deposit, a training fee, or to keep your original diploma. An ad with no company name. For those, I'd skip without scoring.

On the other hand, ad B's "salary negotiable" isn't a bad sign to me. Plenty of decent companies write that. It just costs Minh a point on question four, and reminds him to prepare a salary range before he's asked.

Tailoring your resume to each ad in 30 minutes

In the post on junior developer resume mistakes, I suggested keeping a full master resume and making a shorter version for each application. This is when you do it. For ad A, Minh changed three things.

The first is order. Ad A mentions an expense app and writing tests, so the expense project goes to the top of the Projects section, and its description mentions the 21 tests in the first sentence. The graduation project moves down.

The second is wording. The ad says "REST APIs" and "unit tests", so Minh's resume uses exactly those phrases instead of "calling APIs" and "testing". The point isn't to trick anyone. The person reading resumes has the ad in mind, and they look for the words they wrote.

The third is a short note sent with the application. Minh doesn't write a page-long cover letter. He writes four sentences, and each points to something in the ad:

Hello,

I'm applying for the Junior Frontend Developer (React) role. I've just finished an app for logging
expenses by text message, built with Next.js and TypeScript, with 21 unit tests and a few daily users,
which is why your ad caught my eye: your product is about managing expenses too.
The live demo and source code are on the first line of my resume; the README has a "Technical decisions" section if you'd like to see how I think.
I can do the take-home task this week and work in the office 3 days a week as the ad describes.

Thank you for reading.
Minh

For ad B, Minh does something different. The ad asks for Redux, which Minh hasn't used. He doesn't list Redux under skills, because a single interview question would expose it. Instead, he adds one true line to the project description: the expense app manages state with React's useReducer. That's the closest thing to Redux he has really done, and it shows the reader he understands the idea behind it.

Each tailoring like this takes Minh about 30 minutes. He saves each version as a separate file named after the company, so when he gets an interview call he knows which version he sent.

How do you track your applications?

Minh doesn't need anything fancy. A spreadsheet with seven columns is enough, or a CSV file like this:

date_applied,company,role,score,resume_version,status,next_step
2026-11-12,Company A,Junior Frontend Developer (React),10,resume-company-a.pdf,applied,follow up on 2026-11-19 if no reply
2026-11-12,Company B,Frontend Developer,6,resume-company-b.pdf,applied,follow up on 2026-11-19 if no reply
2026-11-13,Company D,Junior Web Developer,7,resume-company-d.pdf,applied,follow up on 2026-11-20 if no reply

The "next step" column is the most important one, and the one Minh didn't have last time. Every application always has a next step with a date. After about a week with no news, Minh sends a short follow-up email:

Subject: Following up on my application for Junior Frontend Developer (React) – Le Van Minh

Hello,

I sent my application for the Junior Frontend Developer (React) role on 12 November. I'm writing
to check that it reached the right place, and whether there's anything else I should send.

Thank you.
Minh

An email like that doesn't bother anyone. It's short, has enough information for the recipient to find the application, and asks for nothing. Minh only follows up once. If there's still no news, he changes the status to "no reply" and moves on.

After a few weeks, this sheet answers questions the 30 applications last time couldn't. Do ads scoring 7 or more get more calls? Does the resume with the project on top work better? Minh doesn't need to guess any more.

Where do you find job ads?

I left this near the end because it matters less than you'd think. Every source has good and bad ads, and the reading approach above works for all of them.

Minh uses four sources. IT-focused job boards (in Vietnam, sites like ITviec or TopDev) have lots of ads and let you filter by technology. LinkedIn suits the profile Minh just fixed, and you can see who posted the ad. The careers pages of companies Minh likes are an often-forgotten source, even though their ads tend to be the most complete. The last source is people you know: seniors from your university, classmates who already work, the lecturer who supervised your graduation project.

About that last source, one more thing. Asking for a referral isn't sneaking in the back door. The person referring you just makes sure a real human reads your application; you still do the interview yourself. When Minh asks, he sends the job ad link, the resume tailored for it and two sentences on why he fits, so the other person only has to forward it.

Two weeks later, an interview invitation

This is the last illustrative part of the post. After two weeks, Minh's sheet has 10 rows instead of 30.

Three places replied. One rejected him with a thank-you. One sent a take-home task. And company A invited Minh to a technical interview next Thursday.

Ten applications and three replies isn't a number I'm promising you, because everyone's results depend on timing, city and some luck. What I want you to take away is the difference between the two rounds. This time Minh knows where he applied, why, with which resume, and what the next step is for each application.

Minh read the interview email three times, then messaged me: "I've got exactly one week. What should I study first?". Preparing for a first interview when time is short is the subject of the next post. You can follow the whole journey in the Junior journey series, and preview common questions in the interview question bank.