Working in semi academia I do see these kind of applications. The following are personal opinions that work for convincing me when I am in an hiring committee.

Working in semi academia I do see these kind of applications. The following are personal opinions that work for convincing me when I am in an hiring committee. * A good cover letter * Having worked with a version control system * Shown initiative For me a good cover letter makes a world of a difference. Anything at all that shows you have thought about the problems that the organization you are applying to is gold and basically an guaranteed phone call. I still see CV's and get people at phone stage that never used a version control system e.g. git. I don't care which one you used. Its just that it is my baseline for competence. For a junior position our main aim is to have someone who is willing to grow to a senior and that requires initiative i.e. doing more than what they are told to do but seeing what needs to be done and starting on it. Being in semi-academia I also know that we can rarely keep people once they become senior level due to wage differences. Initiative can be shown in many ways, from the way you reach out to us in the pre-interview stage, to highlighting things you have started in your social live e.g. club activities etc...