A plan many people start with, especially after completing a degree or a bootcamp, is to apply for backend developer, data engineer, QA, IT support, and product manager roles, all with the same CV, “to maximize the chances.” It sounds sensible. More doors, more chances, right?
Now read that CV as the hiring manager for the backend role. The summary talks about everything, so it provides evidence for nothing in particular. Whoops! Instead of improving your chances, staying broad makes every reader less sure.
You can’t show you’re right for a job until you know which job. In this lesson, you’ll pick one or two target roles and turn real job postings into a requirements map, which is a table of what your target role actually asks for. You’ll use it to choose every story, project, and CV line you prepare later.
A Target Is a Kind of Work
Don’t focus too much on job titles. An entry-level data analysis job may appear under titles such as Data Analyst, Business Intelligence Analyst, Reporting Analyst, and Insights Analyst. The duties under those four titles overlap almost completely. Meanwhile, a role advertised as “Data Scientist” might involve building weekly spreadsheets, and a “QA Automation Engineer” role might involve mostly manual test execution.
So pick your target based on the work itself. Read the duties, and use the titles you collect along the way as search terms. O*NET OnLine lists the job titles people report for each occupation, which can give you a few more search terms. One primary target, plus at most one closely related backup, is plenty. Three unrelated targets mean three of everything, including three maps, three story banks, and three CVs.
