Dear Karen, I understand it perfectly. I have been working in an occupation sector where all kinds of people can be seen. I understand what you say, that the one who is prepared for a position that is presented for this position but everything is saturated for people who are targeted everywhere and who are not prepared for them and who are targeted everywhere. But there is one thing that you do not have in mind and that your work is saturated, people are desperate and when people are desperate they are aiming at everything even if they have no idea where and why they are targeting.

I remember a lady who did not know how to write or read and who did not have a driver's license, who signed up for all job offers even if they were driving trucks. But this happens with people in this category as well as postdoctoral students.

Neither you nor I can solve this problem, it is a problem of political scope and at the moment you will have to have patience like me. But I like that you have raised this problem that is acquiring enormous dimensions.

A very cordial hug,

Remei

There is no specific way, I think try like other places

Where I worked, job offers were announced, both simple and more complicated until postdoctoral. They were advertised on a bulletin board and people signed up, so the technicians made a pre-selection of people targeted at a job offer. If the person was not in the line of the offer, that request was canceled and only the CV of the person who could access this position was presented to the company. In the end, it was the company that, with the CVs sent, made its last selection. It is the only way that the offers are not saturated by people who sign up for everything because of necessity or because they have not understood the procedure or because they do not know what they have read. In this way the companies are sure that the CVs sent are precisely people who are prepared for the position. Now, a good organization is needed so that everything goes without accumulations and without people freely enrolling in positions to which they do not have the level, nor the titles necessary to be able to access it. In this way a pre-selection is done that helps a lot. It is true that a single person can not do all this, but there must be a good organization on the part of the institutions so that everything flows. This exists because I have lived it.

Dear Iskander

In Poland (and as far I know in most of EU countries) there is no such thing as "application fees".

With best

Dear Iskander Madhi,

Even though you may be right about the vague idea of the 99.9%. Yet this advice indeed refers to positions in Europe as said the title. As a person who had applied to several PhD and post-doctoral positions in Europe, I'm pretty sure there's no application fee at all, but in the States, yes. Furthermore, application fee that you're talking about is often required if you go through application platform of a University. In contrast, I think this article is more or less regarding applications via emails that PIs receive on daily basis. This is an advice for a win-win between applicants and PIs, because if one tune their application towards a specific project, the chance one got admitted is higher, yet PIs don't lose their time in reading a cover letter written for dozens (if not hundreds) of projects at once. Maybe you're not among people who spam their CV for a PhD or postdoc, but many people do that. That's also why some schools apply application fee. Perhaps you'd be interested in reading this discussion: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43436/why-do-some-universities-charge-an-application-fee