The Tenured Radical passes on her job-seeking wisdom, largely gleaned from years of reading applications. A few suggestions:

Get the salutation right: “I have been addressed as ‘Dear Professor Fillintheblank.’ ... You are not necessarily out of the running if you slip up on this, but it does make you the object of loud mockery for a brief time.”

Avoid jargon: “Words like imbrication may still be new to you, but they aren’t new to us, and they may even alienate that pissy member of the committee who has a bone to pick with poststructural thought.”

And, finally, eschew the scattershot approach and focus your energies on those positions for which you are truly qualified. The academic job search “isn’t a lottery; it only seems like one. The Shirley Jackson kind.”