Early January, after the New Year has come and gone, is one of the biggest times for job hunting. New positions become available, but in today’s challenging economic climate, there are far more applicants than available positions. This creates a very competitive environment, where it can be difficult to stand out in a sea of similar people with similar qualifications.

As the job market continues to change, it creates both new opportunities and new challenges for job seekers. These tips can help you get noticed during your January 2017 job hunt, giving you a better shot at the job you need.

Don’t mention you’re responding to an ad.

Being proactive about reaching out to a company is very appealing in a candidate. But naturally, there’s little value in reaching out to companies that simply aren’t hiring. When you send in your resume and cover letter, try to downplay the fact that you’re responding to a job listing on Indeed, Craigslist, LinkedIn, or wherever else you found the position. Instead, try to make a reference specifically to the company. Act like you’re just really impressed with their company in particular.

Fill out your LinkedIn profile and try to get some endorsements.

In many professions, a robust LinkedIn profile with plenty of endorsements can be a very helpful tool, especially if you’re applying for a job that was listed on Indeed. Now, if you’re looking for a job as a retail clerk or something of that nature, this might not be the most productive thing you can do. But for professions like sales, marketing, business administration, human resources, and even admin assistant careers, LinkedIn does matter.

Get in early.

Once any given job posting goes live, people start applying fast. After the first few hundred resumes, yours will inevitably get lost in the shuffle. The earlier you can apply for something, the better. If the listing has been up for more than a week, it’s probably already been filled. Don’t spend time applying for it unless it’s absolutely your dream job, or it requires a specific skill set that you have that’s in demand but relatively rare.

Try to quantify your accomplishments as much as you can.

Instead of conceptualizing your job tasks as duties or assignments, try to spin them as quantifiable achievements. “I conducted cold calls to prospective clients” isn’t nearly as appealing as “My cold calling efforts helped the company increase their revenue by 10%.”

If possible, try to submit a physical resume and cover letter.

This isn’t always allowed, especially for large national companies. If you walk into Target with a resume, you’ll be directed to their online application system, and there’s no real way around that. But for many small to midsize companies, you can come by and ask to give a hiring manager, your resume. Today’s hiring managers are overwhelmed with online applications. Giving them yours personally, while introducing yourself in person, could give you an advantage.

Optimize your resume for automated software.

If you’re applying for a larger company, your resume will go through a computer system before it ever gets to an actual human being. Because these systems are automated, they look for things like keywords and particular formats. Your resume could easily end up getting filtered out, even if you’re a great fit for the position. It’s a bad deal for job seekers, but in today’s hypercompetitive and overcrowded market of unemployed and underemployed people, it’s the only way to prevent HR from needing to manually review hundreds of resumes.

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*Statements are based on pre-launch research and are not a guarantee. Results may vary.