Jade Walters knows all about the creative ways to land a job.

Walters, 25, of Chicago got her first job out of college with TikTok after going viral on the platform itself for posting a video version of her resume.

Her second job came from a connection who was familiar with her work as founder of The Ninth Semester, an online career resource for other young professionals.

But for her third full-time job, Walters plans to take a more traditional approach: Cold-applying to job listings online.

To get that role, Walters says she's trying different strategies to see what actually sticks — should she focus her efforts on a few opportunities and tailor her resume accordingly, or will mass-applying and using one-click options yield more callbacks?

Here's what she's learned so far.

How to cold-apply to jobs intentionally

Walters tells CNBC Make It she's had the most success with an intentional application approach.

Though many experts emphasize the importance of referrals to land a job right now, Walters still finds value in cold-applying to jobs where you don't already have an in.

She has her LinkedIn and Google alerts set up to notify her when a job related to a few keywords pop up; from there, she gives herself 24 to 48 hours to get her application in.

Walters has also cold-applied to jobs by searching her LinkedIn feed for posts from hiring managers announcing vacancies on their team. In these cases, she'll apply via the company's career page and also message the poster on LinkedIn that she applied.

So far, Walters says she's sent out about 15 to 20 tailored applications with the bells and whistles of referrals and personalized messages; of those, she landed five interviews.

Meanwhile, she's also used one-click apply to mass apply to roughly a dozen other jobs without putting in the effort to tailor her application.

That strategy hasn't been as fruitful.

For example, "with LinkedIn Easy Apply, I haven't heard back from anyone, which is just so interesting," she says. "It genuinely feels like a black hole."

Getting the timing and referrals right

Walters stresses that getting your application in within the first 48 hours is crucial. "With some roles, especially with the larger companies, [it's] like here today and gone tomorrow," she says.

She personally likes sending applications on Sunday evenings so it's at the top of the recruiter's inbox the next day at the start of the week — she's heard back by Monday in a few cases.

Walters also prefers to job hunt in the morning when she's more alert and has the energy to tailor her applications.

Another competitive advantage is getting an employee referral, so long as they get back to you within a few hours, Walters says.

Before applying to a job, especially at a big company, she'll take a look to see if any of her LinkedIn connections is an employee and can refer her to the opening. If not, she might try searching for LinkedIn users who are employees of the company and have been recently active on the platform. She'll send a quick note about the role, her interest and her expertise, and see if they'll send her a referral link.

She gives herself a few hours to hear back, but even if she doesn't, Walters will submit an application before the end of the day.

Leveraging AI the smart way

Walters also uses AI platforms, like ChatGPT, in order to re-write her resume faster and apply to openings more quickly.

But she cautions against making a few mistakes.

For one, she's not a fan of browser extensions that enable users to send out their resume to hundreds of openings at a time. Applying to roles based solely on a few keywords doesn't always mean you'll match with a job that fits your experience, qualifications or interests, she says.

Second, she often sees people use AI to generate resume bullet points that they'll copy and paste into a document without tailoring it in any way.

"I always go with a personalized approach," Walters says. "I might reword things to put it in my own words, just so it doesn't sound like a robot wrote it. There's nothing wrong with using AI for your resume, but in every way you can, add that personalized human approach to your application."

Managing expectations and rejection

As Walters sees it, these are all strategies well within her control to stand out from the job market competition. But even she knows they won't always work.

"I tell people job hunting these days is a great form of rejection therapy," she says. "You're putting yourself out there, you'll get rejected or ghosted, but you have to keep moving forward until you find an organization that aligns with what you're looking for and they align with [you]."

Walters jokes that it can help to be "delusional" about your job search to keep your spirits high: "Just be like, 'Yeah, I got this. Of course, they're gonna love me.'"

Then, of course, you have to follow up by "putting in the work" to explain why you're a good fit for the job, she adds.

Walters tries not to dwell in rejection or wonder why she wasn't "good enough" for a certain role or "why they didn't see the potential in me, because I know that there's going to be another organization that does, because that has been proven to me time and time again."

"The more that you're taking on the negativity that exists in the job market, it's going to beat you down, and then it's going to affect your confidence, and it's going to affect your interviews," Walters says. "The more that you put your energy towards just being positive and hopeful, I feel like that's where you're going to start to align those opportunities to you."

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