Trying to increase job application rate. How much time should I spend reading posting?

"The Average response is no response so I should put in as little effort as possible"

To echo Hilmar's answer - this is a common idea and sometimes it is the right approach - as the saying goes - throw enough poo at the wall and some of it will stick.

However - if I am an employer and I am getting 100 applications for a position - what qualities am I going to look for in a CV?

The Qualities that I am looking for in the Job advert

If I need someone with Linux Skills, I will put that as a requirement.

Telling me that you have experience in computers is Meh, telling me you have experience with multiple OS's is better - telling me you have experience Debian and Ubuntu, with a little exposure to CentOS is best. It tells me you have read my requirements, understood them and how you can help me with my requirements

That gives you the best possible chance of succeeding.

(Promoted from only a comment to an answer...)

Your commitment & investment in finding work may reflect your commitment & investment "on the job".

Forgive me for asking, but "What's so important to you that you want to dispense with the struggle to seek out the right job (that you may stay with for 5-10 years); one that fits you and where you fit-in?"

While this question is NOT an application, reading between its lines, I'd toss it in the bin after a few minutes spent reading ALL of it, including thinking about ALL of it.
This question shouts "don't want to be bothered".
Not an attribute that will ever work in your favour.

What do you expect of others? Once had a call from a recruiter:
"I have a vacant position. Your file came up on a search in our database.
Resumé shows C, C++ and Pro*C...
Do you have experience with... just a mo'... here it is... C-obol??"

I dropped the phone when I burst out laughing. She'd hung-up her end by the time I'd settled down. I wrote down that agency's name to avoid ALL contact with them for several years... That single, brief phone call showed their hand; their comprehension of my skills and my career. Why should they ever get 'n' thousand dollars off my back for some clerical work on their part?

What could I expect from you if I'd hired you, then, three weeks later you defend something lacking with, "Not my fault. I only read the first page of the three-page position description you advertised." I'd have to share 50% of the blame, I suppose...

In short, do you expect employers to be as lackadaisical about going through 200+ CVs as you wish to be going through 200+ vacancy (opportunity) descriptions??

As you sow, so shall you reap... Open that feed-store catalogue and start reading. Take all the time you need...

Process suggestion:
Perhaps you need to invest 'x' minutes just skimming whatever ads you've available. Draw a big black 'X' across any that are too unattainable (ie. skills don't align) or too distant, or any other easy-to-spot reason to check-and-reject. Then, go back to the beginning for a second 'quick' examination of what remains. Eliminate a few more, if you can. After a few cycles like this, hopefully you're left with only 2-3 potentials having invested only 10-15 minutes. Now you can get serious about those few, do some research about each, and maybe you're soon down to only one that can have your FULL attention while crafting your precision targeted application.
You don't like spam.
Neither do employers with a vacancy to fill.
Avoid the possibility some firms might add you to their list: "Reject Immediately!".

While searching, not connecting can be dispiriting, take a moment to realise that 1/2 of you is made from the 1/10,000,000 sperm cells that outswam its cohort. Ya gotta strive to succeed, and keep going if you know you will be able to attain your goal in spite of all adversity.

Change your attitude.
Best of luck with the next one, or the one after that!!
Persistence wins the race!

Edit:

There've been a couple of reply comments posted that resonate to one part of this answer. Gonna go back to the OP's title as written: "Trying to increase ... rate ..." Sticking with a theme that seems to have 'resonated', there's this metaphor, too, to ponder.

Diametrically opposite of Maria's musical reflections is to advise "It's not the motion, it's the meat."

Go read and consider Ecclesiastes

Winners in evolution are those that read their environment and respond better than others in the same environment. Darwin told us that. Climbing a mountain sometimes means descending somewhat, then trying an alternative route (a new strategy) still hoping to reach the summit.

I have to disagree with all the answers here. I think they represent a dated or idealistic view of applying for jobs.

There are so many openings that are either errors by HR, to farm resumes, or procedural as they already have a candidate selected.

Other than giving those couple of minutes to make sure your application fits the job offering, I wouldn't spend any additional time. Unless you have some sort of unique skill-set or you have a contact in the company, the chance that they don't even look at your resume is extremely high. And then if they do, it will be just a quick skim. Once you get an offer to interview or connect, then you should prepare in earnest. It is employers and the job market that have cultivated this environment of "spamming" applications, you have to adapt to it. Most entry level job seekers will learn this the hard way.

Your priority is, in order:

1. Attend interviews - spend time preparing for these, and completing practice interviews with friends and family (the meaner they are the better).
2. Write applications - you should tailor your cover letter for each job. That means spending 1-2 hours per cover letter.
3. Find jobs - scan known job sites, find new job sites, search for local employers, visit local employers.

You are right that some job postings are filled with junk. That's just how the world is.

Look for something which matches your skillset and qualifications and which broadly corresponds with the career you'd like to pursue. You can do this quite quickly for most job adverts. If it doesn't fit then dismiss it and move on. If you somehow run out of jobs then something is wrong: either you need to look harder or re-evaluate what you are looking for.

If I'm not being picky is it OK to skim over certain parts of a job posting?

You should skim over that stuff even if you are being picky. A few words about corporate culture are worthless. You can (and should) do a deeper dive if/when invited to interview.

1. Read through the actual job postings, don't use AI to summarize them. If you don't have 30% or more of asked qualifications or skills (which means you fit 70% or less), move to the next one.
2. Don't use AI to prepare your CV. Use actual spellchecker instead of AI,don't use it to complete sentences.
3. Don't spend more than 20 minutes per job posting if you "fit" over 80%. Just put it in the "Yes, that one is for me" pile without doubts if you can do it. Once in that pile, you act on it by applying.

Number 1 and 2 are you being lazy. Number 2: My current and previous employers automatically denied any candidate which used AI for their CV or Letter. If you can't even be bothered to do those basic things, how much effort are you going to put into actual job? How did they know AI was used? A certain weird turns of a phrase, sounding like a slightly too eager inspirational self-help video. Number 1 means that you're likely either miss a perfect job opportunity or to apply to a wrong job because AI summarized the job wrongly.

Number 3: Once you found your "good enough" fit for the job posting, change your CV slightly. Emphasize different things that are asked for the job. For example, if job asks for C#, .NET and Javascript, with VB.Net as a plus, and you worked with VB.NET, .NET and Javascript, with a little C#... You emphasize C#, .NET and Javascript and put VB.NET as last. Your CV is yours and you can rearrange it as you see fit.

Also, number 4: get in contact with your friends and family and your social circle (even former coworkers from a different job). People are more likely to gain an employment if someone recommends them.

Some companies have policies where hiring managers don't post job descriptions. Instead, they send them to HR, where HR edits them before posting them. This causes frustration both for job seekers and for hiring managers for multiple reasons. HR doesn't necessarily know anything about the job or the terminology involved (especially for more technical positions) so their edits have a bad habit of altering the meaning of things. HR also tends to insert copious amounts of boilerplate content that amounts to marketing fluff trying to make you want to work there. What starts out as a nice, focused, detailed list of requirements turns into an overview of the company's history, a "day in the life of an employee" vignette, and if you're lucky they'll remember to mention the job title.

For that reason, it is perfectly reasonable to skim through a job posting and not read everything in intricate detail. You will soon learn how to mentally filter content into two buckets: meaningful content, and HR/marketing drivel. This is a key skill when job hunting, and also as a general life skill.

On your first read through of a job posting, your only goal is to answer two questions: "Is this the type of work I'm looking for?" and "Am I qualified to do it?". Make sure the answer to both of those is "yes" before you spend time reading in more detail. You want to waste as little time as possible on positions that are unsuitable. Don't waste time reading through anything that doesn't help answering those two questions.

If you decide that you want to apply for that position, you'll want to read the job posting in its entirety before applying. For best results, try to find the same posting on the employer's website and see if there is more content there (third-party job boards often have length limits). You will typically want to custom-tailor your resume and/or cover letter to fit the specific needs of that company, and the only way to do that is to gather as much information as possible.

I would not recommend using AI to summarize job postings. In my experiences at least, the HR-generated fluff tends to take up the vast majority of the job description. The content-to-garbage ratio is very low. A summary is almost certain to focus on the wrong thing and miss parts that are important to you. Sometimes it's just one or two words that make all the difference. Honestly, by the time your BS filter is developed, you'll be able to do the initial skim-through of a job posting in the same amount of time that it would take to copy-paste it into an AI engine and wait for a response.

Spend 5 minutes to read the job description, another 5 minutes to sent the application.

I have been in a similar situation, and it worked out well for me to play the numbers game and spent very little time on each individual application. And in the end I was able to pick between two decent job offer.

One important factor was that I was at the beginning of my career, so I didn't have a very specific profile and I was very flexible with my location, so there was way more job openings than I could apply to. In that situation I figured that I should do whatever I can do increase the numbers of applications sent out. If the number of potential offers is limited, you should spent more time on each application.

You don't really need AI. Skimming through a job description shouldn't take you more than 30 seconds. That gives you enough of an understanding if you think you are good fit, maybe a fit or no fit at all. If you are a good fit you want to put a lot of effort into it:

• adjust your CV to emphasise the points that match the needs of the position
• write a tailed cover letter

If you are just a "maybe" fit, then you can just do the minimum effort, sending default CV and cover letter. It still is better to apply with a hasty application than not to apply at all.

Other ways I shortened the time it took my to send out a new application:

• if it was unclear what the role was about, I didn't try to figure it out. I just made the assumption that I was a good fit and applied.
• if there was any long online forms, or tests required before anyone would even read my application, i'd skip
• I spent no time thinking if I'd like to do the job. Since only a small of the emails would be answered anyways, it would be easier to just apply and think about whether I want it, if I get at least an invitation for an interview

One difficulty you should be prepared for, when following this approach is that you will get calls from recruiters and you have no recollection that you applied to that company or what they even do. In that type of situation I did my best to pretend that I was just hoping for exactly that call, and tried to figure it out later.

Many answers are suggesting to focus more on quality, but in my situation the shot-gun approach really helped. I ended up applying for a job in a matter of minutes, thinking "they probably need someone more experienced, but why not?" and they ended up being really desperate for people. It ended up being a good match and I am in my 13th year now.