How to Tailor Your Resume to a Job Description

A job description usually mixes company information, a list of duties and the qualifications. The qualifications section holds the screening criteria, and it often separates must-haves ("required", "minimum") from nice-to-haves ("preferred", "bonus").

Read it once without editing anything. Mark the four to six must-haves and list the preferred items separately. A requirement that appears in both the duties and the qualifications is likely to come up in an interview.

Note the exact phrases the posting uses. A search matches words, so "stakeholder management" and "working with stakeholders" may be treated as different terms. The resume keywords guide explains how matching works.

In the example posting, the terms to look for on your resume are SQL, Power BI and presenting to stakeholders.

Put each requirement next to the evidence you have and decide what to do about it. Be honest about the rows where you have nothing.

If most rows end up in the last category, the role may not match your background (see "When to stop" below). The Job Description Matcher produces a first version of this comparison, which you then check by hand.

Start with your most recent job. Keep the facts the same and change the wording so the requirement is visible, with a result where you have one. The bullet points guide covers structure and verb choice. The numbers below are illustrative.

Name the role you are applying for and open with the two or three strengths this posting stresses most. Use the posting's job title where it describes you accurately. Do not copy sentences from the job description into your summary. The resume summary guide has a structure and examples.

Move the skills the posting names to the front of their group, and add any skill from the posting that you have but have not listed. Remove skills that have nothing to do with this role. The resume skills guide covers grouping and how many to list.

Edits can introduce problems, such as a bullet pasted from another document or a summary that has grown to six lines. Export the final version and upload it to the ATS resume checker, which checks an uploaded file for structure and content. Its font, margin and spacing checks apply to resumes built in the builder. The ATS-friendly resume guide explains the rules it checks.

Then read the resume once as the recruiter would, and check that you can find every must-have from Step 1. The pre-submission checklist lists the remaining checks.

Each of these can undo the work above. The resume mistakes guide lists the errors to check for in any resume.

Keep one long document with every job, bullet and skill you have, however long it gets, and never send it. For each application, copy it and delete what the posting does not need. Deleting takes less time than writing new text.

The resume builder supports this. You can keep several resumes in your browser, mark one as your master copy, and tailor a copy for each posting without changing the original. Export a JSON backup of your master, because clearing your browser data deletes it.

If tailoring your resume for a posting means changing more than about a third of it, the role may not match your background. You can still apply, but limit how much time you spend on that application. The other resume guides cover the parts of a resume that stay the same for every application.