How to Tailor Your Resume to a Job Description in 7 Steps

To tailor your resume to a job, read the posting closely, list what the employer is asking for, and match each requirement to something you have really done. Then move your most relevant experience to the top, describe it in the employer’s own words, and update your summary and skills so a recruiter can see the fit at a glance. You are not rewriting your resume for every application. You are editing a strong base version so it answers one specific posting. Below is the full seven-step method, a worked before-and-after example, and templates you can copy.

One note on terms: in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand this document is usually called a CV, and the same method applies. The UK’s National Careers Service gives the same core advice: write your CV to match the job and company you are applying to, and highlight the skills they ask for.

Why tailoring your resume matters

Your resume usually has two readers. The first is software. Many employers collect applications in an applicant tracking system (ATS), where recruiters can search and filter candidates by the skills and job titles they need. If your resume says “client relationships” and they search for “account management,” you may not come up, even if you do exactly that work.

The second reader is a person who skims. In a 2018 eye-tracking study by the job site Ladders, recruiters spent an average of 7.4 seconds on their first look at a resume, and the resumes that did best had simple layouts with clear sections and headings, as reported by HR Dive. A tailored resume serves both readers: the words the employer searches for are present, and the evidence they care about most sits where the eye lands first.

Tailoring is honest by design: you choose which true things to show and what to call them, never adding experience you do not have.

Before you start: keep a master resume

A master resume is a private, longer document that holds every role, project, tool, certification and result you might ever want to mention, with the numbers you can stand behind. Nobody sees it but you. Each application gets a copy that you trim, reorder and reword.

This habit makes tailoring fast: you pick from a list instead of trying to remember what you did years ago, and a bullet you cut for one job is still there when the next one needs it.

How to tailor your resume to a job description, step by step

Step 1: Read the posting twice and save a copy

Read it once for fit: is this a role you want and could do? Then read it again slowly, marking anything that describes a skill, tool, qualification or responsibility. Duke University’s career center suggests keeping a copy of each posting, saved as a PDF rather than just bookmarked. Postings are often taken down once a role closes, and you will want the original wording when you prepare for the interview.

Step 2: Pull out the requirements

Go through your highlights and sort them into a short list. Look for:

• The job title and seniority, and any required years of experience
• Hard skills, tools and certifications, in the exact spelling the posting uses
• The main responsibilities, usually the first few bullets under “what you will do”
• Soft skills they emphasize, such as working with senior stakeholders or managing a team
• Words and phrases they repeat, which usually signal what matters most

Split the list into must-haves and nice-to-haves. This template keeps it tidy:

Role: [job title] at [company]

Must-haves: 1. [requirement] 2. [requirement] 3. [requirement]

Nice-to-haves: 1. [requirement] 2. [requirement]

Words they repeat: [word], [word], [word]

Their exact names for tools and skills: [name], [name], [name]

Step 3: Map each requirement to your real experience

For each requirement, find the proof in your master resume: a job, project, course or result. Each one lands in one of three places:

If most must-haves land in the gap row, the role may be a stretch, and your time may be better spent on a closer fit.

Step 4: Reorder so your best evidence comes first

Within each job, move the bullets that prove the must-haves to the top. Shorten or cut bullets that do nothing for this application. You can also reorder sections: if a project or certification is your strongest proof, a Projects or Certifications section can sit above older experience. Keep your jobs in reverse-chronological order and your dates accurate.

Step 5: Reword in the employer’s language

When you did the thing and the employer calls it something else, use their name for it. “Customers” might be “clients.” “Ran the help desk queue” might be “IT service desk.” “Built spreadsheets for the budget” might be “financial modeling,” if that is truly what the work was. Spell out an acronym once, such as “search engine optimization (SEO),” because a recruiter may search for either form.

Do not paste sentences from the posting. Rewrite each bullet with this structure:

[Action verb] + [what you did, in the employer’s terms] + [the tool or method] + [the result, with a number if you have one]

Step 6: Adjust your summary and skills section

Your summary is the first thing a skimming recruiter reads, so it should name the kind of role you are applying for and your two or three most relevant strengths. Keep it to two or three lines:

[Role or field] with [number] years of experience in [must-have 1] and [must-have 2]. [One line on a result or responsibility that matches the job’s biggest need.]

In your skills section, lead with the skills the posting asks for that you genuinely have, spelled the way the posting spells them. Remove skills that are irrelevant to this role; they dilute the ones that matter. Leave your official job titles as they are and let the summary and bullets carry the employer’s language.

Step 7: Check the keywords you can honestly claim, then proofread

Go back to your list from Step 2 and tick off each must-have that now appears in your resume next to real evidence. Anything left unticked is either something you have and forgot (add it) or something you do not have (leave it out). Then check the basics:

• The company name and job title are spelled correctly everywhere, including your cover letter
• The layout is simple, with standard headings such as Experience, Education and Skills
• No keyword appears without context, and nothing is hidden in white or tiny text
• The file is a PDF unless the employer asks for Word, and the file name includes your name

Worked example: tailoring a resume to a job posting

Maya is a fictional marketing coordinator at a B2B software company. She has done the job for three years and wants to apply for this role. Here is a shortened version of the posting, also fictional:

Content Marketing Specialist. We are looking for a content marketer with 3+ years of B2B writing experience. You will own our editorial calendar, do keyword research and on-page SEO for every article, build email campaigns in HubSpot and report on content performance in Google Analytics. Nice to have: webinar or video experience.

This is the relevant part of Maya’s generic resume, the one she sends everywhere:

Summary: Creative marketing professional with experience across social media, events and content. Team player with a passion for storytelling.

Marketing Coordinator, 2023 to present

• Managed company social media accounts
• Organized trade show booths at six events a year
• Wrote blog posts and newsletters
• Helped keep the website up to date

Skills: Canva, Instagram, event planning, WordPress, HubSpot, Google Analytics

Nothing here is wrong, but the recruiter has to guess. The content writing, the job’s core requirement, is the third bullet. “Keyword research,” “editorial calendar” and “B2B” never appear, even though Maya does all three. Here is how she mapped the posting to her real experience:

And here is the tailored version:

Summary: Content marketer with three years of B2B writing experience across blog, email and web. Run the editorial calendar, do keyword research and on-page SEO for every article, and report monthly content performance in Google Analytics.

Marketing Coordinator, 2023 to present

• Write two B2B blog posts a month, each built on keyword research and on-page SEO (titles, meta descriptions, internal links)
• Run the team’s editorial calendar for blog, email and social, coordinating four contributors
• Build and send the monthly customer newsletter in HubSpot
• Report monthly content performance in Google Analytics and use it to choose the next quarter’s topics
• Organize trade show booths at six events a year

Skills: B2B content writing, keyword research, on-page SEO, editorial calendar, HubSpot, Google Analytics, WordPress, Canva

Every line in the tailored version is something Maya already did, and the numbers are hers, not borrowed from the posting. Social media folded into the editorial calendar line, the vague website bullet went, events moved to the bottom, and Instagram and event planning left the skills list because this role does not ask for them. She did not add webinars or video; if asked, she can say so honestly.

Mistakes to avoid when you customize your resume

• Claiming what you have not done. A missing keyword is a question to ask yourself, not an instruction to add it. If you cannot talk about it in an interview, leave it off.
• Copying the posting word for word. A resume that reads like the job ad tells the recruiter nothing about you. Use their terms inside your own sentences.
• Hiding keywords. White or tiny text can show up when an ATS converts your file to plain text, and a recruiter who spots it has little reason to trust the rest.
• Cutting your best achievement. If a result is impressive but not an exact match, keep a short version of it.
• Losing track of versions. When a recruiter calls, you need to know which resume they are holding. Save each tailored version with the application, and keep a simple application tracker.

How Leepo helps you tailor each application

Doing this by hand works, but it takes time when you apply to several roles a week. Leepo can take on the slower parts. Paste any job link, from LinkedIn, a company careers page and more, and Leepo imports the role, the company and, when the posting lists it, the salary. The ATS fit score then compares your resume with that one job and shows the matched and missing keywords, which helps with Steps 2 and 7. Our guide to what counts as a good ATS score explains how to read the number.

From there, AI resume tailoring gives you a tailored resume for that application, written from your own experience. You accept the suggestions you want and skip the rest. If you save projects, achievements and notes in the Career Vault (with GitHub and LinkedIn import), tailoring draws on your real experience, much like the master resume described above. The free plan includes unlimited applications and resumes and 3 credits a month, and you can sign up at leepo.ai.

If you would rather use a general AI chat tool, our guide to tailoring your resume with ChatGPT has prompts that keep the output honest.

Quick checklist before you hit apply

• I saved the posting and listed its must-haves
• Every must-have I genuinely have appears in my resume, next to evidence
• My most relevant bullets come first, and my summary and skills match this role
• Nothing on the page is something I could not explain in an interview
• The company name is right, and I know which version I sent