Tailor your CV to the job in twenty minutes

Why bother

An employer reading your CV is asking one question: could this person do our job? A CV written for no job in particular makes them work out the answer. A tailored one points straight at it. Prospects and the National Careers Service both recommend adapting your application to each role.

Tailoring doesn’t mean writing a new CV every time, and it never means changing the facts. It means choosing which true things to show first.

Step 1: keep a master CV

Your master CV holds everything: every job, placement, volunteering role, qualification, skill and extra, with the best lines you’ve written for each. It can be longer than a page. Nobody sees it but you.

Every application starts as a copy of the master. Save each copy with the job in the name, so you can find what you sent if you’re invited to interview.

Step 2: read the advert properly

Read it twice. The second time, mark:

• What the job actually involves day to day.
• What they say is essential and what is desirable.
• Words they repeat.
• Practical things: hours, location, start date, whether they want a CV, a form or a cover letter, and in which format.

The reading a job description lesson has a worksheet for this.

Step 3: match, honestly

Next to each thing they ask for, write the evidence you have. Some will have strong evidence, some a little, some none. That’s normal, and you don’t need everything on a list to apply.

If the advert uses a specific term for something you’ve genuinely done, use their term. Some employers use software to search applications for words from the advert, and a person reading it will also be looking for them. Job Help suggests using the advert’s key terms and checking their spelling.

Step 4: reorder and trim

This is where most of the difference comes from.

• Rewrite your profile so the “what you want” part names this kind of role, and the “what you bring” part uses your most relevant evidence.
• Put the most relevant line first under each experience entry.
• Swap in a different example if you have a better match in your master CV.
• Cut what doesn’t help this application, so the relevant parts aren’t buried.

Here’s Zara. She’s fictional, but plenty of people apply for very different jobs in the same week. Her master CV has a supermarket Saturday job, a work placement at a GP surgery, and college.

Step 5: check before you send

The file format

Use the format the employer asks for. If the advert says Word, send Word. If it says PDF, send PDF. If they’ve got an online form, use the form.

If they don’t say, there isn’t one rule that’s right everywhere. A PDF keeps your layout exactly as you made it, which is useful when a person will read it. Some careers services, including Job Help and the University of Sheffield, suggest Word for uploads to online systems. If you’re unsure, it’s fine to ask. The designed CV or plain CV lesson explains when to send which.

The file name

Name the file so it’s clearly yours: Zara-Ahmed-CV.pdf, not CV final FINAL (2).pdf. Prospects makes the same point.

Your personal details

Before a CV leaves your hands, check what’s on it:

• Your phone number and email are right and you actually check that inbox.
• Your email address is one you’d be happy for an employer to see.
• No date of birth, National Insurance number, bank details or passport number. GOV.UK warns not to share your NI number with anyone who doesn’t need it.
• Your full home address isn’t needed, especially on job sites. Your town is enough.
• If you’ve linked to social media or a portfolio, check what’s public on it.

The last read

Read it out loud once. Check the company name is right everywhere, especially if you copied from another application. Sending a CV that names a different employer is an easy mistake and an avoidable one.

When you’re done, run through the CV checklist before you send it.