How to tailor your CV to a job description
Most applications are rejected before a human reads them. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) score how closely your CV matches the posting, and recruiters spend about seven seconds on a first scan. Tailoring is not rewriting your life story for every job – it is a 20-minute routine that moves the right facts to the right places.
Step 1 – Pull the requirements out of the posting
Copy the job description into a document and highlight every noun phrase that describes a skill, tool, responsibility or outcome: "stakeholder management", "Kubernetes", "reduce churn", "B2B SaaS". Group them into must-haves (usually in the first paragraph and the "requirements" list) and nice-to-haves.
You now have the vocabulary the ATS and the recruiter are looking for. Your CV has to use these exact words where they are true – "Kubernetes" scores, "container orchestration" may not.
Step 2 – Rewrite the summary for this role
The three-line summary at the top is the only part everyone reads. Open with the job title you are applying for (not your current one), then two achievements that map to the must-haves, then what you want to do next for this company.
Example: "Backend engineer with 7 years in payments. Cut checkout latency 40% after migrating a Java core to Kotlin; mentored a team of 5. Looking to scale marketplace services at Allegro." Three sentences, three keywords, one number per sentence.
Step 3 – Reorder and reword your bullet points
Under each job, put the bullet that matches the posting first. Rewrite bullets in the verb–what–result form: "Migrated the payments core to Kotlin, −40% p95 latency." Replace vague verbs (handled, worked on, helped) with specific ones (built, migrated, negotiated, cut).
Drop bullets that do not support this application – a one-page CV with five relevant bullets beats two pages with fifteen generic ones.
Step 4 – Mirror the skills section
List skills in the order the posting mentions them, using the posting's spelling. Twelve skills maximum. If the ad says "PostgreSQL" and your CV says "Postgres", change it.
Step 5 – Check the match before you send
Read the posting once more and tick every must-have you can find in your CV within a few seconds. If one is missing and you genuinely have it, add it. If you do not have it, do not invent it – interviewers verify.
RezuYes does steps 1–5 automatically: paste your old CV and the posting, get a tailored CV with a job-fit score and the ten questions the interviewer is likely to ask. Preview is free.
FAQ
How long should a tailored CV be?
One page for under ten years of experience, two pages maximum otherwise. Tailoring usually makes a CV shorter, not longer.
Should I tailor the file name too?
Yes: "Firstname-Lastname-CV-Company.pdf" looks intentional and is easy for recruiters to find.
Does keyword stuffing work?
No. Modern ATS and every recruiter notice. Use each keyword where it is true, once or twice.