Tailor Your CV to the Job Description. Land the Interview.

Tailoring your CV means adjusting its content to the specific requirements of the job you’re applying for. You keep the same experience but present it differently, depending on what the role actually asks for. The ATS looks for matching keywords, the recruiter looks for relevance, and a tailored CV is built to satisfy both.

The candidates who get interviews are often the ones whose CV makes the strongest case for this specific role, not the most qualified ones. You already have the qualifications, and tailoring makes sure they show up in the right place. Enhancv’s guide on how to tailor your CV walks through every step.

1. Read the job description carefully and note the essential and desirable criteria: skills, qualifications and keywords.
2. Match those terms to your experience and rework your wording so it reflects the advert’s language.
3. Reorder your bullet points so the most relevant achievements come first in each role.
4. Rewrite your personal statement for the specific role and level of seniority.
5. Cut anything that doesn’t connect to this role, even if it’s impressive elsewhere.
6. Run your CV through an ATS checker to confirm the keyword overlap before you apply.

1. Mirror the exact language of the advert. If it says ‘stakeholder management’, don’t write ‘client relations’.
2. Lead each role with your most relevant achievement, not your most recent one. Keep the roles in reverse-chronological order, as UK and Irish employers expect, and let relevance decide the order inside each one.
3. Adjust your job title if it honestly reflects the role you’re applying for. Titles vary between employers, and yours shouldn’t work against you.
4. Rewrite your CV personal statement for every application. It’s the first thing a recruiter reads and the most important part to tailor.
5. Cut hard. Two A4 pages is the standard in the UK and Ireland, so fill them with what this employer needs, not with everything you’ve ever done.
6. Check your keyword overlap before you apply. A match score below 70% is worth another pass.
7. Tailor the content and keep the formatting. A clean, ATS-friendly layout stays the same from one application to the next: only what’s inside it changes.

Keywords for your CV are the specific terms a job advert uses to describe the role: skills, certifications, qualifications and experience. They’re also what the ATS scans for.

Start by reading the advert and highlighting the essential criteria. Those are your priority keywords. Then add the ones that honestly reflect your experience to your personal statement, bullet points and skills section.

Put the most important ones near the top, where the ATS and the recruiter see them first. One rule: use the advert’s exact wording, not your own variation. If it says ‘project management’, don’t write ‘managing projects’, because most ATS still look for the match, not the meaning.

1. Use a clean layout in one or two columns. Avoid text boxes, tables and graphics: an ATS can’t extract text from them and may skip that content entirely.
2. Stick to standard section headings. ‘Work experience’ and ‘Education’ are safe, while creative alternatives like ‘My journey’ or ‘Where I’ve been’ often aren’t recognised.
3. Mirror the language of the advert. Use its exact terms, not your own variations, and save the creativity for the job itself.
4. Put your most relevant keywords in your personal statement, bullet points and skills section. The ATS reads these parts first and gives them the most weight.
5. Keep important details out of the document’s header and footer. Some ATS skip them.
6. Send your CV as a PDF unless the advert asks for Word. A well-built PDF keeps your layout identical on every device and still parses cleanly.
7. Check your match score before you apply. Enhancv’s CV Checker runs 27 checks across 7 categories, from content to grammar, and tells you exactly what to fix.

A tailored CV gives you the best chance, but ‘getting through the ATS’ isn’t a yes-or-no outcome.

Most ATS don’t reject CVs automatically. They score, rank and sort, and a tailored CV moves you up that ranking, so more recruiters see your application and spend longer on it.

The things that matter most are keyword match, clean formatting and standard section headings. Get those right and the ATS works in your favour.

The quickest way to know where you stand is to check before you apply. Enhancv’s CV Checker scores your CV against the job description and shows exactly what’s pulling your match score down.

For roles you really want, yes. A tailored CV works better than a generic one: 83% of recruiters say they’re more likely to hire a candidate who tailored their CV to the job (Jobvite).

If you’re applying for lots of similar roles, such as graduate schemes in the same sector, you don’t need to start from scratch each time. Build a strong base version for one type of role, then make targeted changes for each advert. Usually only the keywords, the personal statement and the top bullet points need to change.

Tailoring every application by hand isn’t realistic. That’s why Enhancv keeps your master CV in the background: the heavy lifting is already done, and adapting it to a new role takes minutes, not hours.

A tailored CV. Recruiters are more likely to hire candidates who tailored their CV to the role (83%, Jobvite). Hiring managers agree: 61% call it the best way to improve your chances (Zippia).

A generic CV covers everything you’ve done. A tailored CV covers what this job needs. Those are two different documents, and recruiters can tell straight away.

The only argument for a generic CV is speed. But a CV that isn’t matched to the role ranks lower in the ATS, gets less attention from recruiters and leads to fewer interviews.

By hand, anywhere from one to three hours, depending on how far the role is from your current CV. You need to read the advert carefully, find the right keywords, rewrite your personal statement, reorder your bullet points and cut what doesn’t fit. You do that for every application, so the time adds up fast.

With Enhancv, the first pass takes seconds. The AI reads the job description, draws on your master CV and rewrites the relevant sections. You spend your time reviewing and approving changes, not writing them from scratch.

ChatGPT can rewrite the parts of a CV you paste in. But it doesn’t see your full career history and has no access to real job-matching data. The output is only as good as what you give it, and a generic prompt gets a generic result.

Enhancv’s AI tailoring works differently. Its prompts are built with Certified Professional Resume Writers (CPRWs), and it draws on your full profile, built across every CV version you’ve created. The suggestions are specific to you and the role, not a rewrite of whatever you pasted in.

• Enhancv: the most complete option for experienced professionals. AI tailoring built with CPRWs, a built-in ATS check, a job board with match scores and a Job Application Tracker that links each tailored CV to its application. Free 7-day plan.
• MyPerfectCV: a UK-branded CV builder with AI writing help and templates. Less depth on ATS feedback and job-by-job tailoring.
• Jobscan: strong ATS keyword analysis, focused on the match score rather than on building the CV.
• Resume Worded: useful for feedback and scoring. Less complete for tailoring and building a CV.
• ChatGPT: handy for rewriting sections if you know what to ask. No job matching, no ATS score and no structured CV profile.

Employers care whether your CV is accurate, not how it was written. Using AI to tailor your CV is no different from running a spellcheck or asking a friend to read it over. The goal is a better document, not an invented one.

Enhancv’s AI only works from the experience and skills already in your profile. It rewrites and suggests, but it doesn’t add qualifications you don’t have. What you send is still factually yours: the AI does the tedious part, and you make the decisions.

With no work experience, tailoring is less about your employment history and more about showing what you can do for this role.

Start with the job advert and note the skills and qualities it asks for. Then find where they show up in your background: coursework, projects, a placement year, part-time work or volunteering. These CV examples for a first job show how to present them.

A few specifics:

1. Open with a personal statement that positions you for this type of role, not just ‘recent graduate seeking opportunities’.
2. Put your skills section high on the page, above your experience.
3. Use the exact language of the advert when you describe projects or academic work.
4. Don’t pad. One focused A4 page is normal for school leavers and graduates, and the second page can wait until you have more to put on it.

A career change CV has one job: close the credibility gap before the recruiter decides it’s too wide.

Open with a personal statement that frames the move clearly: why this role, why now and what you bring from your previous field. Then go through the advert and pick out the transferable skills, such as project management, stakeholder communication or data analysis. Name them in the language of the new field, not the old one.

Be selective about your previous career. Keep what’s relevant, cut what confuses the story and don’t apologise for the change. A skills-based CV can help when your recent roles say little about the new one.

Tech roles are more keyword-specific than most. The advert lists exact technologies, languages and frameworks, and the ATS scans for those exact strings: ‘Proficient in Python’ and ‘Python developer’ aren’t the same match.

List every technical requirement in the advert, then map your experience against it honestly. For the skills you have, use the advert’s exact terminology. Leave off the skills you’re still developing: a gap does less damage than an exaggeration that comes out in a technical interview.

Beyond the tech stack, tailor your bullet points to show impact the role cares about: system performance, deployment frequency, code reviews, team size. Generic bullet points get ignored in tech hiring, as they do everywhere else. For a model to work from, see this software engineer CV example.

Tailoring by hand (reading the advert, rewriting your CV, adjusting the keywords yourself) costs nothing but time.

AI tailoring is where the tools come in, and most CV builders keep it behind a paid plan. Enhancv’s free plan lasts seven days and lets you try the builder, AI Assistant included, before you commit. The ATS check inside the editor and the other Pro features come with Enhancv Pro.

Here it is: use it before every application. A tailored CV gets more interviews, and this checklist makes sure yours really is tailored.

Step 1: analyse the job advert

• Read the whole advert before you touch your CV.
• Highlight the essential criteria: skills, qualifications, certifications and experience level.
• Note the desirable criteria separately.
• Find the exact keywords: copy the wording, not just the idea.
• Note the job title as it appears in the advert.

Step 2: update your personal statement

• Rewrite your personal statement for this specific role.
• Use the job title from the advert if it honestly reflects your experience.
• Lead with your most relevant strength, not your most recent one.
• Keep it to three to five lines.

Step 3: match the keywords

• Add the essential keywords from the advert to your CV.
• Use the advert’s exact wording.
• Put the most important keywords in your personal statement and top bullet points.
• Add missing skills to your skills section if you really have them.

Don’t add skills you don’t have. The ATS gets you to the interview, and the interview is where you have to prove them.

Step 4: reorder by relevance

• Within each role, put the most relevant bullet point first.
• Keep your roles in reverse-chronological order.
• Cut bullet points with no link to this job.
• Shorten roles that add nothing here, such as older jobs or ones in unrelated sectors.

Step 5: check your formatting

• No text boxes, tables or graphics an ATS can’t read
• Standard section headings only (Work experience, Education, Skills)
• Consistent font, size and spacing throughout
• No important information in the header or footer
• A PDF, unless the advert asks for Word
• Two A4 pages at most, unless your field expects more

Step 6: run your ATS check

• Paste the job advert into Enhancv’s ATS check.
• Review your match score.
• Work through the prioritised list of fixes.
• Aim for a match score above 70% before you apply.
• Run the check again after your changes.

Step 7: final read-through

• Read your CV out loud: if it sounds robotic, it reads robotic.
• Check that every bullet point starts with an action verb.
• Confirm that all dates, job titles and employer names are correct.
• Remove anything that doesn’t serve this application.
• Check that your contact details are up to date.