How to Tailor Your Resume for a Job: A Step-by-Step Guide

Why Tailoring Your Resume Matters According to Career Coaches

Research suggests that recruiters spend an average of seven seconds looking at a resume. In those seven seconds, your resume must show the recruiter that you have the skills and experience they’re looking for. If you don’t grab their attention in that time frame, your chances of getting an interview are slim.
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Career Counselor Sonya Mead emphasizes just how critical it is to frame your resume to match the job title, even if the title is only slightly different from your current or past roles.

Growth marketer and product marketer might seem adjacent, but from a recruiter's perspective, some may not connect the dots unless it’s laid out clearly. Anything you can do to showcase your relevant experience in black and white helps.

She adds that recruiters and hiring managers appreciate when candidates bullet out how their qualifications match the job requirements, as it makes their job easier and increases your chances of getting passed on to the next round.

Additionally, most employers use applicant tracking systems (ATS), which scan resumes for keywords to determine whether they meet the job requirements before passing them along to a human recruiter. If your resume isn’t tailored for the job, it’s less likely to make it through the ATS and into the hands of a recruiter.

It’s certainly easier (and faster) to submit a generic resume when you apply for a job, but doing so lessens your chances of making it to the interview stage. Tailored resumes target specific keywords that are listed in the job description, showing how you meet the requirements through your experience and skill set.

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Step-by-Step: How to Tailor Your Resume for a Job Description

These steps will show you how to tailor a resume to a job description and improve your chances of landing an interview.

1. Analyze the Job Description Thoroughly

Before you touch your resume, read the job description thoroughly to ensure you fully understand the role. Highlight any keywords, skills, or responsibilities mentioned, especially if they appear in the job description more than once, which suggests they’re top priorities. 

You can complete this step manually, though it can take time, especially if you’re applying for multiple jobs in one session. Use the CTRL+F shortcut to find common phrases and make a note of them to ensure you include them in your tailored resume. You can also use automated tools, which scans your resume and the description of the job you’re applying for to determine how well they match. You can then switch up the language and keywords in your resume to better match the job description before submitting it.

2. Identify the Employer’s Top Priorities

Finding keywords in the job description is just the first step toward tailoring your resume. Next, reread the description to better understand the employer’s top priorities, pain points, and problems they’re trying to solve with a new hire. Once you have this information, consider what aspects of your own experience can help the employer meet their goals and include keywords around that experience in the summary section of your resume. That way, you’re explaining why you’re the best person to help them right at the top of your application.

3. Match Your Skills and Experience to the Role

Next, it’s time to rework your resume so your skills and experience more closely match the role you’re applying for. That doesn’t mean you should be untruthful. Instead, identify your most relevant skills and experience and put that at the forefront of your resume. However, don’t keyword-stuff by adding too many “buzzwords” just for the sake of using them. Aim to include each keyword one to three times in your resume in a natural way.

4. Customize Key Sections of Your Resume

Check that the main sections of your resume are customized to the job you’re applying for. In your professional summary section, rewrite the text to better align with the job goals. Include the skills most relevant to the position, and include the job title so the ATS and recruiter know that you have tailored your resume for the job.

In your work experience section, check that you’ve showcased your most relevant achievements. If you helped a previous employer hit their sales goals, think of a creative way to share this. Instead of saying “helped the company meet quarterly sales goals,” you could say, “implemented a new lead tracking system that increased total leads by 50%, pushing the company’s total sales over the quarterly goal.” Including metrics shows exactly how you added value to your previous employer, which will make more of an impression on the recruiter reading your resume than a generic statement.

Finally, customize the skills section of your resume by prioritizing your most relevant skills. If the job description specifies that candidates must have management experience, list your relevant skills at the top of the section. If you haven’t directly managed people, write about when you mentored or trained a coworker to show off these skills.

5. Keep It Concise and Relevant

It’s tempting to try to cram as much information as you can into your resume, but making it too long can actually put recruiters off. Review your current resume and decide which parts you can remove for the job you’re applying for. The goal is to make your resume concise and highly relevant for the position.

Zanetta Siciliano, Certified Career Coach at JobTest who previously worked as a recruiter, echoes this.

Recruiters are busy. Sometimes they have a dozen roles to fill and a thousand resumes to go through [...] Even the best candidates can get buried if their resume doesn’t match the job title or show alignment clearly. The easier you make it for a recruiter to say ‘yes,’ the better.

For example, if you’re applying for a digital marketing position, you can leave off your experience in retail and focus instead on your experience that best matches the job. You want your resume to be easy to scan, both for ATS and for human recruiters, and if it’s too long, it’ll go right in the discard pile.

Tailored Resume Example (Before and After)

Want to see how a tailored resume can help you win that interview? Consider the following examples of a generic and tailored resume for a sample job posting.

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Generic Resume

Professional Summary

Motivated sales representative with a background in selling, client management, and end-to-end sales processes. Excellent customer service, communication, and persuasion skills. Experienced with account management, Microsoft Office, and Salesforce. 

Skills

• Customer management
• Prospecting
• Research
• Communication
• Attention to detail
• Sales reporting

Tailored Resume

Professional Summary

Driven and personable sales representative with over 3 years of experience in B2B and B2C sales environments. Proven track record of exceeding quarterly sales goals, managing full-cycle sales processes, and developing strong client relationships. Skilled in identifying new business opportunities, confidently handling objections, and executing targeted strategies that boost revenue. Adept at networking, attending industry events, and creating value-based solutions for customers.

Skills

• Lead generation and pipeline development
• Strategic selling and closing techniques
• Client relationship management
• Public speaking and trade show engagement
• CRM and sales reporting (Salesforce, HubSpot)
• Strong communication and negotiation
• Objection handling and problem solving
• Goal-oriented and detail-focused

By aligning your experience and skills with what the employer is specifically looking for, you immediately position yourself as a stronger, more relevant candidate. And a tailored resume not only gets noticed, it gets interviews.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Tailoring a Resume

Tailoring a resume for a specific job takes time and effort, but it increases your chances of getting an interview. However, there are several mistakes you might make when tailoring your resume. Here are the biggest ones to avoid.

• Using a one-size-fits-all resume. It’s essential to tailor your resume to each job, even if you’re applying for several positions that are very similar.
• Overstuffing with keywords. You might think that adding as many keywords as possible will help improve your chances of making it through the ATS scan and to a recruiter, but the opposite is true. Resumes stuffed with keywords can set off spam triggers and are off-putting for recruiters to review.
• Ignoring soft skills or employer culture fit. Hard skills (like being bilingual or having experience in specific software like Adobe) are essential to include in a tailored resume. However, don’t leave off soft skills mentioned in the job description, like problem-solving, critical thinking, or adaptability. These skills can be as essential for potential employers as the hard skills listed.
• Forgetting to tailor the cover letter. Most jobs ask you to include a cover letter (and submitting one is wise even if not requested). However, submitting a generic cover letter is as bad as submitting a non-tailored resume. Pepper the job-related keywords into your cover letter (but don’t overdo it) and include the most relevant information to the job description in your letter.

Be Wary of AI and Other “Quick-Fix” Resume Tools

With the rise of AI platforms, it’s easier than ever to tailor your resume for a job. These platforms and other “quick fix” resume tools let you paste in your current resume and the job description, then spits out a version tailored specifically for that job. Sounds great, right?

AI certainly has a place in modern life, but be careful when using it to tailor your resume. These resources can be useful guides, but they have some potential disadvantages to keep in mind when using them. Here are the most significant pros and cons of using these tools.
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Using an AI platform to tailor your resume can be a good first step, but it shouldn’t be your only step. If you do use AI for this purpose, read your resume carefully before submitting it for the job. Watch out for generic language, keyword stuffing, and false information. For example, the AI tool might claim you have a skill or experience you don’t have, which is misleading.

Why a Career Coach May Be the Best Solution

There are other tools you can use to tailor your resume that are less likely to introduce errors. Career coaches and human resume writing services still offer a superior option over AI. Having an experienced human look over your resume and make suggestions is a much better way of tailoring it than leaving it up to technology. 

Professionals at JobTest.org offer resume services that help showcase your strengths and increase your chances of landing your dream job. This is a highly personalized approach that allows you to meet with a dedicated resume writer to discuss your goals, work history, and desired job opportunities. The output? A polished and tailored resume that will help you rise to the top of the stack. 

Tailoring Takes Time, But It Pays Off

When you’re applying for a job, tailoring your resume can seem like a time suck. However, the time you take to tailor your resume for a job is well spent since it increases your chances of getting an interview. A personalized resume and cover letter can help you achieve long-term job success, and focusing on the quality of your application rather than the quantity of jobs you’re applying for can help you land the best role for you. In other words, more work now could mean less work in terms of applications later!

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