How to Tailor Your CV for Each Job Application

Employers detail the skills and experience that they require applicants to have in the job adverts and job descriptions. It’s a good idea to tailor your CV, cover letter, and any other supporting documents to each specific position you’re applying for. That way the employer can see that you have the skills that they require. Learn the importance and how to optimise your CV for each job application below.

Why Is It Important To Tailor Your CV For Each Application?

If you want to land your dream job, it’s very important that you deliver the best CV or resume that reflects the specifics of the position you’re applying for. Not only will this increase the likelihood that your CV will be short listed to interview by the hiring manager, but it will also demonstrate that you’ve taken the time to research the job requirements and have a firm grasp of why you’re the ideal candidate.

How to Optimise Your CV for Each Job Application

The main idea of tailoring your CV to a specific position is to emphasise the experiences and skills that are relevant to the job. By highlighting specific skills and experience that are called out in the advert and providing examples that are in line with the requirements you will stand out as a strong candidate and be more likely to be invited to interview.

Creating a unique curriculum vitae for each job you apply to can seem tedious and time-consuming at first, if you start off with a baseline CV, you will soon become accustomed to amending and adapting the CV to the specifics of each role that you apply for.  You needn’t begin each new application from scratch.

To get the job you want, you probably just need to make a few strategic changes to your CV.

Here’s how you can optimise your CV for each job application

Understand the Essential Requirements of the Job

There is no way to overstate the importance of carefully reading the entire job advert and job description thoroughly. Now read it yet again. In some cases, even reading the job description three times may be necessary, if you want to fully understand what the employer is looking for and to create the most relevant CV demonstrating how you match the requirements.

Find out as much as you can about the company and the position itself.  Even if you read the job description three times, you won’t spend much more than five minutes but you will get valuable insights that you need to tailor your CV. You can immediately set yourself apart from some of the other applicants by taking the time to study the job description in detail, and amending and adapting your CV showcasing how your skills and experience match the employer’s requirements. While many job sites allow you to apply in one or two clicks, taking the time to understand the role and mirror the requirements on your CV will set you apart from other applicants.

Identify Core Skills Required for the Job

One of the fundamental CV tips is to identify the core skills that employers are looking for. At this point, you must include keywords in your CV and professional profile (LinkedIn)  that are aligned with the jobs for which you are applying. Look at your ideal job descriptions to learn more about the keywords that employers use and ensure that you use them in your CV. Ensure that you cover commonly required competencies, and both hard and soft skills.

Hard skills typically refer to the technical skills to get the job done, soft skills are important for many jobs, and they include things like teamwork, communication, and organisation.

There is no need to list each and every one of your expertise on your CV. While it seems to make sense to highlight everything you’re good at, doing so could be actually counterproductive. You should only emphasise the qualities highlighted in the job description. Remove everything that could confuse or distract from what you want to emphasise in your CV.

Be Honest With Yourself – Am I A Good Match To The Job?

How Closely Do My Skills Match What The Company is Looking For?

The fact that you don’t have every single qualification specified in the job requirements doesn’t mean you won’t get an interview. To get the best  results tailor your CV for every job application. Highlight your most relevant experience and skills but be honest about everything you write on your CV.

It’s very unlikely that any applicant will have all the requirements that the employer is looking for, aim to apply for jobs where you have at least 70% – 80% of the requirements that the employer is looking for, this way you stand a good chance of being invited to interview.

Only Apply for Jobs Where You Are a Close Match

At this point, you can take advantage of job-searching tools that can help you filter jobs based on your profile. The more closely matching you and the job, the more things you can highlight in your CV and the greater chances you’d be called for an interview soon.

There are some clever online tools such as Jobscan and  ResyMatch which will look at your CV and compare with job adverts, and tell you how close a match you are and suggest areas to amend.

Emphasise Your Impact In Your Previous Roles

Your performance and contributions in your previous jobs are key points to present on your CV.

Describe the activities, the skills that you use, the outcome, and the impact you achieved, use numbers to back up your claims.

For example

• Restructured the business, expanded the sales team and product offerings, generating revenues and profitable growth. Turned around the $20m Medical and Scientific Division, delivered $2m profit swing, transforming loss to profitability and positioning group for $50m+ sales.
• Managed 5 direct and over 70 indirect multinational employees, empowering and expanding capabilities of IT professionals significantly increasing internal technical ability reducing reliance on external support saving c $150k annually .

Use key performance indicators to evidence your success, make sure that you call out increase in revenue, the percentage by which you reached or even surpassed your targets.

Ensure that the achievements you highlight are listed in the job requirements, that way your CV will make the most impact on the hiring managing.

 HOW CAN WE HELP?

At Total Career Solutions, we offer the expert, knowledge, experience, and insights and help you find a new job. Book a free 15-minute consultation with our professional career consultants to learn more.