How to tailor your resume to each job posting

Why one resume for every job loses

A hiring team opens a posting with a short list of must-haves in mind. Your resume has a few seconds to show those items. If the top third of the page talks about skills the posting never mentions, the reader moves on.

Many companies also run applications through an applicant tracking system. These systems store your resume as text and let a recruiter search it. A search for "Salesforce" or "payroll" only finds you if those words are on your page. Tailoring is how you make sure they are.

None of this means you should stretch the truth. A tailored resume is the same person described in the posting's language. If you can't honestly claim a skill, leave it off.

Step 1: keep a master resume

Start with one long file that holds everything: every job, every project, every accomplishment you might ever use. It can run four pages. Nobody sends this file. You cut from it.

For each job, list:

• The employer, your title and exact dates.
• Five to ten bullets, each with what you did and what changed because of it.
• Software, systems and certifications you used there.

When a bullet has a count or a dollar amount, keep it exactly as you can prove it. If you don't have a count, describe the work plainly instead of inventing one.

Step 2: mark up the posting

Paste the posting into a document and mark three things.

1. The job title and the team it sits on.
2. Every skill or program listed as required.
3. Repeated phrases. If "cross-functional" shows up three times, the team cares about it.

Rank the marked items. The first five are what your resume has to prove at a glance.

Step 3: rebuild the top third

The top third of page one is where a reader decides. Rewrite three parts of it.

The title line goes under your name. Match the posting's title if it truly describes you. "Accounts payable specialist" beats "motivated professional."

The intro lines come next. Two or three lines that name your years in the field and the top skills from your ranked list.

Then the skills block. List the posting's required skills that you have, using its spelling. If the posting says "Google Analytics 4," write that, not "web analytics."

Step 4: reorder the bullets

Under each job, put the bullets closest to the posting first. Cut or shorten bullets that don't help this application. Two lines each is plenty.

Use the posting's verbs where they fit. If it says "own the onboarding process," a bullet that begins "Owned customer onboarding for 40 accounts" works better than "Helped with onboarding," as long as the first one is true.

What you leave alone counts just as much:

• Employers, titles and dates stay exact.
• Degrees and certifications stay exact.
• Skills you don't have stay off the page.

Step 5: check the file before you send it

Open the final file and look for four things.

1. One page if you have under ten years of experience, two if more.
2. Plain headings such as Experience and Education, since odd labels can confuse tracking systems.
3. No text inside images or tables for the main content. Keep layouts simple.
4. A file name with your name and the company, like Jordan-Lee-Acme.pdf.

Then say it out loud once. If a sentence trips you up, a hiring manager will trip on it too.

What tailoring can't fix

A tailored resume gets you past the first look. It does not make you a fit for a job that needs five years of something you have never done. Apply where you meet most of the must-haves, and spend your time there.

Speed helps too. A posting that has been open for two weeks may already have a pile of applications. Applying early, with a resume that fits, is the best use of the 15 minutes.

Doing this at volume

By hand, the steps above take about 15 minutes per posting. At ten applications a week that is two and a half hours, and most people stop after the first few days.

Salvo does the same work for you. You write your rules once: titles, pay, places, companies to skip. Salvo finds jobs that fit them, rewrites your resume for each job, and submits the application itself on Greenhouse, Workable and Ashby today, with more job sites being added. It then preps you for the interview and saves a submission receipt. You can see how it works on the how Salvo applies page, and the receipts page shows what a saved record looks like.

Salvo is free to start, with no card. Your first 2 interview requests are free. After that a Turbo plan keeps replies unlocked: weekly $14, monthly $39, every 3 months $89, yearly $299, with 7 days free to try. Start at sendsalvo.com and upload your master resume.

If you'd like to compare options before you pick one, the alternatives page sets Salvo next to other job application apps, with sources.

What to do next

Build the master resume this week. Mark up your next posting using the five steps, and time yourself. If it takes you longer than 15 minutes, or you want the work gone, sign up for Salvo and let it handle the tailoring for you.

Related

• New on Salvo: guides and comparisons
• /how-salvo-applies.html
• /alternatives/