How to tailor your resume to a job description (with examples)

Step 1: Pull the requirements out of the posting

Copy the posting into a document and mark three groups: must-haves (usually labelled required, or listed first), nice-to-haves, and the words they use for everyday things (they might say 'stakeholders', 'cross-functional', 'ownership', 'SLAs'). The must-haves decide whether you should apply at all; the vocabulary decides whether a recruiter's search finds you.

Step 2: Match, honestly

For each must-have, write down where in your experience you have done it. If you have done it under a different name, note the posting's name. If you have not done it, leave it blank. A blank is information: three blanks on must-haves means this job is a long shot and your time is better spent elsewhere.

Step 3: Reorder and reword

• Summary: two or three sentences that name the role you are applying for and the two or three strengths this posting values most.
• Most recent role: move the bullets that match this job to the top. Reword them with the posting's vocabulary where it is accurate.
• Older roles: trim to the bullets that still matter for this job. Nobody needs eight bullets about a role from 2015.
• Skills: lead with the ones the posting names. Remove the ones that are irrelevant to this role (your 2012 Flash experience is not helping).

Before and after

Posting: 'Lead implementation projects for hospital clients, manage budgets up to $2M, coordinate with clinical and technical stakeholders.'

Before: 'Managed projects for various clients and handled project finances.'

After: 'Led EMR implementation projects for five hospital clients at once, managing budgets of $600K to $3M and coordinating clinical, R&D and support stakeholders through go-live.'

Same person, same facts. The second version uses the posting's vocabulary (implementation, hospital clients, budgets, stakeholders) and adds the numbers that were already true.

What not to do

• Do not add skills or tools you have not used. The first interview question about them will end the process.
• Do not copy sentences from the posting into your resume. Recruiters see the posting every day; they will recognise it.
• Do not change job titles to match the posting. You can add a clarifier in brackets ('Operations Lead (Project Manager)') if your official title was unusual, but the official title stays.
• Do not tailor the cover letter and leave the resume generic. The resume is what gets searched.

Doing it in two minutes

The slow part of tailoring is the matching: reading the posting, finding the overlap, rewording. This is what AI is good at when it is restricted to your real experience. Break-In Bad reads the posting, builds a tailored resume from your resume plus facts you have confirmed, and asks 'Have you done this?' for anything the posting wants that your resume does not show. A yes goes in; a no never does. It writes a matching cover letter and you preview both before anything is sent.