Blog · 5 min read
How to tailor your resume to a job description in 15 minutes
Tailoring does not mean starting over. It means making the true parts of your experience easier to see for this one job.
Step 1: Highlight the posting (3 minutes)
Copy the posting into a document. Mark every skill, tool and responsibility. Circle the three that appear more than once or near the top. Those are what the team cares about most.
Step 2: Match each one to real proof (5 minutes)
For each circled item, find a line in your experience that shows it. If one is missing, leave it out. Do not add a skill you cannot talk about in an interview.
Step 3: Edit the top third (5 minutes)
Change your headline to the job's title if it fits your work. Reorder bullets so the matching ones come first. Use the posting's wording where it describes the same thing you did.
Step 4: Check and save (2 minutes)
Read it out loud. Save it with the company and role in the file name so you know which version you sent.
- Keep employers, titles and dates exactly as they were.
- Do not change numbers to sound bigger.
- Keep one master resume and make copies per job.
Doing it faster
Dayfive keeps a master resume and makes a tailored copy per job that can only reword and reorder what you wrote. Employers, titles and dates stay locked, and any number not in your profile or the posting is rejected.