Make Your CV for a Specific Job

While it is important to have a generic CV ready to submit where requested, there are times when a CV will need to be tailored or customized for a specific job. The likelihood of this increases if the job is asking for special skills, but even for a general position, a CV that relates closely to the job, is more likely to tick the right boxes with the employer. What do we mean by tick the right boxes? Well, if you put yourself in the place of the recruiter for a moment, you will see that as they read through the submitted CVs, they will have a list of criteria that allow them to decide who to call for interview. In tailoring your CV, you are attempting to make this easy for them, by making it evident in what ways you meet their criteria.

Arrange items in your CV in the same order as they have chosen:

Make it easy for the recruiter, as they go through your CV, to see how you meet their criteria.

Highlight the most important matches in your covering letter:

Take the items that they have asked for, and put them in the covering letter using their words.

Online CVs:

At the end of your CV, include a list of relevant keywords – this is picked up by various types of software on job sites and by employer’s application sifting software. Make sure the keywords directly relate to the job, and change them regularly.