How to match your résumé to a job description (honestly)

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that employers use to collect job applications, store them, and search and filter them. Recruiters often search that store for the terms in the job ad, so a résumé that uses the ad's own words for skills you really have is easier to find. The honest way to match a job description is to find the terms the ad repeats, then use them only where they describe work you did.

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What an applicant tracking system does

Hiring software differs a great deal. Some systems read the file and split it into fields such as name, job titles and dates. Others store the file as it is and leave the search to a person. Many do some of each. Nobody outside a company knows the settings it uses, so no checker, including this one, can promise that a résumé will pass. What you can control is whether your résumé says clearly what you do, in the words a reader and a search are likely to use.

Imagine a recruiter searching for a "data analyst" with "SQL" and "dashboards". They will type those words. If your résumé describes the same work as "reporting on database queries", a plain search may skip you, even though you are qualified. That gap is what this post is about.

Read the ad for its repeated terms

Copy the whole ad into a text file, then look for three kinds of words:

• Titles: the job title and close variants, such as "analyst" and "data analyst".
• Tools and methods: named software, languages, standards and methods the ad lists.
• Qualifications and skills: degrees, certificates, languages, and skills such as "stakeholder reporting" or "budget planning".

Words that appear more than once, or in the opening lines and the list of requirements, matter most. Make a short list of ten to fifteen terms. Some will be tools you use every day. Others will be phrases you have never used. Only the first kind should go into your résumé as they stand.

When your own name for a skill differs from the ad's, use the ad's term where it honestly fits. If you did "client support" and the ad says "customer success", you can write "customer success (client support)" once, because a reader or a search may use either. Do not invent a title you never held.

Check the list against your résumé with the keyword checker. It shows the ad's frequent words and phrases that are missing from your résumé, and those already there, with a match share. The match share tells you how much of the ad's wording your résumé already uses. It is a guide to wording, not a score of how good you are.

Where the terms belong

Put each term where it describes real work:

• Summary: one or two sentences at the top that name the job title and your strongest matching skills.
• Skills: a short list of tools and skills in the ad's wording, limited to the ones you can use.
• Experience bullets: the best place for a term. "Built monthly sales dashboards in Excel for three managers" carries "dashboards" and "Excel" and shows what you did. A bare word in a skills box does not.
• Education and certificates: the exact name of the qualification, as the issuer writes it.

Write a term in full with its abbreviation once, such as "search engine optimisation (SEO)". Some systems search for the short form and others for the full phrase, so the pair covers both. After that, use whichever form the ad uses.

What not to do

Keyword stuffing is the common mistake. Repeating a term ten times, or adding a block of words with no context, does not make you a better candidate, and it reads badly to the person who opens the file next. A search may bring your résumé up, but a human reads the page after that, and a list of unconnected words looks like what it is.

Do not put words in white text or tiny type to hide them. It is dishonest, and a reader who finds the hidden block may reject you for it. Do not claim a skill you do not have either. The interview will test it.

Do not paste the job ad into your résumé. Copying its sentences word for word makes the document read like the ad, and it says nothing about you.

Use the terms, then check the file

Once the terms are in place, read the résumé aloud. If a line sounds like a list of words, rewrite the bullet around what you did and what changed because of it. Then check the layout. A résumé that a parser splits into the wrong order loses some of the terms you just added. The résumé builder makes a one-column layout with standard headings and saves it as a PDF with selectable text, which keeps the words in a readable order.

Edge cases

• Different jobs, different résumés. Keep one master file with all your experience, and copy the relevant parts into a version for each ad. Sending the same file everywhere means the terms match some ads and miss others.
• Career changers. The ad's terms may describe skills you have under another name. Use the ad's term where it is true, and explain the rest in the summary.
• Language. If the ad is written in one language and your résumé in another, use the ad's terms in the language of the ad, as the employer posted it.
• Practice varies. Some employers ask for a form, some for a file, and some use a portal that copies your details into fields. Follow the instructions, and do not add tricks to a form that has no room for them.

How to do it

1. Copy the job description into the job description box of the keyword checker.
2. Paste your résumé as text into the second box.
3. For each missing term, ask whether you have this skill. If yes, add it in the place that fits. If no, leave it out.
4. Run the check again and confirm the terms now appear in the matched list.
5. Save the final file as a PDF from the résumé builder, or from your word processor, and check that the text can be selected.