How to Tailor Your Resume to a Job Description

You paste your résumé into an online portal, hit Submit, and hear crickets. You’re not alone—each corporate job opening attracts about 250 applications, and most are screened out long before a human ever sees them. The five-step framework below shows you how to thread the needle so both Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and hiring managers spot why you belong in the interview seat.

Need the short version?
Match their language → map your wins → mirror verbs + numbers → use ATS-friendly formatting → iterate until your résumé scores ≥ 80 % in JobFit AI.

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1 • Start with the Job’s Language

Read the posting like an open-book exam.

• Highlight mission-critical phrases—tools, certifications, and verbs that repeat are likely ATS keywords.
• Drop the highlights into a keyword bank; you’ll reuse them in your headline, work bullets, and skills list.

Time-saver: A word-frequency tool surfaces repetitive terms in seconds.

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2 • Map Your Wins to Their Needs

Grab your current résumé and do a side-by-side check.

1. Circle bullets that already echo the highlighted keywords.
2. For gaps, brainstorm parallel achievements. Managed a club budget? That’s project management. Led daily stand-ups? That’s agile collaboration.

Example: Sarah, a retail associate, saw “campaign analytics” all over a marketing-coordinator posting. She’d never run a campaign—but she had tracked weekly sales KPIs. Reframing that bullet with the employer’s term bumped her JobFit Score from 48 % to 82 %, landing an interview the next week.

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3 • Rewrite with Mirror Verbs and Numbers

You’ve matched concepts; now echo the employer’s wording.

• Swap generic verbs (“helped with”) for precise ones in the ad (“launched,” “optimized,” “orchestrated”).
• Quantify everything. Recruiters skim a résumé in 7.4 seconds on average; hard numbers stop the scroll.

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4 • Format for Robot Eyes

Most ATS parse left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

• Stick to a single column—skip text boxes and fancy tables.
• Use standard headings: Experience, Education, Skills.
• Save as .docx or PDF (only if the company allows; older systems choke on PDFs).

Run the file through an ATS scanner—JobFit AI highlights unreadable elements instantly.

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5 • Test, Tweak, Repeat

Upload your tailored résumé and the job description to JobFit AI. You’ll get a Job Fit Score (shoot for 80 %+).

Iterate until both the score and your confidence climb.

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Quick Recap

• Lift the exact language from the posting.
• Translate your achievements into those keywords; quantify them.
• Keep the layout ATS-friendly.
• Aim for an 80 %+ Job Fit Score before hitting Submit.
• Rinse and repeat for every role you want.

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Ready to Try It?

Upload your résumé and a job ad to the JobFit AI Résumé Analyzer.