Watch: How to Tailor Your CV to a Job Description

If you’re applying for a role in the UK, learning how to tailor your CV to a job description can dramatically improve the chances that a recruiter spots your fit. This video walks you through a clear, repeatable process that lets you highlight the most relevant evidence without having to rewrite your whole CV for every vacancy. By the end, you’ll understand why precise relevance beats generic bulk and how a focused CV saves both your time and the recruiter’s.

The guide breaks a job advert into five buckets – must‑have requirements, repeated priorities, core responsibilities, tools/skills, and expected outcomes – turning a long description into a concise checklist. You’ll see a worked example where generic bullet points like “supported projects” become targeted statements such as “co‑ordinated project milestones and produced monthly status reports for leadership.” The video also warns against the common pitfall of simply copying employer phrasing without real evidence, and stresses keeping dates, titles and metrics unchanged while re‑ordering and re‑phrasing for relevance.

For UK job seekers, the lessons translate directly to everyday applications. Start with a strong base CV, then use the ten‑minute checklist to circle the top five requirements of each advert, match them to genuine experience, and move the strongest evidence to the top of each section. After tailoring, run the CV through TrueCV’s free ATS check for an extra set of eyes on relevance and clarity. Remember, the goal is to make your true achievements obvious to the recruiter, not to fabricate new history.