How To Tailor Your Resume to a Job Description

Written by

Career Writer

Updated on October 23, 2025

How To Tailor Your Resume to a Job Description

Sending your resume without adapting it in response to every job you are interested in is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Just as a tailor makes clothes to fit each client, tailoring your resume for success means adapting your resume to make your skills and experience the best fit for each job.

In this article, we’ll explore the following so you can tailor your resume with confidence:

Why you need a tailored resume
How to adapt your resume to a job description
Why keywords are important
Examples of how to tailor your experience to different roles

You’ll have all the explanations and details you need to know to create your own targeted resume.
For an extra boost, use our AI-powered resume builder. to get concrete examples for each section, easily tailoring your experience to the job you are applying for.

Why Do You Need a Tailored Resume?

Remember, hiring managers might only scan each resume for six or seven seconds, so it’s imperative that you make yours stand out.

Our main reasons for advising you to tweak your resume for every job application are five-fold:

A tailored resume helps show that you’ve taken the time to familiarize yourself with the job as well as with the company.
It reflects skills such as attention to detail and critical thinking.
It establishes you as a hard-working individual willing to go the extra mile.
Adapting your resume for each role allows you to incorporate all important keywords into your document, which is beneficial when a company uses an applicant tracking system (ATS).
Finally, and importantly, you are more likely to be invited for a job interview if you tailor your resume.

How To Target Your Resume Step-by-Step

Now you know why you should target your resume to a job description: It’s all about making you the best candidate for a specific position.

But how do you do so? Here are the first three important steps you should take.

Read each job description carefully, noting the skills, experience, and qualifications required. Then, consider how to highlight those attributes in your resume.
Dedicate a little time to researching the company you are applying to work for. Their company culture and values might mean you need to change what you focus on in your resume. Take a look at their website and social media channels and look at the kind of language they use. Try to reflect the tone in your resume.
You may need to tweak your resume headline to reflect your target title. If you are a Back-end Developer who has recently trained in full-stack development but is now applying for a role as a Full-stack Developer, you will need to include this job title in your headline.

After completing your resume, try our resume checker to get a detailed score and see if all of these points are addressed and if anything can be improved.

💡top tip

We are not talking about a major overhaul of your resume each time you send it out in response to a job post. It’s merely tweaking some information you have to reflect the details found in each job description.

How To Update Key Sections: Summary, Experience, and Skills

To make sure your resume tailoring is done correctly, you’ll need to make sure key sections contain only relevant information to the job description.

Below, you can find how to customize your summary and other sections for the job you want.

Summary section

Arguably, your resume summary is one of the most important sections when grabbing a recruiter’s attention.

To tailor your summary, start by identifying key skills, qualifications, and responsibilities from the job description. Then, rephrase them naturally to reflect your own experience and results.

Take advantage of our free AI summary generator to help you create a custom summary in seconds.

Skills section

Your skills section should also be tailored to reflect the abilities sought by different companies; if one job description lists “strong written communication and creative skills” and another “excellent critical thinking and leadership skills,” then adapt the order of your skills list.

💡top tip

Use our free skills generator to come up with skills that match the job description.

Experience section

Next, tailor your experience section to show professional achievements that match the job description.

Highlight results using metrics, and reorder bullet points, so the most relevant ones appear first.

A tailored resume should contain industry-specific keywords that are important for getting a resume through an applicant tracking system. An ATS is designed to scan resumes and select those that contain relevant keywords.

Therefore, pulling keywords from the job description will be crucial in getting your document recognized by an ATS and, thus, into the hands of a recruiter.

Let’s see an example. First, here is a sample job description.

Digital Marketing Specialist

Our dynamic company is seeking a creative and analytical Digital Marketing Specialist to join our growing team. In this role, you’ll play a pivotal role in crafting and executing innovative social media campaigns that build brand awareness, drive website traffic, and generate leads. You’ll also leverage your SEO expertise to optimize our online presence and improve organic search rankings.

You should be sure to include keywords such as “creative,” “analytical,” “brand awareness,” “SEO,” and, of course, “digital marketing” in your resume.

It’s not only about using the keywords themselves but often how you applied those skills or any achievements linked to when you implemented them.

For example, you can add “creative” and “analytical” to your list of soft skills, but you can also show you were creative and analytical by adding a bullet point in your work history like this:

resume Example

Experience

Oversaw social media accounts and website content creation for an online food delivery company, analyzed key performance indicators (KPIs), and created strategies to reinforce brand voice, resulting in a 30% increase in engagement.

💡top tip

Avoid keyword stuffing on your resume. If you don’t honestly have the skill or work experience reflected in a keyword, do not use it.

Tailored Resume Examples

Now that you have seen step-by-step advice on how to tailor your resume, let’s look at an example job description and how you can adapt your resume summary and experience sections to cover all the key points.

Digital Marketing Specialist

Qualifications

Expertise in brand management, social media content, and marketing campaign development
Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Marketing Communications, or Business
At least 5 years of experience in marketing, promotion, or public relations
Excellent people-management, communication, and project-management skills
Data analysis and reporting.

Now, here’s a targeted resume example based on the above description. We’ve bolded the parts that have been specifically included to tailor the resume for this role. But you shouldn’t use bold text in yours in the same way.

resume Example

Summary

Proven, creative Digital Marketing Specialist with 10+ years of experience in building brand awareness for various sporting goods manufacturers. Track record of successfully implementing strong social media campaigns leading to an average of $30K per month in sales and an average 40% increase in sales leads. Experienced in analyzing market trends to optimize online sales.

Skills

On page optimization
Google Search Console
GA4
Data Analysis
People management
Project management

Experience

Digital Marketing Specialist

08/2019 to Current

HomeRun Bats, Canton, OH

Led marketing team of 8 members to create and implement inspired social media campaigns, increasing overall sales by 38%.
Devised online brand awareness campaign in November 2019 that increased website traffic by 35% and sales leads by 23%.
Oversaw monthly market analysis meetings to ensure optimal company positioning in online sales and repeat business.
Restructured company website for SEO optimization, realizing a 10% improvement in search rankings.

This resume summary and the achievements outlined in the experience section align with what was required in the job description. They have demonstrated team leadership experience, successful campaign history, qualifications in SEO, and strong analytical and reporting skills.

💡top tip

Potential employers love to see measurable accomplishments, i.e., “increased website traffic by 35%”, so incorporate those details wherever you can.

Tailoring the same experience to a different job description

Here’s another targeted resume example using the same job title but a different job description and keywords:

Digital Marketing Specialist

Leading brand management company seeking to fill a Digital Marketing Specialist role in our fast-paced environment. Strong writing, analytical, and graphic design skills required in order to create effective social media campaigns to increase brand recognition and sales. Ability to use excellent collaborative skills to work closely with our Marketing Director. Experience in Google Analytics is strongly recommended.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in marketing or a similar area
Experience in building brand awareness
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Strong technical and analytical skills

Your tailored resume might look like this:

resume Example

Summary

Experienced, driven Digital Marketing Specialist. 5+ years building online campaigns to enhance social media presence and increase brand awareness. Proven ability to work closely with marketing executives and staff to create and implement successful online and print campaigns. Implemented campaigns leading to an overall 28% increase in brand recognition for the top five clients.

Skills

GA4
Google Search Console
Ahrefs
Social Media Marketing
Cross-functional collaboration
Time management

Experience

Digital Marketing Specialist

08/2019 to Current

HomeRun Bats, Canton, OH

Collaborated with Marketing Director and marketing staff to create and implement inspired social media campaigns, increasing overall sales by 38%.
Devised online brand awareness campaign in November 2019 that increased website traffic by 35% and sales leads by 23%.
Reviewed website performance using Google Analytics and A/B testing, resulting in a 40% increase in conversion rates.

The same candidate has adapted their resume to focus on relationships with executives, the use of specific SEO tools, and their success in building and implementing digital marketing campaigns. It just took a little tweak!

Remember, our free online resume builder is available to help you every step of the way. This AI-powered tool can make suggestions for each section of your resume if you are feeling lost for words.

Is Tailoring Your Resume Worth It?

We wholeheartedly say that it is always worth adapting your resume for each role you apply for. Remember: You only have seconds to grab the attention of a hiring manager, and they need to see that you are a perfect fit.

Key points to keep in mind when creating your targeted resume:

Read the job description carefully and pick out the key requirements.
Research the company and its culture, and think about how you can adapt your resume to it.
Incorporate some keywords from the job description into your resume summary, skills, and experience sections.
Include measurable achievements that align with the job requirements.
Use keywords wherever appropriate without overdoing it—and be sure they are truly skills you possess.

Finally, why not try out our resume builder and review our resume examples to create the polished document hiring managers like to see?

FAQs

Yes, tailoring your resume for each job helps you match your skills and experience to what the employer is specifically looking for.

It helps demonstrate your understanding of the role and meet their needs, which makes your application stand out to recruiters and the ATS. Even small adjustments can make a big difference.

Yes, ChatGPT can help tailor your resume by rewriting sections to align with a job description. You can share your current resume and the job ad.

However, resume builders and resume checkers are tools specifically made for tailoring or upgrading a resume.

Absolutely. A tailored resume increases your chances of getting interviews because it directly connects your background to the employer’s needs.

In fact, a study showed that “users who customized their resumes for specific positions achieved a 5.75% conversion rate from application to interview or offer stage, compared to just 2.68% for those who did not have a tailored resume, representing a 115% improvement in success rates.”