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How to tailor your resume for any specific job in under 10 minutes
The job market is increasingly competitive, which means it’s absolutely essential that your application stands out. In our guide to making a resume that gets you noticed, we talk about the importance of reflecting the specific job description of each role.
With many companies using an applicant tracking system (ATS) to scan applications before they’re ever seen by human eyes, you need to make sure you’re using the right keywords and phrases to be identified as a relevant application. You also need to make it easy for the hiring manager to recognize their core requirements in the application that you submit.
The difficulty for many is finding time to produce an updated resume for every job. The important thing to remember is that making your resume stand out to employers doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch for every job. Instead, let’s look at how you can quickly tailor an existing document, using a tool like Adobe Acrobat to help you on your way.
Start with a strong template
Getting the basic structure and format of your resume right is a great first step toward having a document that’s easy to quickly update for each application. While this initial step may take longer than ten minutes, it sets you up for a quick and easy process every time you need to amend your CV in the future.
We’ve written before about why your CV needs the personal touch, which means it should be written by a human (ideally you!). But this doesn’t mean you can’t get help from an AI resume builder. In fact, one of the things that we love about Adobe Acrobat is that it transforms your existing resume, rather than using its AI model to create one from scratch.
This means you still benefit from the human touch. Start by pulling together all of your experience and qualifications into a simple document. At its most basic, a good resume should have a short summary at the top, and then a list of relevant roles, skills and education. Some people also choose to include extracurricular activities such as volunteer work or significant out-of-work achievements.
Don’t worry too much about the formatting at this point, since this is the first job Adobe Acrobat is going to pick up for you. Once you’re happy with your basic document, head to the AI resume builder. You’ll be prompted to upload your document and then presented with a range of templates to choose from.
These range from standard, professional layouts to more dynamic templates that may be suitable for specific roles, for instance within the creative industries. There are also templates designed for specific job types, such as acting (which includes space for a headshot).
Review relevant skills and keywords
Tailoring your resume means making sure that the language you use and the skills listed are a close match to what’s presented in the job description. It may be that you have a lot of relevant experience from previous roles, but have chosen to highlight other tasks and achievements which don’t match the requirements quite so closely.
Alternatively, you might have already included a lot of relevant information but used different language to describe it—meaning your resume risks being missed or misinterpreted.
Spend five minutes running through the job description and make a note of the crucial details that your CV needs to include. This should include anything listed as an ‘essential requirement’ or ‘minimum qualification’, as well as any phrases or skills that are repeated throughout the role description. These are likely to be the things that the hiring manager is paying closest attention to.
Polish your resume
Once you have a sense of what the job requires, you need to transfer this language into your existing resume. Adobe Acrobat can help you here, making the task significantly quicker and less arduous—especially if you have lots of applications to get to.
Head to the Adobe Acrobat documents tab and open up your formatted resume. You should see an AI Assistant already open on the screen, ready to help review and amend your document. Share the list of keywords and skills that you’ve identified from the job description and ask the AI Assistant to see how your CV could be updated to make it a better match.
Alternatively, you could share the whole job description and ask it to cross-reference your resume against the skills and criteria listed, making suggestions about what needs to be added or improved. We found that a link to the online job description was enough for the AI Assistant to access all of the required information.
From a simple question (“What skills and keywords appear in this job description that are missing from my resume?”), we were able to surface a list of keywords to add, suggestions for existing skills to move closer to the top of the document, and a light rewrite of the profile section.
This process only takes a couple of minutes. The final step is to make the changes to the document: you can do this directly from within Acrobat—simply select the ‘Edit’ option from the toolbar. Making the suggested changes is a simple, five-minute job.
Review your resume before applying
Once your file is ready, save it as a separate version with a name that clearly indicates which job you will be using it for. This will leave your template intact for future edits. You should also spend 1-2 minutes reading through the resume to ensure that you’re happy with the final result. Double-check that everything you’ve added is accurate, relevant and relates back to your genuine skills and experience.
A good resume doesn’t require starting over for every role. By following these steps, you should be able to quickly update your document for each new position, making sure your skills and qualifications are clearly visible for the hiring team to review.
With an AI resume builder like the one offered through Adobe Acrobat, you can speed up the process even further—just remember that AI is there to give you a helping hand, not make your decisions for you. Always review the final document before submitting your application.