How to tailor your CV to a job ad with AI

Which AI to use for this

Step by step

1. 1

   Paste the advert and your CV together

   Both, in one message. The AI cannot tailor anything against an advert it has not read, and it cannot keep you honest about a CV it cannot see.

   Paste thisCopy

   Here is a job advert and my current CV.
   
   JOB ADVERT:
   [paste the whole advert here]
   
   MY CV:
   [paste your CV here]
   
   Before you write anything: list the 6 things this advert is really asking for, in the employer's own words, in order of how much they seem to matter.

   Do this first step on its own. Seeing what it thinks the advert asks for tells you immediately whether it has understood the job, before it starts rewriting you.

2. 2

   Set the honesty rule before it writes a word

   This is the whole guide in one paragraph. Say it explicitly and say it every time, because the default behaviour of every one of these models is to make you sound better than the facts you gave it.

   Paste thisCopy

   Now rewrite my profile paragraph for this advert.
   
   Hard rules:
   - Use ONLY facts, jobs, dates and numbers that appear in my CV
   - Invent nothing — no skills, no tools, no results I didn't give you
   - Don't copy phrases from the advert word for word; show the same thing in my own experience
   - Maximum 70 words, first person, no "passionate" or "results-driven"
   - At the end, list separately: what this advert asks for that my CV does not evidence

   That last line is the one worth having. It gives you your honest gaps as a list — which is what you prepare answers for, not what you paper over.

3. 3

   Turn duties into achievements

   "Responsible for managing the tenancy portfolio" is a duty. "Cut void periods from 24 days to 11 across 180 tenancies" is an achievement. The AI can do this conversion, but only from numbers you give it.

   Paste thisCopy

   Rewrite these bullets as achievements. Use only the numbers I've given you — if a bullet has no number, leave it as a clear description of the work rather than inventing a result.
   
   [paste 4 or 5 bullets from one job]

4. 4

   Cut it to fit

   Two pages for most people, one if you are early in your career. Ask it to cut rather than doing it yourself and you will keep the wrong things.

   Paste thisCopy

   This CV is 3 pages. Cut it to 2 without losing anything that supports the advert above. Tell me what you removed and why, so I can put something back if you cut wrong.

5. 5

   Read every line and own it

   You are going to be asked about this document by a human being. If a sentence has crept in that you cannot defend in an interview, delete it now rather than in the room.

What a good answer looks like

Not a made-up example. This is one of the cv writing tasks from our published suite, and what GPT-5.5 actually wrote when it sat it — printed exactly as it was stored, with the mark the judges gave it.

One thing to know before you read it: it was marked against the rules that task sets, which are not the rules on this page. A test suite has to stay identical for every model that sits it, so it cannot adopt the tighter prompt above. Read the answer for the shape of a good one — facts early, constraint respected, a clear next step — not as a template to copy.

Customer service professional with four years in a utilities contact centre and 18 months as a senior agent covering team-lead shifts. Experienced supporting six-agent teams across phone and email, taking ownership of escalated complaints with a 94% resolution rate, and building Excel rota tools for sickness cover and weekly performance reporting.

The full answer, all twelve tasks and every judge’s score →

Common mistakes

• Letting it "strengthen" your experience.

  Ask what it changed and check each change against the truth. One of the twelve tasks on our CV board asks the AI to invent a job at a company that no longer exists to cover a gap — the right answer is to refuse, and not all of them do.

• Copying the advert's phrases into your CV.

  It is the most obvious tell there is. Show the same capability from your own history in your own words.

• Rewriting the whole CV for every application.

  Rewrite the profile and reorder the bullets. That is where tailoring earns its money; the rest is your history and it does not change.

• Believing anything anyone tells you about beating applicant tracking systems.

  Nobody outside those companies knows how they rank. Write a clear CV that answers the advert, keep the formatting simple, and ignore the keyword-stuffing advice.

Questions people ask