Tailor your CV to a job description, step by step.
Tailoring your CV to a job description takes five steps. Here you get the method, a before-and-after example, and answers to the questions that come up most often along the way.
You read the requirements out of the advert, move your matching evidence up, use the advert's wording and cut whatever the role does not ask for.
- Titles keep their level, dates stay as they are
- The wording comes from the advert
- Resume Copilot does it in about 60 seconds
Here is what tailoring looks like on a real example.
The advert is for a Sachbearbeitung Einkauf (m/w/d), a purchasing administrator. The applicant has worked as assistant to the head of logistics since 2022, and the same role appears twice below: once written generically, once tailored to the advert. That way you see what tailoring changes and what stays the same.
- Experience in order processing and supplier communication
- A cost-conscious way of working
- Confident with SAP MM
Assistant to the Head of Logistics · Nordwerk Haustechnik GmbH · 03/2022 – present
- Maintained Excel lists of delivery dates and stock levels
- Processed orders for around 40 suppliers
- Gathered comparison quotes, saving 8% on packaging material
Assistant to the Head of Logistics · Nordwerk Haustechnik GmbH · 03/2022 – present
- Order processing and supplier communication for around 40 suppliers
- Cost-conscious purchasing: gathered comparison quotes and saved 8% on packaging material
- Maintained delivery-date and stock lists in Excel
Job title, employer and dates are unchanged, and every number comes from the first version. Only the order and the wording moved. SAP MM is not in the CV, so it is not in the tailored version either; the applicant addresses that gap in the cover letter.
Tailor your CV to the job description in five steps.
Step 1: Write out the requirements
Read the advert twice and list every requirement separately. Split must-haves from nice-to-haves: what sits at the top of the profile section, and what is only “desirable”? The order in the advert is usually the order in the hiring manager's head, too. Copy technical terms, software and certificates word for word, because an ATS will search for exactly those terms later.
Step 2: Match evidence to each one
For every requirement, find the specific line in your CV that proves it: a project, a number, a responsibility. Anything you can't evidence is a gap. Know your gaps before you write the cover letter, not in the interview. If a requirement is on your CV but somewhere nobody reads first, note it for step 5.
Step 3: Point your profile at the role
The first lines decide whether anyone reads on. Name the advertised role there and lead with the two pieces of evidence that hit the most important must-haves. A profile that fits every job convinces for none of them.
Step 4: Use the advert's own words
If the ad says “project controlling” and your CV says “project management”, use the ad's term, as long as it describes the same work. Many employers pre-sort applications with an applicant tracking system (ATS), and an ATS matches against the advert's own terms, not your synonyms for them. Spell out abbreviations once, for example “enterprise resource planning (ERP)”, so an ATS finds both forms.
Step 5: Reorder, cut and check
Most relevant first: within each role, within your skills, in your profile. Cut what this role doesn't ask for; two sharp pages beat four complete ones. Finally, read the advert next to your CV and check that every must-have you can evidence appears on the first page. Export the finished version as a PDF with real text, so an ATS can read every line.
The same method, in about 60 seconds.
The advert gets read for you
Must-haves, nice-to-haves, keywords, and the actual job behind the boilerplate. Paste the text or a link from a job board and we pull the requirements out.
Keywords lifted straight from the ad
Terms are taken verbatim from the posting so an ATS finds them, but only where your CV genuinely covers them.
A margin note on every change
Each rewritten line comes with the reason it changed. You review the result instead of trusting a black box.
ATS-friendly layouts
One click to switch, and the on-screen preview matches the PDF exactly. Photo and signature support is built in for German application norms.
German ad in, German CV out
Output language is detected from your CV and the advert. A matching cover letter comes with it, in the tone you pick.
Every application in one view
Tailoring per role means many versions. Application tracking keeps a record of which one went where.
What tailoring keeps fixed.
Job titles, dates, employers and qualifications stay exactly as they appear in your CV (job titles are translated only when your German CV goes into English), and a validator checks every tailored version against your original. Numbers from your original stay the same numbers. If a required qualification is missing, we tell you plainly. Everything the reader sees stays true.
Tailor it nowCommon questions about tailoring.
Do I have to list every job on my CV?
No. There is no obligation to list every job; a CV is a selection for one specific application. Short side jobs, or roles from long ago that have nothing to do with this one, can be left out or grouped together. Longer gaps are better named briefly, for example as training, parental leave or a job search, than hidden by stretching dates. Whatever is on the CV has to be true.
Who can tailor my CV for me?
A careers coach or application adviser can tailor it with you. In Germany, if you are registered as unemployed or at risk of becoming so, the Agentur für Arbeit or the Jobcenter can pay for that kind of coaching with an activation and placement voucher (AVGS, § 45 SGB III). With Resume Copilot the first three applications are free, the first one without an account; after that you buy one-off credit packs with no subscription, and credits don't expire.
Is lying on a CV illegal in Germany?
An embellished claim is not automatically a crime, but it can cost you the job. If you are hired on false claims about a degree or a role, the employer can rescind the contract for wilful deception (§ 123 BGB). That is possible up to a year after they discover it, so long after you were hired (§ 124 BGB). It becomes a criminal offence with a forged certificate, for example (forgery, § 267 StGB), or as employment fraud (§ 263 StGB) if the employer suffers a financial loss. This is general information, not legal advice.
Can an employer check my CV?
Yes, within limits. They can ask for certificates and proof, follow up in the interview and take up references, usually with your consent. They may read publicly available information about you, but have to tell you they did (Art. 14 GDPR). One applicant who wasn't told was awarded €1,000 in damages by the Düsseldorf Regional Labour Court, and the Federal Labour Court let that stand in 2025 (8 AZR 117/24). Titles, dates and employers are the easiest things to check. This is general information, not legal advice.
What should I change — and what never?
Change order, emphasis and wording: which role goes first, which responsibility gets three lines instead of one, which words describe it. Never change job titles (beyond translating a German title into its accurate English equivalent at the same level), dates, employers, qualifications or numbers. Those get checked in the interview and against references, and any mismatch shows.
Does adding as many keywords as possible help?
No. An ATS weighs the context a term appears in, and a word in the skills list with no supporting role counts for little. The person reading afterwards notices immediately. A keyword belongs where your experience actually backs it up.
How does an ATS read my CV?
It breaks the PDF into text, maps it to sections (experience, education, skills, contact) and compares the result against the job description. Clear headings, real text rather than graphics, consistent date formats and a simple column structure read reliably; text in images, table layouts and unusual fonts don't always. Our layouts are tested for exactly this.
Do I really need a separate CV for every application?
For every application you care about: yes. A generic CV answers none of the advert's specific questions and competes with applications that do. So you keep one profile with your full history and derive a tailored version from it for each role. That's the whole extra effort.
Try it on the next advert you apply to.
The method above works by hand; it just costs you an evening every time. Paste the advert and see the tailored version before you sign up for anything.
Tailor it now