How to tailor your CV to a job description without exaggerating

Read the advert as a set of tasks

Imagine an advert for an office assistant. It asks for handling enquiries, maintaining records and using spreadsheets. Before changing your CV, write those tasks in your own words. Separate an essential qualification from a preference, and distinguish work you would do every day from a general description of the company.

The National Careers Service recommends tailoring a CV to the opportunity. The comparison exercise below is our editorial method for doing that without changing the underlying facts of your experience.

Make a three-column evidence table

This fictional table has an intentional gap. You cannot fill every requirement simply by changing the wording. Decide whether the gap is compatible with the role, and leave unsupported claims out. A course you intend to take is not a completed qualification.

Give each existing bullet one of three labels: directly relevant, useful background, or unrelated to this application. Move the strongest evidence higher. Shorten background where appropriate, but preserve an accurate chronology. Keep a master CV so a focused version does not become your only record.

Rewrite one bullet, then check its meaning

Before: “Responsible for equipment.”

After: “Updated the club’s equipment checklist weekly and flagged missing items to the coordinator before training.”

The second sentence explains a task, a frequency and a handover. It is suitable only if all three happened. It does not imply that the volunteer managed the club, controlled a budget or supervised staff.

Use the employer’s terminology when it describes the same thing you did. If “records” in the advert means customer account records, do not quietly relabel an equipment checklist as customer-account experience. You can instead show the transferable habit: consistent updates and checks.

Your introduction should change only as much as the evidence supports. “Seeking an office assistant role, with volunteer experience maintaining records and answering visitors’ questions” is a grounded summary for this example. Avoid copying the organisation’s entire mission statement into your profile.

Check both the words and the file

• Can you point to evidence for every claimed skill?
• Have you kept volunteer, academic and paid work clearly labelled?
• Does the employer’s requested file format match what you will send?
• Do contact details and links work?
• Are the most relevant examples easy to find on the first page?

Keep the advert with your application notes so you can prepare for questions later. In Curriculumify, upload your PDF or Word CV and paste the advert into the optional job-offer field. Compare the feedback with your evidence table. Reject any suggestion that changes a fact, overstates your responsibility or inserts a skill you cannot demonstrate.