Do you really need to tailor your CV for every job application?

One of the most common pieces of advice I see being given to jobseekers is that you should tailor your CV for every single job you apply for. And whilst I agree with the principle behind it, because obviously your CV needs to demonstrate that you’ve got the skills and experience required for the job, I think people are making the whole thing far more complicated than it needs to be.

If you’re applying for 20 jobs a week, are you really expected to create 20 different versions of your CV? And if you’re applying for another 20 the following week, do you need another 20 versions? I mean, where does it end?

I appreciate that AI has made it considerably easier to do this, but even so, I don’t think it’s necessary for the vast majority of people.

Because here’s the thing. Most people are applying for jobs that require broadly the same skills and experience.

If you’re an accountant applying for accounting jobs, the employers you’re applying to are generally going to be looking for accounting experience, relevant qualifications and the ability to do the sort of accounting work the role involves.

Obviously, there will be differences between employers, and some jobs will have particular requirements that others don’t, but the fundamentals are unlikely to change dramatically from one application to the next.

The same applies to most professions. If you’re applying for similar jobs at a similar level, there’s probably going to be a significant amount of overlap in what employers are looking for.

And if you’ve got a well-written CV that clearly demonstrates you’ve got those skills and experience, why would you need to keep rewriting it?

You probably wouldn’t.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that for the vast majority of jobseekers, one well-written CV should be suitable for most of the jobs they’re applying for.

That’s not to say you should never make changes. If you find a job that has a particularly specific requirement and you’ve got relevant experience that isn’t obvious on your CV, then of course it makes sense to highlight it.

But there’s a difference between making the occasional adjustment and rewriting your CV for every application simply because someone told you that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Where I do think having different versions of your CV makes sense is when you’re applying for different types of jobs, even if those jobs fall within the same profession.

And sales is a good example of this.

Two sales jobs, two different sets of requirements.

Imagine you’ve spent the last few years working in sales and you’re looking for a new job. You’ve got experience generating new business, managing existing customers, hitting targets and building relationships, so you’re considering a few different types of sales positions.

Some of the jobs you’re interested in are focused on outbound sales, where you’re expected to identify potential customers, make cold calls, generate leads, book meetings and win new business. Others are more focused on inbound sales, where you’re dealing with people who’ve already expressed an interest in the company’s products or services, understanding what they need and converting those enquiries into customers.

Ultimately, they’re both sales jobs, and there’s probably quite a lot of overlap in the skills required to do them. But the things an employer is going to be most interested in might be quite different.

If I’m recruiting for an outbound sales position, I’m probably going to be particularly interested in your experience prospecting, generating opportunities, dealing with rejection and winning new business. Whereas if I’m recruiting for an inbound sales position, I might be more interested in your experience handling enquiries, qualifying leads, managing a pipeline and converting opportunities into customers.

You could have experience doing all of those things, but if your CV focuses almost entirely on cold calling and generating new business, it might not do a particularly good job of demonstrating why you’d be suitable for an inbound sales position.

So in that situation, having two versions of your CV might make sense. One that places more emphasis on your outbound sales experience and another that focuses more on your inbound sales experience.

You’re not changing your employment history or making anything up. You’re simply placing more emphasis on the parts of your experience that are most relevant to the type of job you’re applying for.

And once you’ve done that, you can use those versions for multiple applications without having to keep starting again.

But if you’re only interested in outbound sales jobs, and you’ve already got a good CV that demonstrates your outbound sales experience, I’d question why you’d need more than one version in the first place.

The same applies to marketing.

Let’s say you’ve worked in marketing for a few years and your experience covers social media, email marketing, content creation, brand development and campaign management.

You might be interested in applying for marketing jobs that are heavily focused on social media, but you might also be interested in positions that are more focused on email marketing or brand management.

Again, there’s going to be some overlap, but the things employers are looking for won’t necessarily be identical.

For a social media-focused position, I’d expect to see evidence of your experience developing content, managing social channels, growing audiences and measuring engagement. Whereas for an email marketing position, I’d probably be more interested in your experience building campaigns, segmenting audiences, using email platforms and improving open rates or conversions.

If you’ve got experience in both areas, there’s no reason you can’t apply for both types of jobs. But it would probably make sense to have different versions of your CV that place more emphasis on the experience that’s relevant to each.

What I wouldn’t do is create 15 different CVs for 15 different social media jobs when they’re all asking for pretty much the same thing.

That just seems like an unnecessary amount of work.

So how would I actually approach it?

I’d start by looking at the types of jobs you’re interested in and reading a decent number of job descriptions. Not with the intention of copying the wording into your CV, but to understand what employers are generally looking for.

You’ll probably find that certain requirements come up repeatedly, and those are the things you want to make sure your CV demonstrates. If you’re applying for outbound sales jobs and almost every employer wants experience generating new business, it would be a bit daft if your CV barely mentioned your new business experience.

Once you’ve identified the different types of jobs you’re targeting, you can decide whether you actually need different versions of your CV. You might only need one, or you might need two or three, depending on how different the requirements are.

Then, when you find a job you want to apply for, have a quick read of the description and check that the version you’re planning to use demonstrates the main things they’re looking for.

If it does, I’d just apply.

If there’s something particularly relevant that you’ve done but haven’t included, then by all means make a few changes. Perhaps there’s a particular system you’ve worked with, a type of customer you’ve sold to or a project you’ve delivered that happens to be especially relevant to that employer.

And if it’s a job you’re particularly excited about, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with spending a bit more time making sure your CV is as relevant as possible.

But there’s a big difference between making a few sensible adjustments and feeling like you need to rewrite your CV every time you apply for something.

And no, you don’t need to match every keyword in the job description.

I think some of the obsession with tailoring CVs comes from the amount of nonsense people have been told about applicant tracking systems.

There’s this idea that every employer has some magical system that reads your CV, compares it against the job description and automatically rejects you if you haven’t included enough of the right keywords.

That’s not recruitment systems works.

Some systems do have matching and filtering functionality, and employers can use automated screening questions, but there isn’t one universal system or scoring method that every employer uses.

And in plenty of recruitment processes, there’s a human being reviewing your application.

Obviously, if a job requires experience with Salesforce and you’ve spent five years using Salesforce, you should mention that on your CV. But you should mention it because it’s relevant to the job, not because you’re trying to beat some imaginary algorithm.

I’d also be careful about using AI to tailor your CV automatically for every application without checking what it’s actually changing. It can be useful for identifying requirements you might have overlooked or suggesting ways to make your experience clearer, but you still need to make sure everything it says is accurate.

The last thing you want is to turn up for an interview and discover that your CV now claims you’ve got experience doing things you’ve never actually done.

The point I’m making is this.

I don’t think the advice to tailor your CV for every application is necessarily bad advice. I just think it’s often presented in a way that makes job searching more time-consuming than it needs to be.

If you’re applying for jobs that require broadly the same skills and experience, a good CV should be relevant to most of them without needing major changes.

And if you’re applying for a few different types of jobs, having a version of your CV for each makes far more sense to me than creating a completely new one every time.

I’d much rather you spent your time making sure you’ve got one or two really good CVs that demonstrate your experience properly than constantly rewriting the same information for the sake of it.

Because ultimately, the purpose of your CV is to help an employer understand whether you’ve got the skills and experience required to do the job, and whether you’ve demonstrated that you’re good at what you do.

It’s not an exercise in seeing how closely you can match the wording of a job advert.

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It won’t rewrite or tailor your CV for you, but it can help you understand where your existing CV might be letting you down.

You can try it here:

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