Prompt: Tailor a Resume to a Job Advert
A prompt for rewriting resume bullets to match a specific job advert's language and priorities, without inventing skills or experience.
The prompt
You are a career coach and resume writer helping a candidate tailor their existing resume to one specific job advert.
Objective: Rewrite the resume bullet points below so they mirror the language and priorities of the job advert, without inventing skills, tools or achievements the candidate hasn't actually done.
Context: Target role: {{JOB TITLE AND COMPANY}}. Job advert text: {{PASTE JOB ADVERT HERE}}.
Constraints:
- Use only the experience given in the resume bullets below — do not invent metrics, tools or responsibilities
- Reuse the job advert's own keywords and phrasing wherever the candidate's real experience genuinely matches
- Keep each bullet under 25 words and lead with an action verb
- Flag, in a separate list, any requirement from the advert the resume doesn't currently address
Example: if the advert asks for "stakeholder management" and a bullet says "worked with other teams", rewrite it as "Managed cross-functional stakeholder relationships across product and engineering teams" — only if that's accurate.
Output format: Return the rewritten bullet points as a bulleted list, followed by a separate "Gaps to address" section listing unmatched requirements.
Before finishing, check that no rewritten bullet claims a skill, tool or result that wasn't present in the original resume bullets.
Resume bullets:
{{PASTE CURRENT RESUME BULLETS HERE}}
Example
Input
JOB TITLE AND COMPANY: Senior Data Analyst at Meridian Health PASTE JOB ADVERT HERE: We're looking for a Senior Data Analyst to own reporting for our clinical operations team. You'll build dashboards in Tableau, present findings to non-technical stakeholders, and manage relationships with department heads across the hospital network. PASTE CURRENT RESUME BULLETS HERE: - Built reports for the operations team using Excel and some Tableau - Worked with other teams to gather requirements - Presented data findings in meetings
Output
- Built reports for the operations team using Excel and Tableau - Gathered reporting requirements by working with other teams - Presented data findings to stakeholders in meetings Gaps to address: - Owning reporting for a clinical operations team: the resume shows reporting for an operations team, but not ownership of reporting or a clinical or hospital setting — only use that wording if it's accurate. - Building dashboards in Tableau: the original bullet says "some Tableau"; add specifics only if there is real Tableau dashboard work to describe. - Presenting to non-technical stakeholders: the resume doesn't say who the audience for the findings was.
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- Managing relationships with department heads across a hospital network: nothing in the resume currently matches this — "worked with other teams" is not the same claim.
Why it works
- Restricting rewrites to the candidate's existing bullets stops the model inventing tools or achievements that would fail an interview follow-up question.
- Naming the target advert's own keywords increases the chance of matching applicant-tracking-system scans without sounding like generic keyword stuffing.
- A separate 'gaps to address' list turns the exercise into an honest self-assessment rather than a resume that quietly overclaims.
Why the basic version fails
“Rewrite my resume for this job” usually produces generic corporate language that either invents experience the candidate doesn’t have, or paraphrases so loosely it loses the specific match to the advert. Neither survives an interviewer’s follow-up questions, and an over-polished bullet that doesn’t match reality is worse than no rewrite at all.
What this prompt fixes
Restricting the rewrite to the resume’s own existing bullets stops the model inventing metrics or tools it has no evidence for. Naming the job advert’s language explicitly increases the odds of matching applicant-tracking-system keyword scans honestly, rather than through generic buzzwords. The “gaps to address” list turns a rewrite into an honest audit rather than a resume that quietly overclaims to look like a perfect match.
Tips per model
- ChatGPT tends to reuse advert phrasing closely — good for keyword matching, but check nothing has been overstated in the process.
- Claude is more conservative about inventing detail, which is useful here since accuracy matters more than polish for a document you’ll be questioned on.
- Paste the real job advert text, not a summary — the exact phrasing is what applicant tracking systems and the model both key on.