CV keywords that match the job
Recruiters search their ATS the way you search the web: by words. If the words they type are not in your CV, you are not in their results, however good your experience is. The fix is not to cram in buzzwords but to describe what you really did in the language of the posting.
Where to find the keywords
- The job title. The single most searched phrase. If the posting says "QA Automation Engineer", use that wording somewhere near the top, as long as it is true.
- Hard skills and tools in the requirements: languages, frameworks, databases, cloud, methods. "Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Docker, CI/CD".
- Repeated phrases. Whatever the posting mentions twice or more usually matters most to the team.
- Must-haves versus nice-to-haves. Cover the first group fully; the second only where you genuinely can.
Where to put them
- Headline and summary: the target title and the two or three skills the job is built around.
- Experience bullets: skills inside real results weigh more than a bare list. "Cut report build time from 3 days to 4 hours with Python and Airflow".
- Skills section: a plain comma-separated list, no bars or stars.
- Both forms of a term when they differ: "Continuous Integration (CI/CD)", "Amazon Web Services (AWS)".
What not to do
- Do not add skills you do not have. The interview checks them within minutes, and a CV that fails that test burns the chance with that company.
- Do not paste the posting in white text or hide keyword lists. Many systems show recruiters the plain text, and it looks like what it is.
- Do not repeat a word twenty times. Ranking looks at whether a skill is there and in what context, not how often you said it.
Should I change my CV for every job?
Lightly, yes: the title, the summary and the order of skills. The facts stay the same; the emphasis follows the posting.
How do I see which keywords I am missing?
Paste the posting and your CV into the free check: it lists the skills, tools and title from the posting that your CV never mentions.
