How to Match Job Criteria to Evidence on Your CV

A job advert can contain more requirements than your CV can give equal space to. The goal is not to repeat every phrase. It is to make your strongest, relevant evidence easy to find.

Start with the selection criteria

Read the job description alongside any person specification. Separate the requirements into three groups:

• Essential: stated as necessary or required.
• Desirable: useful, but not presented as a condition of applying.
• Responsibilities: work the successful candidate will do.

The wording varies between employers, so use the advert’s own labels where they are clear. The UK National Careers Service recommends matching your skills to what the employer asks for; the University of Edinburgh Careers Service likewise advises selecting the experience most relevant to the job specification.

Build a quick evidence map

Before rewriting your CV, make a small table. One row per important criterion is enough.

Use examples from paid work, education, volunteering, placements or personal projects. If you have not done the exact task, consider whether you have a genuinely comparable example—but describe it as transferable experience, not as direct experience you do not have.

Decide what earns space

Give the most room to evidence that is both relevant and specific. An essential requirement supported by a clear example usually deserves more prominence than a desirable item you can only mention briefly. Put high-value evidence in the profile or near the top of the relevant role, project or skills section; do not bury it among unrelated details.

For responsibilities, show the connection between what you did and what the new role needs. A concise bullet can name the task, how you handled it and the result or purpose, without inventing numbers:

Prepared weekly inspection reports, checking findings for accuracy before sharing them with the site supervisor.

Use the employer’s terms carefully

Use the advert’s wording when it accurately describes your experience—for example, the name of a software tool, qualification or recognised responsibility. Then give enough context for a person to understand what you did. Do not claim a tool, certification or level of expertise you do not have just because it appears in the advert.

Some recruitment systems let recruiters search application text for terms such as skills or job titles. Greenhouse documents this as a recruiter search feature; that is not evidence that every ATS works the same way or automatically rejects a CV for missing an exact phrase. Clear, truthful wording helps both software searches and human readers without turning your CV into a list of copied keywords.

Make a final relevance pass

For each prominent requirement, ask:

1. Is there a specific example that supports this claim?
2. Can the reader see the connection to this job quickly?
3. Have I used the employer’s term accurately, where it helps?
4. Is there less relevant detail I can shorten to make room?

If a requirement has no honest evidence behind it, do not disguise the gap with keyword repetition. Emphasise the adjacent skills you can demonstrate, and be prepared to explain what you are still learning.

Sources

• National Careers Service: How to write a CV
• University of Edinburgh Careers Service: Adapting your CV
• Greenhouse Support: Talent Filtering