Getting your CV past automated screening

At most companies, the first thing to read your CV is software, not a person. Screening systems rank applications by how closely they match the job description, and the ones near the bottom are never opened.

Use the job description's own words

Screening systems look for the job description's own vocabulary. If the role says 'cross-functional collaboration' and your CV says 'communicating across teams', you lose marks even though the skill is the same. For every role you apply to, rewrite the relevant lines to match.

Numbers beat adjectives

'Cut deployment time by 40%' is more convincing than 'significantly improved the process', to machines and people alike. One concrete number for every line of experience is a good benchmark.

The plainer the format, the better

Two columns, tables and icons all confuse parsers. A single-column layout with standard section headings reads correctly in every system.

JobExpress can do all of this for you: paste in the job description and it rewrites your CV against it, line by line. Worth trying before your next application.