leonsdiego Job Application Tailoring
What this skill is for
A candidate has a CV and a specific job they want. Recruiters and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) skim resumes in seconds and increasingly use automated keyword/relevance filters as a first gate. A generic CV gets filtered out before a human ever reads it. Your job is to re-shape the candidate's real experience so the most relevant, job-matching signal rises to the top and the language mirrors what the employer is screening for — so the CV clears the filter and earns a human read.
The single hard rule that governs everything below: never invent, inflate, or imply experience the candidate doesn't have. A tailored CV that wins an interview on false claims fails the candidate in the interview, or worse, after they're hired. Your value is making true experience land harder, not manufacturing fit. When the truth doesn't cover a requirement, you say so (see "Missing-info flags") rather than papering over it.
Inputs you need
Before starting, make sure you have:
- The CV / resume — the candidate's current document (any format).
- The job posting — the full text of the role they're targeting.
- The company description (optional) — only needed if it isn't already inside the job post. Company context helps you mirror tone and priorities.
If any of these is missing, ask for it before proceeding. Tailoring a CV to a job you can't see is guesswork. If the user gestures at a job ("that PM role at Stripe") without pasting it, ask them to paste the text or give you a link to fetch — don't tailor against a job description you're reconstructing from memory.
The workflow
Step 1 — Read and deconstruct the job post
Pull the job posting apart into what the employer is actually screening for. Identify and list:
- Hard requirements — must-haves, often with years/tools/credentials.
- Preferred / nice-to-haves — differentiators that break ties.
- Keywords and exact phrasing — the specific terms an ATS is likely keyed to: tool names, methodologies, role-specific nouns, certifications, hard skills. Capture the employer's exact wording ("A/B testing" vs. "experimentation"; "stakeholder management" vs. "cross-functional alignment"), because ATS matching is often literal.
- Implied priorities — what the role is really about, read between the lines (e.g. a "growth PM" post that mentions funnels, activation, and retention three times is screening for funnel optimization above all).
Step 2 — Inventory the candidate's real evidence
Read the CV closely and build a mental map of everything the candidate has genuinely done, including transferable experience that may be described in different words than the job uses. The candidate's real skill described in non-matching language is the gold here — your job is largely to re-express true experience in the job's vocabulary.
You may also have context about the candidate from outside the CV (earlier in the conversation, attached files, project knowledge, or saved memory). This is useful — but it carries a strict rule, below.
Step 3 — The non-fabrication rule (read this carefully)
Three tiers of information, handled differently:
Already in the CV — free to reword, reorder, re-emphasize, and re-quantify (only if the number is genuinely supported). No permission needed.
Known about the candidate but NOT in the CV — e.g. a skill they mentioned in chat, a detail in saved profile/knowledge, an achievement from memory. Do not silently add it. Pause and ask the candidate to confirm it's true and that they want it included, before putting it in the CV. Even if a memory or knowledge file asserts it, confirm — memories go stale and the candidate owns what their CV claims. Batch these confirmations into one clear question rather than interrupting repeatedly.
Not evidenced anywhere — a requirement the candidate has no support for. Never add it to make the CV "fit." Instead, flag it (Step 6). Inventing it is the one thing that makes this skill actively harmful.
When in doubt about whether something is "in the CV," treat it as tier 2 and ask. The cost of a quick confirmation is far lower than the cost of a false claim the candidate has to defend in an interview.
Step 4 — Tailor the CV (balanced approach)
Reshape the CV so a recruiter and an ATS both immediately see the match. Aim for a CV that reads as if it were written for this role, while staying fully truthful and human-readable.
What to do:
- Mirror the job's terminology where the candidate's real experience genuinely supports it. If they did "experimentation" and the job says "A/B testing," and those are the same work, use the job's phrase. This is the core ATS move — same truth, employer's words.
- Reorder for relevance. Lead each role's bullets with the most job-relevant accomplishment. Move the most relevant roles/skills up the page. Recruiters read top-down and stop early.
- Rewrite weak bullets into impact statements. Prefer the shape action → what you did → measurable outcome. Quantify only with numbers the candidate's material actually supports; never invent metrics.
- Sharpen the summary / headline to the target role's title and top 2-3 requirements, in the employer's language.
- Cut or shrink low-relevance content to make room. Don't delete things that establish credibility, but a half-page on unrelated work can become two lines.
- Surface a skills section that includes the job's key hard-skill keywords the candidate actually has, so literal ATS matches land.
Balance, not stuffing: every keyword you add must be truthfully earned and the prose must still read naturally to a human. Keyword-stuffed gibberish gets filtered by modern parsers and repels the recruiter you're trying to win. Don't repeat a keyword unnaturally just to raise a match count.
ATS-friendly formatting (the .docx must parse cleanly):
- Single-column layout. No tables, text boxes, headers/footers, or multi-column sections for body content — many parsers scramble or drop them.
- Standard section headings ("Experience," "Education," "Skills," "Summary").
- No images, icons, logos, or graphics carrying information.
- Standard fonts; no contact details buried in a header/footer.
- Standard bullet characters. Save as
.docx.
Step 5 — Produce the tailored .docx
Use the docx skill to generate the document. Read its SKILL.md at
/var/folders/15/329vz3bd4nld_c4lr7tg446m0000gp/T/claude-hostloop-plugins/88df3cb042769427/skills/docx/SKILL.md
(or wherever the docx skill is installed) and follow it to build a clean,
single-column, ATS-parseable resume. Name the file clearly, e.g.
CV_<Candidate>_<Company>_<Role>.docx. Save it to the user's working folder so
they can open and submit it directly.
Step 6 — Deliver the supporting analysis
Alongside the .docx, give the candidate three things in the chat (concise — this is decision support, not a report). Use this structure:
Fit + ATS analysis
- A fit read (e.g. a 0–10 score or High/Medium/Low) with a one-line rationale.
- A keyword-match check: which of the job's key terms the tailored CV now surfaces, and which it can't (because the candidate lacks that experience).
- The requirements the candidate clearly satisfies vs. the ones they don't.
Change log
- Exactly what you changed, grouped as: reworded/re-emphasized (from existing CV content), reordered, cut/shrunk, and added from confirmed out-of-CV info (only items the candidate confirmed in Step 3).
- Be specific enough that the candidate can sanity-check every change. They must always know precisely what was added or removed and where it came from.
Missing-info flags
- Each job requirement the CV still doesn't evidence, stated plainly.
- For each: a suggestion the candidate can act on truthfully — e.g. "The job wants SQL; nothing in your CV shows it. If you've used SQL, tell me and I'll add it. If not, leave it — don't claim it." Never resolve a gap by inventing.
Quick reference: the bright lines
- Reword true experience into the job's language → always fine.
- Reorder, re-emphasize, trim → always fine.
- Add a fact you know but isn't in the CV → ask the candidate first.
- Add a fact nobody can support → never; flag it instead.
- Tell the candidate exactly what changed and why → every time.
Worked mini-example
Job post says: "Drive A/B testing and experimentation to improve activation; SQL proficiency required."
CV bullet (original): "Worked on improving the signup flow with the growth team."
Good tailoring (truth preserved, language mirrored): "Ran A/B tests on the signup flow that improved new-user activation, partnering with the growth team." — only valid if the candidate actually ran the tests and activation actually improved.
Bad tailoring (fabricated metric): "Ran A/B tests that lifted activation 35%." — invents a number. Don't.
SQL handling: if the CV shows no SQL and the candidate hasn't confirmed it, this goes in Missing-info flags, not into the CV.