CV keywords: how to pull them from a job advert without guesswork

What a keyword is, and what it is not

For whoever screens applications, a keyword is what they would type into the applicant tracking system (ATS) or scan for when they open your CV: the job title, a tool, a specific task, a language with its level. It is something you can verify. Nobody searches for "passionate".

The most common mistake is treating every word in the advert the same. A job advert holds six different kinds of words, and only some of them belong on a CV as keywords. This is the table we work with at Cernoria.

Essential, desirable or filler: how to weigh each term

Adverts do not come with weights attached, but they leave clues. The job title outweighs everything else, because it is the first thing searched and the first thing read. Next comes repetition: if "reconciliations" appears in the duties and again in the requirements, it is central even if nobody wrote "essential". Anything labelled "essential", "required" or "must have" is a requirement. Anything labelled "desirable", "advantageous", "a plus" or "ideally" is an extra that ranks people, not one that rules them out.

Then there is filler. The company blurb, the benefits and the twelve-tool lists pasted from another advert rarely decide anything. When an advert asks for twelve programs, check which ones reappear in the duties: those two or three are the real ones.

What an advert says is not always what gets filtered, and the reverse is true too. A Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School study of US firms that dropped degree requirements found that many changed the wording of the advert but not who they hired. Read the advert as a clue, not as a contract.

The method: from the advert to a list of 8 to 12 terms

By hand it takes about fifteen minutes per advert. With practice it drops to five, because adverts for the same role look very alike. You need the advert pasted into a document and three highlighter colours.

1. 1
   Delete what is not the job

   Remove the company blurb, the benefits, the legal lines and the "send your CV to". What remains is the title, the duties and the requirements. It is usually less than half the text.

2. 2
   Highlight in three colours

   One colour for the job title, tools and certifications. Another for duties ("produce the monthly sales forecast", "negotiate with suppliers"). The third for context: years, degree, language, sector, availability. Traits such as "proactive" get no colour.

3. 3
   Give each term a weight

   Using the clues table, write next to each term whether it decides, is a requirement, an extra or filler. If in doubt, mark it as an extra.

4. 4
   Normalise each term

   One form per thing. Split what comes bundled ("Excel and Power BI" are two terms). Complete generic words with their complement: "management" alone says nothing, "stock management" does. If the advert uses an acronym, note the acronym and the full name.

5. 5
   Cross-check with your experience

   Each term has three possible answers: it is already on your CV in those words; you did it but described it differently; you did not do it. The second group is where nearly all the work is. The third does not go on the CV.

6. 6
   Keep 8 to 12 and decide where each goes

   Deciders and the requirements you meet come first, then the extras you have. That gives you the headline, the first line of the profile, the order of your achievements and the skills list.

A worked example, start to finish

An invented advert and an invented person to see the method in action. Sam Example is an analyst at a consumer goods company and is applying for a commercial analysis role at Northgate Distribution, a fictional firm.

Where each keyword goes on the CV

A keyword in the wrong place is worth less. The skills list at the bottom of the CV is the last thing anyone reads, and a tool that only appears there says nothing about how much you used it. The rule is to put each term where it can be checked.

• Headline: the job title, if it is your job, plus two or three deciding terms. It is read first and searched most.
• Profile: the first sentence answers the advert's strongest requirement, with a fact about you (years, team size, sector).
• Achievements under each role: duties and tools, inside the sentence that says what you did with them. That is where a keyword has evidence.
• Skills: tools and certifications by their proper names, the ones the advert asks for first. Five to ten, not forty.
• Languages and education: with the name and level you actually have, even if the advert asks for something else.

Synonyms, acronyms and the advert's language

When your experience and the advert name the same thing differently, the advert's word wins, as long as it really is the same thing. "Dashboards" and "reports built in Power BI" can be the same; "reporting" and "forecasting" are not. If unsure, ask yourself whether you could explain at interview what you did under that name.

Write acronyms both ways the first time: "SEO (search engine optimisation)", "CRM (Salesforce)". That way you are found by whoever searches for the acronym and whoever searches for the full name. Spelling counts too: if a UK employer writes "organisation", keep the British spelling throughout.

If the advert is in another language, the keywords go in that language. An advert in Spanish for a role in Madrid is searched in Spanish, even if your CV is in English.

To find what your job is called outside your own company, ESCO, the European classification of occupations and skills, is a useful reference. For each occupation it separates essential from optional skills: the same split as essential and desirable, made by specialists.

What is not a keyword, even if a tool flags it

Many tools that compare your CV with an advert count words without understanding them, and ask you to add things that do not help. This is the rule Cernoria uses to decide what does not count as a keyword, and it works just as well by hand.

• A generic word on its own: "management", "strategy", "data", "team", "results", "experience". It only counts with its complement.
• A country or a city: that is a detail of the advert, not a skill. Your location belongs in your contact details.
• Working pattern: "remote", "hybrid", "full-time". You answer that in the application form, not on the CV.
• A whole sentence from the advert: "ability to work under pressure in a fast-changing environment" is not searched for. Show it through an achievement.
• Something bundled with something else: "Excel and Power BI" are two terms, and you might have only one.

Mistakes that knock you out

• Pasting a forty-word list at the bottom of the CV. The ATS finds the words, but the person who opens the CV sees a list without evidence and stops trusting the rest.
• Repeating the same word over and over. Search tools check whether a term is there, not how often. All you get is a CV that reads worse.
• Hiding words in white text. They show up as soon as the system extracts the text, in plain view of whoever opens your file.
• Copying whole sentences from the advert. It shows, and they are often filler that nobody searches for.
• Listing a tool you saw once on a course. If the advert makes it essential, you will be asked about it at interview.

How many do you need to meet before applying?

There is no magic percentage, and none of the figures that circulate on this have a study behind them. What we do know is that many people stop applying because they read the requirements too literally. In Tara Mohr's survey for Harvard Business Review, the most common reason for not applying was believing you would not be hired without every qualification.

Our rule of thumb: if you meet everything that decides and most of the essentials, apply. If you are missing one essential, say so in the cover letter or profile, along with what you bring instead. If you are missing what decides (the role is a different one, or the language is), the advert is probably not for you, and your time is better spent elsewhere.