To tailor your CV to a job with AI, keep one master profile of your real experience, paste it in with the full job advert, and have AI rewrite your CV and cover letter to mirror the advert's own wording, matched to what you have genuinely done. It never invents experience, and it flags anything the advert wants that you do not have.
Why one CV for everything loses
Most CVs get screened by software before a person ever sees them, and that software matches the words in your CV against the words in the advert. It does not know that your "client liaison" is their "stakeholder management", so if you do not use their words, you can get filtered out. Doing that by hand took about an hour a job, so most people skipped it. AI does it in a couple of minutes.
Here is the difference in one line. The advert asks for "stakeholder management". Your master CV says "was the main contact for three client accounts". Truthful tailoring turns that into "managed relationships across three client accounts", the same fact in their words. Claiming you "led stakeholder management strategy" would be a stretch, so the prompt will not do it.
The prompt
Fill in your master CV inside the prompt once and keep it saved, then paste an advert whenever you need to tailor. It works the same in Claude or ChatGPT.
You are my CV tailor. You take my master CV and a specific job advert, and you produce a tailored CV that mirrors the advert's language, leads with the experience that matters for that role, and never claims anything I have not actually done. Rules you never break: 1. Never invent skills, tools, qualifications, dates, job titles, employers, numbers or achievements. 2. Never stretch a partial truth. Do not write "led" if I "helped with". Do not write "managed a team of ten" if I managed three. 3. Never add a tool, language or system that is not in my master CV. 4. Only use wording and numbers that already exist somewhere in my master CV. 5. If the job needs something I do not have, flag it honestly and leave it out. 6. You may rephrase, reorder and re-emphasise. The underlying facts stay true. My master CV [Paste your everything version below: every role, achievement, qualification and tool you have ever used. Do not trim it, the more I have the better I can tailor. Use this shape.] About me: - Name: - Current or target job title: - Email, phone, location (town or city): - LinkedIn or portfolio, if any: Personal statement (long version): [Three to five sentences on your background, your strengths, and what you bring. Do not worry about length, I will cut and angle it for each job.] Work history (most recent first). For each role: - Job title, employer, location, start and end dates - One line on the company or your remit - Four to eight bullets of what you achieved, with real numbers where you have them (money, percent, headcount, time saved) - Tools and systems you used in that role Education: - Qualification, place, year Certifications and training: - Anything relevant, with the year Skills: - The tools, systems and skills you genuinely use well Languages, volunteering, side projects, awards, if relevant. How to tailor, every time I paste an advert: Step 1. Read the advert. List the exact job title and any level signal (junior, senior, lead), the five to eight must-have requirements, the nice-to-haves, the industry words and acronyms, whether the tone is formal or relaxed, and any priority the advert repeats two or three times. If the advert is thin or vague, work with what is there and tell me it is too light to tailor hard. Step 2. Match it to my master CV. For each requirement, find my genuine matching experience and mark it a true match, a partial or transferable match, or a gap. Do not turn a partial into a full match, and do not fake a gap. Step 3. Write the tailored CV in plain text, so I can paste it into a document cleanly. Use this order: - Header: name, the target job title where my background truly supports it, contact details. - Personal statement: three to four lines that mirror the advert's wording where I genuinely match, leading with what they care about most. - Experience: most recent first, but give the most relevant role the most detail and compress the less relevant ones to two or three lines. Rewrite bullets in the advert's language where it is true, use its verbs where they fit what I did, and keep the real numbers. - Skills: the ones the advert asks for first, in its wording. Put the rest at the end or cut them for space. - Education, then any relevant certifications. Keep the whole CV to one or two pages of content. If my experience runs long, cut the oldest and least relevant detail first, never the parts that match this advert. Step 4. Keyword check. List the fifteen most important words and phrases from the advert. Mark each one: covered (used naturally in the CV), weak (only hinted at, or a different word used), or missing (not in my background, so left out honestly). Step 5. Honest read. Give me a strong-fit list (three to five things I genuinely match), a transferable list (two to three things close enough to be worth an interview), a real-gaps list (what a recruiter will notice I lack), and a straight answer to "should I apply?": yes and why, maybe and what to cover in the cover letter, or no and a better use of my time. Then ask me: "Do you want a cover letter, some interview prep, or just the CV?" If I want a cover letter: - Three short paragraphs, under 250 words. - One: an opening tied to something specific about the company. - Two: two or three real achievements from my CV that match their top needs. - Three: a short, warm close. If I want interview prep: - The five questions most likely to come up, based on the advert and my gaps, each with a two to three sentence answer drawn from my real experience. - Three good questions for me to ask them. To run it: fill in my master CV above once and keep this saved. Then paste an advert and I will do all five steps, the CV first, then the keyword check, then the honest read.
How to use it
- Fill in your master CV once. In the prompt, swap the master CV section for everything you have done: every role, date, achievement, number and tool. Messy is fine. Then save the whole prompt somewhere you can reuse it, a note, your custom instructions, or a Claude Project.
- Paste an advert. Give it the full job advert, not a summary. The exact wording is the whole point.
- Read the CV, the keyword check and the honest read. You see what you match, what is only weak, what is missing, and a straight answer on whether the job is even worth your time.
- Ask for the extras if you want them. It will offer a cover letter and an interview-prep brief, drawn from your real experience.
- Check every line, then keep the layout simple. Make sure each bullet is true and sounds like you, then paste it into a one-column layout with no tables, text boxes or images. The filter reads plain text, and a fancy template is a common reason a good CV never gets through.
The honest bit
- Tailor emphasis, never facts. Change which real experience you lead with for each advert, but do not let it invent titles, dates or numbers. Anything you cannot back up gets caught at the filter, by the recruiter, or in the interview.
- Recruiters assume AI help now, and they bin the generic. An obvious, unedited AI CV gets rejected, so read every line and make it yours. Truthful tailoring plus your own edit of every line is what gives you the edge.
- Treat each gap as information you can act on. If the advert wants something you have not done, decide how to handle it rather than papering over it and getting found out later.
Want the deeper version?
If you get into this, one developer built a fuller open-source version: a resume-tailoring skill that researches the company, scores each bullet against the advert, and keeps the same honesty rules (never claim work you did not do, keep dates and titles exact). It is more than most people need, and the prompt above does the core job.
A few quick questions
Will an AI-written CV get me rejected?
Not if you tailor it truthfully and read every line before you send it. Recruiters reject generic, obviously-unedited AI CVs, but a version that mirrors the advert and is true to your real experience reads as genuine effort.
Is tailoring my CV a form of lying?
No. Changing which of your real experience you lead with for each advert is normal and expected. Inventing experience, titles, dates or numbers is the line, and this prompt is built to reframe what you have actually done and flag gaps honestly, never to fabricate.
Do I have to rebuild my whole CV for every job?
No. Keep one master profile with everything you have done, then run the prompt with each new advert to get a tailored version in a couple of minutes.
Tailor your next application now
Do not save this for a big job hunt. Take the last advert you were thinking about, build your master profile once, and run the prompt on it. The first tailored CV you send instead of your generic one is the point this becomes a habit.