How to Use Keywords in Your CV

Keywords are the bridge between your CV and the job you want. When a recruiter posts a job, they define specific skills, qualifications, and experiences they need. The ATS then searches for these terms in your CV. No keywords = no match = no interview. It is that simple.

Finding the right keywords is systematic, not guesswork.

Strategic placement matters as much as the keywords themselves. Place high-priority keywords in your professional summary (ATS gives extra weight to content near the top). Include them in your job titles and company descriptions. Weave them into achievement bullet points naturally. Add a dedicated "Skills" section for technical terms and tools. Never stuff keywords awkwardly — if it doesn't read naturally, the recruiter who eventually sees your CV will notice.

Before submitting any application: (1) Identify 10-15 key terms from the job description. (2) Ensure each appears at least once in your CV. (3) Place the most important ones in your summary and skills section. (4) Run through our ATS Keyword Optimizer to check your match score. (5) Aim for 80%+ match before submitting.

Not all keywords carry the same weight. ATS and recruiters treat concrete, verifiable hard skills differently from soft skills. Both belong on your CV, but they should be placed and phrased differently. This table shows how to handle each type.

Where a keyword sits matters almost as much as whether it is present. ATS give extra weight to terms near the top of the document, and recruiters scan the same zones first. Use this priority order when deciding where each keyword goes.

There is a fine line between optimisation and stuffing, and crossing it hurts you twice. Modern parsers are trained to detect unnatural repetition, and even if the CV slips through, the recruiter who reads it will find it obvious and off-putting. The safe rule: every keyword must sit inside a sentence a human would actually write. "Delivered SEO strategy that grew organic traffic 60%" is strong; a list that reads "SEO, SEO strategy, SEO expert, SEO marketing" is a red flag. Optimise for the human first and the robot second — done properly, the same wording satisfies both.

Not every job description is a neat list of skills. Plenty are short, jargon-heavy, or padded with corporate filler that tells you little about what the employer actually wants. When the ad is vague, you have to do a little detective work to find the real keywords. Start by looking at the job title itself and searching for three to five similar roles at other companies — the terms that appear again and again across those postings are the true industry-standard keywords for the position, even if this particular ad omitted them. Next, study the company: read their website, recent news, and the LinkedIn profiles of people already in similar roles there. The tools, methods and language those employees use are strong clues to what the employer values. Then look at the responsibilities that are listed, however briefly, and translate each into the concrete skill it implies — "support the finance team" likely means reconciliation, reporting and Excel; "manage social channels" implies content scheduling, analytics and specific platforms. Finally, run the ad through our ATS Keyword Optimizer, which extracts the meaningful terms even from a thin description and compares them against your CV. The goal is to reverse-engineer the shortlist the recruiter has in their head, then make sure your CV speaks that exact language. A vague ad is actually an opportunity: most applicants respond to it generically, so the candidate who decodes what the employer really wants stands out immediately.