Applying in the US, Canada or Australia? Read the US version of this guide.
A tailored CV is not a new CV. It is the same career, reordered so that the first half of page one answers the advert in front of you. In the UK, Ireland and New Zealand that job is easier than people think, because British adverts usually tell you what they are scoring, and harder than it looks, because most templates and most tools online were built for a different market and quietly bring its habits with them.
This guide is published by JobShifu, which makes software for this. Nothing below needs it.
What changes when the document is a CV
If you have been reading American advice, five things are different here, and a shortlister notices every one of them.
- Two sides of A4 is normal. One side suits a graduate. Two is the default for anyone with a few years behind them, and in New Zealand two or three is common for experienced candidates. The rule is not "keep it short", it is "no padding".
- A4, not Letter. A document laid out for US Letter is slightly wider and shorter than A4, so it prints shrunk or with uneven margins, and a two-page layout can spill a few lines onto a third.
- A personal profile at the top. Three or four lines saying what you do, at what level, and what you want next. Not an "objective", and not a paragraph of adjectives.
- No personal data. No photo, date of birth, age, marital status or nationality. Age, marriage and nationality are protected characteristics under British equality law [1] and a photo invites judgements on others, so putting any of them on the page gives a reader something to set aside and nothing to shortlist.
- British spelling, consistently. Organised, analysed, licence (the noun), programme (a scheme of work; software is still a program). One Americanism in a CV that is otherwise British reads as a copied template.
Step 1: start from the person specification
Many UK and Irish adverts, and nearly every public sector one, come with a person specification: the criteria the panel will score you against, split into essential and desirable. That split is the most useful thing an employer will ever hand you. Essential criteria decide the shortlist. Desirable ones separate the people already on it.
Print the advert and the person specification. Number every essential criterion. Your CV has to show evidence for each of them somewhere a reader will find it in the first minute, and if you cannot evidence one, you have learnt something important before spending an evening on the application.
Where there is no person specification, which is common with private sector adverts, you have to do the sorting yourself. Across 500,000 live postings we measured, the average one lists 15.75 requirements and labels 86.8% of them as mandatory [2], so the employer's own wording will not tell you what matters. Three things will:
- Position. What appears early in the requirements list is usually what the hiring manager wrote first.
- Repetition. A phrase that shows up in the summary, the duties and the requirements is the job.
- Gates. Right to work, a full driving licence, a DBS check, registration with a professional body. These are yes or no, and no amount of wording moves them.
Aim for five to eight criteria. That is your brief.
Step 2: lay out the two pages
Two pages give you room, which makes order the main decision rather than deletion.
The top half of page one carries your name, a contact line and the profile. Rewrite the profile for each application, because it is the one section a reader always reads. Name the role you are applying for, your level, and the two or three essential criteria you are strongest on, in that order.
The rest of page one is your most recent role or two, with the bullets reordered so that the evidence for the essential criteria comes first within each role. You have not written anything new yet, and the CV already reads as more relevant.
Page two holds earlier roles, education and anything else. Roles older than about ten years shrink to a title, an employer, dates and one line. A role that shows nothing this employer asked for can go altogether.
Step 3: use their words where they are true
Where the advert and your CV describe the same thing differently, use the advert's words. If the person specification says "stakeholder engagement" and you wrote "worked with other departments", change yours. If it says "managing contractors to agreed service levels" and you did exactly that, say it in those words.
Only where it is true, though. A criterion copied into your key skills list is a claim. The same phrase inside a bullet about a specific piece of work, with a number or an outcome attached, is evidence, and a panel scoring you against a person specification is looking for evidence. On a competency-based application, such as the ones many public sector employers use, a claim with no example behind it usually scores nothing.
While you are in there, check the spelling. A template downloaded from an American site, or text from a tool that defaults to US English, will leave "optimize", "center" and "organization" behind. Search the document for "ize", "yze" and "color" and fix every hit in one pass.
Step 4: take off what British readers skip
These lines cost space and earn nothing:
- "Curriculum Vitae" as a heading. Your name is the heading.
- "References available on request." It is assumed. If the advert asks for referees, it will ask for them separately.
- Your full postal address. Your town or city is enough.
- A photo, date of birth or marital status, for the reason above.
- Hobbies, unless they are evidence. Captaining a club side can show leadership. "Reading and travel" shows nothing.
Step 5: check it on A4, then name it
Print it, or at least look at it in a print preview set to A4. You are checking three things: that it is two pages and not two pages and three lines, that the first half of page one holds the evidence for your essential criteria, and that every line survives being asked about in an interview. Read it aloud once. Anything you cannot say without wincing is a line you cannot defend.
Then name the file so it survives a recruiter's downloads folder: your name, the role and the document, as in `Priya-Shah-Operations-Manager-CV.pdf`. Keep a note of which version went to which employer, with the advert saved alongside it, because adverts disappear and the call comes three weeks later.
How long this takes
About forty minutes the first time and twenty-five after that: ten to work through the person specification, ten to reorder, five on wording, a few more to cut and check. The part that does not repeat is the long document behind it, a master CV with every role, number and project written down in full, from which each tailored version is cut. Keep that up to date and every application after the first gets quicker.
If you would rather not run the loop by hand each time, JobShifu does the same sequence: it sorts the advert's requirements against what you have confirmed, asks about the ones you may have left out, and proposes changes that each cite the experience behind them, on A4 and in British spelling. That is described at CV tailoring.
Common questions
Should my CV be one page or two?
Two for most people with a few years of experience, and one if you are a graduate or changing careers with little relevant history. What gets a CV set aside is not the second page but a second page of padding, so the test is whether every line on it is evidence for this job.
Should I put a photo on my CV?
No, not for jobs in the UK, Ireland or New Zealand. A photo, date of birth, age or marital status gives a shortlister information they are expected to ignore, and it takes space from evidence. Some other countries expect a photo; these three do not.
Do I need to tailor my CV for every application?
For every one you care about, yes, but tailoring is mostly reordering and rewording, not rewriting. Work through the person specification first. If you cannot evidence an essential criterion, that tells you whether the application is worth your evening before you start it.
Sources
- Equality Act 2010, which makes age, marriage and civil partnership, and race (including nationality) protected characteristics in employment decisions in Great Britain. legislation.gov.uk
- JobShifu Posting Corpus, 500,000 live job postings measured 13 August 2026. Requirement counts and the mandatory share are JobShifu's own measurement; the method is in we analyzed 500,000 job descriptions.