3 prompts to tailor your résumé to any job
If you send the same résumé to every job, start here. These three prompts give the AI what it actually needs to do better: your résumé, the real job posting, and some rules. Send them one at a time, in order. The rewrite at the end is only as good as the answers you give in the first one.
You'll have a résumé rewritten for one specific job, using numbers you can stand behind and the posting's own words where they're true for you.
Before you start
Open Claude or ChatGPT in a new chat. Upload your résumé and paste in the full text of one job posting you want.
Send the prompts one at a time, in order. Wait for each answer before you send the next one.
Only share what you're comfortable sharing with that tool. Take your phone number, address and anything confidential from past jobs off the résumé first.
Before it rewrites anything
When to use it: right after you've uploaded your résumé and pasted the posting.
Prompt 1 · Interview me firstI've uploaded my résumé and pasted a job posting I want. Before you rewrite anything, ask me 5 questions, one at a time, about results and numbers my résumé leaves out. Wait for my answer before you ask the next one. Focus on the parts of the posting my résumé doesn't prove yet.
One question, then a pause for your answer, five times. If it dumps all five at once, answer them anyway, one by one.
Find what the posting wants that you're not showing
When to use it: after you've answered all five questions.
Prompt 2 · Find the gapsCompare my résumé to this job posting. List the skills and keywords the posting asks for that my résumé is missing or buries. For each one, tell me whether my résumé or my answers show it is true for me. Don't add anything that isn't.
A list of skills and keywords from the posting, each marked as something you can honestly claim or not.
The rewrite
When to use it: last, once the gaps are on the table.
Prompt 3 · RewriteNow rewrite my résumé for this job. Put every bullet in Google's XYZ formula: Accomplished [X], as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]. That means what I did, the number, and how I did it. Rules: use the posting's exact wording wherever it's true for me. Keep it a plain single-column document with standard headings (Summary, Experience, Skills, Education) with no tables, columns or graphics, so applicant tracking systems can read it. Never invent a number or a skill. If a number is missing, ask me.
A plain, single-column résumé where each bullet says what you did, the number, and how. If it asks you for a number, that's the prompt working.
If you get stuck
It invented a number.
Reply: "Where did that number come from? Take out anything I didn't give you, and ask me instead."
It asked all five questions at once.
Reply: "One at a time, please. Start again with question 1."
It made a table or two columns anyway.
Reply: "Rewrite it as plain text, one column, no tables."
You want a last check.
Once you have the rewrite, send: "Now read it as the hiring manager for this job. What would make you stop reading?"
Your final check
Tick these as you go. The ticks reset when you leave this page.
Keep going when you’re ready.
Pick another guide for the next problem you’re working on.