The Job Application Tailor

Top-Prompts

One resume, honestly retargeted per posting

01 The Concept

Generic applications lose to tailored ones, but manual tailoring takes an hour per posting. This template does it in minutes without crossing the honesty line: it maps your real experience onto the posting's actual asks, rewrites bullets in the posting's language, and — critically — refuses to invent. Gaps get a strategy (adjacent experience, transferable skill), not a fabrication.

Feed it two things: your master resume (the long, complete version) and the posting. Ask for three outputs: a match map (their requirements → your evidence, with honest 'no direct evidence' rows), rewritten bullets for the most relevant roles (impact-first, their vocabulary, numbers preserved), and a cover-note draft built only from the match map's strongest three rows.

02 Weak vs. Strong

EX 01The template

Below: my master resume and a job posting. Tailor honestly. HARD RULES: use only facts from my resume — no new tools, titles, employers, dates, or numbers. If the posting wants something I don't have, that's a GAP, not an opportunity to improvise. OUTPUT: 1. MATCH MAP — table: their requirement → my strongest evidence (which role/bullet) → strength (strong/partial/gap). For gaps: the most credible adjacent experience or 'none — address in interview'. 2. REWRITTEN BULLETS — for my 2 most relevant roles, rewrite bullets impact-first using the posting's vocabulary. Keep every number exactly as-is. 3. COVER NOTE (≤160 words) — built ONLY from the 3 strongest match rows; one sentence acknowledging the most visible gap with my adjacent strength; no 'I am passionate about'. MASTER RESUME: [paste] POSTING: [paste]

→ Why it works

The match map makes tailoring evidence-based, the no-invention rule is stated as a hard fence, vocabulary-mirroring is legitimate reframing, and the cover note is forced to build on the strongest true material instead of generic enthusiasm.

EX 02Screening-call prep variant

Using the MATCH MAP above (same resume, same posting): 1. For each PARTIAL or GAP row: the honest 60-second answer for 'do you have experience with X?' — structure: direct answer first (no dodging), adjacent evidence, how I'd close the gap in the first 90 days. 2. The 3 questions this interviewer is most likely to push on, given the gaps. 3. Two questions I should ask THEM that turn my strongest match rows into conversation. Rule: every answer starts with the truthful direct answer ('Not dbt specifically —'), never with the deflection.

→ Why it works

The same match map powers interview prep. Direct-answer-first structure converts gaps from things to hide into prepared, credible 60-second responses.

03 Key Points

01Master resume in, tailored artifacts out — never let the model work from memory of you

02Match map first: each posting requirement → your strongest evidence, or an honest 'gap' with a strategy

03Hard rule: rewrite and reframe, never invent — no new employers, titles, dates, numbers, or technologies

04Bullets go impact-first in their vocabulary: if they say 'stakeholders', your 'clients' become stakeholders — same facts, their dialect

05Cover note = your 3 strongest match rows in prose + one honest line about the gap that matters, if it's visible

06Keep numbers exactly as they are in the master resume — a '40%' that becomes '45%' in tailoring is a lie with provenance

04 Model-Specific Notes

Claude holds the no-invention line well and writes honest gap rows without nudging. If bullets come back verbose, add 'each bullet ≤22 words'.

05 For Your Role

Same template works for rental applications, school essays, volunteer positions — map their criteria to your real evidence, mirror their language, never invent.

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