What does it mean to tailor your resume to an industry or company?

General Resume and Interview Tips
1

I’ve heard that it is important to tailor your resume to the industry or company you are applying for, but I have no clue what this actually looks like in practice. Does anyone have any advice?

2

Tailoring your resume is essentially just the practice of highlighting the most relevant skills or experience to the employer. This is usually done through two ways: 1. The experience you choose to include on your resume 2. How you talk to those experiences.

Typically this can look like including experience that is relevant to the industry you are applying for (highlighting finance related work experience or extracurriculars for a finance role), and using key words in the descriptions of your experiences (problem solving or pitching for like consulting).

A top tip I’ve heard is going to the job description of the role you are applying for and using the key words from the “we are looking for…” in your descriptions.

Hope this helps!

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3

Wow! Thank you so much, that makes sense… so how would I tailor my resume for the marketing industry?

4

I think it depends on what you’re applying for, whether it’s on the agency or client side (agency is typically a bit more creative from my understanding, and client side is more about implementation), but I would generally prioritise the following when it comes to experiences to highlight:

  1. Any form of marketing related work experience or extra-curriculars. This can be marketing roles in a student club or volunteering experience

  2. Any experience where you had to use some sort of design or creative thinking. Maybe like personal passion projects like an online blog, foodie page, or fashion account?

  3. Might be worth noting any skills you have when it comes to designing platforms or software such as Photoshop, illustrator, or any photography experience.

I think if you are applying for more creative roles you might need to include a portfolio, but for client roles you should be fine without one (they should tell you if its required).

Finally in your descriptions you should probably highlight key words such as “designed”, “created”, etc.