Should I Customise My CV? Jobseeker Basics XVII

Greg Wyatt • February 16, 2026

In tomorrow's LinkedIn Live, Simon Ward and I will debate the merits of customising applications.


Simon is mainly on the side of customisation, whereas I feel it's often relied on as a crutch that detracts from more effective action.


I'm not against it by any means, yet it falls much lower on my priority list than you might think.


You can join us tomorrow at 1pm GMT, by clicking on this link:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/shouldajobhuntertailortheircvfo7427656161476415488/theater/


You can generally see my views on customisation in three chapters of A Career Breakdown Kit.


I've shared two of them in this newsletter already:


Hierarchy of Pain, which explains why the real essential requirements of a vacancy aren't always articulated or even defined, in which case customisation can actually work against you.


De Facto Automated Rejection and You, in which I explain why the ATS isn't the real problem, and what you should consider instead. Given customisation and 'ATS Compliance' go hand in hand, this is a must read.


The third chapter is shared below and answers the question more directly.


But if it's all far too TL;DR, then you should only customise your application if you answer yes to these questions:


1/ Is my core CV good enough? Good enough is your minimum acceptable level - not the goal - and I'm sorry to say the vast majority of CVs do not meet this threshold.

2/ Do I know the hierarchy of decision making in the hiring process, and what each stakeholder needs from the application?

3/ Does the advert speak to me personally? If it's a generic document, you can bet your customisation will look precisely the same as every other person taking the good advice to customise their application.

4/ Could the employer or agency have further vacancies, now or in future, that I am better suited to?

5/ Does my customised CV resemble my LinkedIn closely enough that it doesn't appear to lie?

6/ Am I articulating applicable skills, direct qualifications and relevant experience in the language of the vacancy?

7/ Does the time taken to customise outweigh the speed needed to apply?

8/ Am I 100% focused on the jobs that best meet my strengths?

9/ Is this a better use of my time than the harder activity I've been putting off?

10/ When applying through a job board, is this CV optimised to be findable for my ideal role through their CV database?


I'm sure there are more, but these are a good start. The three chapters explain why you should ask these questions first, so you can make sure your strategy works for you.


And these are the basis for my side of the discussion tomorrow.


34 - Should I customise my CV?

 

It depends.


Am I qualified?


Strip away bad behaviour, laziness and discrimination, and ask any hiring manager what they want from an application.

I’d wager the most common answer will be -


‘Qualified candidates’


Qualified goes beyond capability.


Can we identify any insurmountable nos?


This might be experience, qualifications, assumption of salary level or commutability, availability, or a lack of work permit.

Often it comes down to assumption. Fair or not, it’s their assumption to make.


All we can do is show how we qualify.


Ask these same hiring managers what proportion of applications aren’t qualified enough, and the answer will be anywhere between 75% and 100%.


Many of these will be wing and a prayer or automated applications. White noise that detracts from qualified candidates.


If you truly are a best-fit candidate for a vacancy, how would you feel if unqualified applications took attention away from you?


In a world where job seekers are often told to ‘shoot your shot’, is it possible that you’ve been an unqualified candidate on occasion?


When looking at any advert, ask yourself -


Am I qualified to do this job?


If yes, ‘How will my application demonstrate that I am qualified?’


This informs whether and how you should customise a CV.


Most jobs are learnable, using transferable skills.


If everyone can learn and has similar transferable skills, neither of these is a remarkable quality. They don’t stand out and they don’t inherently qualify you for a vacancy.


I expect that a significant proportion of what are considered to be unqualified candidates could ‘do that job’ with sufficient support.


It’s just that the expectation is other applicants can do the job better or achieve sufficiency sooner.


This may be perceptual and unfair. It is how many people make decisions when recruiting.


Instead, the onus has to be on the applicability of what we offer.


What’s in it for them?


Can you show how each facet of your candidacy applies in the context of the vacancy?


If you can’t, the decision is likely to be against you in a competitive market.


If you strongly believe you are qualified for points you are always rejected for, you have to articulate why.


This may be for as simple a reason as living 70 miles from their office.


They assume it’s too far and say no.


You’ve been commuting 75 miles for 10 years, and you know you are qualified. Say so.


Same with salary. They judge you were probably on £70k and their budget is £60k max - it’s not going to work.


You’ve done the maths. It’s a great job, the salary is fair, and it’s affordable. Say so.


Or those career gaps.


‘This person’s unemployable - no work for three years!’


‘When I was made redundant, I had the opportunity to support my ailing mother. She passed away in March, and I’m ready to work.’ Say so (and I’m sorry for your loss).


When we talk about being qualified, it’s often more about the skills and capability required to do a job.


If you know you can do the job, show how in your application. This should be the core part of your proposition in words a reader will accept to help us make the right decision.


If you can’t achieve this in your application, you may not be seen to be qualified.


‘Core part’ is important, because you may be someone who has an excellent track record, and a small part of your expertise relates to the core of a vacancy.


You may be able to show this in your application.


However, if you are competing against candidates whose main expertise is the core of the vacancy, you may be perceived generally as a weaker candidate.


An exception might be if you can demonstrate specifically how your wider experience solves problems the vacancy will have.


How can you glean that from a generic advert?


If you aren’t getting any return from customising CVs, it’s because you aren’t seen to be a qualified candidate (if your CV is even seen at all).


And if you can’t provide suitable and sufficient evidence that you are a qualified candidate, you should save your time by not applying.


Whenever I talk to job seekers frustrated by spending hours on customising CVs only to be knocked back instantly, I’m equally frustrated to say they probably never had a chance with those applications.


Strip those applications away and focus on the ones you can show qualified candidacy for quickly.


You’ll save a lot of time and frustration and you’ll IMPROVE your odds, by giving you more time to focus on what matters - more suitable vacancies and different job search activities.


You’ll also improve the odds for more qualified candidates.


Customise to beat the ATS!


Okay, if you’re worried about beating the bots - reread the ATS chapters (p29).


Worry more about being human optimised with a ‘good enough’ CV - it will be implicitly ATS compliant because of what an ATS is.


Yes, solutions are changing all the time, yet as ‘AI’ evolves on recruitment platforms, it will emulate how humans parse documentation.

Appropriate human optimisation is still key, our warts and all.


Not keyword bombing and ‘93% ATS compliant’ piffle.


Good enough


The argument that you should customise your CV against every application to maximise your odds seems to make sense.


Yet, it neglects one key principle. That your starting CV is good enough.


In many applications I see, they are not.


I don’t mean that they haven’t been customised, I mean that they aren’t fit for purpose.


And if that’s the case with your CV, customising only covers over the cracks in a weak document.


CVs in general are weak in specificity, context, applicable skills and readability.


Because people in good times often get by on weak documentation. Jobs are aplenty, suitable candidates competed for - you can succeed with less.


In bad times, good enough has to be a minimum, and most fall short.


I had a debate with a career coach recently who challenged me that ‘good enough’ will never get you a job - why would you always want to be sixth place?


Yet if CVs aren’t good enough to start with, there’s little point in chasing perfect - the most subjective of principles.


If you don’t get past the first sift, you won’t even get to sixth place.


Get the objective principles right and build from there.


Besides, everyone has an opinion on what good looks like in CVs. Perfect for one may be rubbish for another. Quite the stinger when you’ve paid for perfection.


Good enough is about reaching an objectively good CV-state for your context, which depends on all those factors unique to you - your skills and candidacy, the state of your market, the volume of competition and vacancies.


Good enough shows you in your best light, highlighting your candidacy for the role you are most suited for.


You can’t be all things to all people - good marketing is about leaning into what makes you, you.


Get your CV right, and it’s the basis for non-application activities:


  • Your LinkedIn profile (given it should be consistent with your applications)
  • A document you share in networking (there’s no point customising here)
  • A CV that may be found on CV databases (read Better Use of Job Boards - p211)
  • A CV you’ve used for an application you were rejected for, then logged onto an ATS which is visible to the hiring team for more suited vacancies they may not even advertise
  • The basis of how you describe yourself in personal branding, elevator pitches, doorknocking and any other commercial-type activity that can put you closer to a job


A CV isn’t just an application tool, it’s the anchor of your professional identity.


It isn’t just an outbound document, it can attract inbound interest.


And if you get it good enough, any customisation should be minimal, allowing you to apply for suited vacancies more quickly.


Quality of information


Let’s face it, most job adverts and job descriptions aren’t fit for purpose either.


Your experience of generic, misrepresentative job adverts mirrors how recruiters experience generic, misrepresentative CVs.


Those carefully written adverts that appear to speak to you directly… well those are good enough adverts to spend time on.


For the rest, would it make much difference if you relied solely on the job title, working arrangements and salary? Perhaps industry and product type, too.


‘Here at Bircham Wyatt Recruitment, we are a market-leading progressive innovator of fast-paced all-level communication.’


A lot of words which say nothing at all.


And because everyone uses them, they lose meaning - as with transferable skills.


Strip all the twaddle away, and if those top-level points are adequate, I expect you’ll go straight to Essential Requirements to see if you are qualified.


The problem with generic adverts is that these Essential Requirements may also lack Essential Specificity. What’s misrepresentative?


What’s missing? What are they really looking for?


This is often hidden pain that is key to unlocking a vacancy – something I write about in more depth, in the next chapter.


If you aren’t certain on these points, what are you customising against?


Could it be you accidentally edit out what makes you most suited to a vacancy, if what they leave unsaid is the most important piece?


Sometimes this is down to carelessness by the employer - sometimes it’s deliberate:


I once placed an HR Manager at a ‘rapidly growing’ company. They didn’t tell me or her that the thing they needed most was her mass-redundancy experience, which was what she was tasked to do on day one.


The truth was the opposite of their job description.


And sometimes different stages of the hiring process have different priorities, which may never have been articulated in the advert:


Administrator, Recruiter, Line Manager, Head of Department, Director...


A messed-up perfect storm


If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably been looking for work for a while, in a competitive marketplace with too many qualified candidates, far too many applications, and too few viable vacancies.


Plus, technology that encourages speed and volume.


And under-resourced, over-worked hiring teams, many of whom don’t do hiring as a day job.


Have you ever spent an hour customising a CV only to learn you were application number 232? Without knowing they’d closed applications at 200. And you received an instant rejection?


Sometimes, it may be a question of speed over quality.


How do you find the right balance?


Reciprocity in action


For advertising, the balance is simple.


Invest as much time in your application as their effort in the advert.


For a transactional generic advert - apply transactionally, diarise a follow-up, move on.


Keep these in a transactional fire-and-forget pile.


For the adverts that speak to you personally or take time and care to accurately articulate what the role is and what it offers you, reciprocate this effort in your application.


Keep these in a non-transactional pile.


Measure your return separately.


You’ll find a higher hit rate in the second, with the virtuous circle of your added investment.


While the lower hit rate of the first is mirrored by not needing to have put so much of yourself into it.


What about AI?


There are many wonderful AI tools available, and if you want to take the time out of customising CVs, automating seems a great opportunity.


What exactly are they customising against?


Because the quality of information you can convey is based on situational insight, it seems to me that AI can only tweak terminology or regurgitate what others have already written.


If everyone uses AI in this way, the output is generic resulting in same-same messages and CVs at scale.


This is what I’m hearing from people who are recruiting - reams of identical looking applications that lack punch.


It doesn’t help; it works against you.


For ideation, research, analysis, it’s an effective tool. Ask it which areas of a job description you might focus on selling your experience against.


For applying at scale, for now, it’s part of the noise.


Should I customise my CV and how?


It depends.


If your CV is already ‘good enough’, it shouldn’t take too much time to show how you meet the essential requirements of an advert.


If an advert sings to you and you feel inspired to put your best foot forward, you should (maybe check it’s still live first).

  • Use relevant impact based achievements. ‘I did x by y resulting in z’
  • Show relevant context - if your last employer was a context fit, show how. E.g. Rapidly growing scale-up, 50 to 250 in one year, t/o £24m. Or 500 staff, manufacturing of precision components for aerospace, significant downsizing programme
  • Align your language to theirs - they say PDCA, you said CI. They say S&OP, you said integrated business planning. Don’t fabricate
  • Remember - what’s in it for them? How will you solve their problems or help them reach their desired outcomes?


For other situations, I’d question whether the marginal gain of customisation should be set aside for what may be the maximal gain of what you don’t want to do:


Networking, doorknocking, personal branding, and all those other inbound and outbound activities that might get you closer to a job.



My new book - A Recruitment AiDE

By Greg Wyatt • April 30, 2026
I'm thrilled to announce the publication of A Recruitment AiDE. A guide, philosophy and discipline for effective key hire recruitment. The timing’s perfect, given the deluge of AI content that floods our feeds. Imagine how these similarly produced generic adverts land with people you want to talk to. "We're thrilled to announce we want, we need, here’s our shopping list, why aren’t you responding and oh what’s this flood of AI CVs?" It doesn’t have to be this way. This has taken twenty-five years of hard graft - talking to job seekers, researching the market and recruitment practice, learning about candidate resentment, problem awareness, marketing, copywriting, and the psychology of what moves people. With the evidence that backs this up. The result is something that may make you rethink your approach to recruitment. That will improve the number of qualified candidates, while reducing the total number of applications. It's too early to prove, but my expectation is this will reduce the number of AI CVs too, given there is less for AI to grab when you speak to professional identity. You’ll have to be bold, go against the grain, do something that feels counterintuitive, especially if someone has their hand on your shoulder saying "This isn't the company style!" But then, what does it take to stand out from the crowd? And if you really want to attract the best people, shouldn’t your first step be focused on them, and not you? Kindle version out now. Here's the link: https://amzn.eu/d/03idlAVM.  Paperback in two weeks. If you don’t like Evilcorp, let me know and we can work something out.

Content strategy and philosophy

By Greg Wyatt • April 27, 2026
What follows is Chapter 40 of A Career Breakdown Kit , and part two of a three part series on Personal Branding. Except it isn't. There are various definitions I revolt against, with good reason, in a job search. Personal branding, hidden jobs markets, ATS compliance, and all the others. Terms that seem to hide secret wins, not replicable steps, especially when hidden behind a paywall. I call it the title that's expected because of the questions job seekers ask me. You may recall my article on the Hidden Jobs Market breaks it apart and rebuilds it into a cohesive multichannel marketing strategy that allows you to access the whole of your jobs market. And so it is with my personal branding series. This isn't about your brand. Or even about your reputation. It's about pushing content that starts conversations with relevant people - such as peers, former colleagues, recruiters with a vested interest in these content areas, and even people that can put you closer to a job. Not forgetting fellow job seekers you can share experiences with - as long as you don't dwell on the negative. And it's also about writing in a way that is both true to you and your profession - because conversation has to follow in the same voice as you write, and should support your work, when in work. It's a strategy and philosophy that mirrors earlier chapters on networking, doorknocking, getting found and converting interest. It isn't about writing credible statements in a content savvy way that shares unprovable anecdotes, hacks that lack substance, and where a funnel means more than a lesson. That way is the way of social media marketing - this is about conversations that matter. 40 - Content strategy and philosophy While a personal brand might be the goal, your content strategy should be the priority. It can be applied even if you don’t like the idea of branding. Much is made about LinkedIn’s algorithm and how you need to do this that and the other to get engagement. You can look at it differently, ignoring the algorithm on the whole, and still achieve much the same. These are the outcomes I aim for and see when writing content: Start conversations Help others Sharpen and spark ideas Raise awareness and trust Have a laugh and a chat I’ve gained friends I’ve never spoken to and friendly acquaintances I only know through ‘comments.’ As well as paying clients who have benefitted from my service. Just as importantly, I have more credibility with candidates who place weight on LinkedIn content. Content makes it easier for me to start conversations. It’s important for me that I either enjoy the content and its consequences or find it fulfilling. I don’t talk openly about my personal life, family or challenges. Something I agreed with my wife when I started publishing content. Instead, I show all of myself in my words - quirks and all. So that if we ever speak in real life, there isn’t much of a disconnect. Start with other people’s content Find content writers who inspire you and use them as a catalyst for your own words. There are two ways to do this. Firstly, if you’re thinking about writing on LinkedIn, you are presumably already reading content. What inspires you? What do you enjoy reading? Which authors resonate with your career, your values, your goals and the problems you solve? When you read their content, do you engage and comment? Do you connect with them? Do you ask them who they recommend as writers in your field? Secondly, look within. What do you want to be known for in your career? Maybe it’s procurement or your CIPD membership. React or agile. 5 Whys or Gemba. If these are areas that interest you, use the LinkedIn search bar to find posts on these topics. Now filter the results by ‘Posts’ and ‘Sort by’ latest. Read through the results both for posts that interest you and those that have high engagement (less likely on a niche topic). When you’ve found inspiring content, what next ? One first step in content creation is to respond to these posts with your own ideas. Less ‘Agree’ and more how you might respond in a real-life conversation on this topic. Commenting on other people’s posts is a good way to find your voice, particularly if the conversation continues. Like any skill, writing takes practice, and comments are a low-friction way of developing your tone. If a comment sparks interest from other readers, it can be a concept to build on as a post in its own right. The other benefit of this kind of niche content is that those who engage are likely to have similar interests to you. Make sure to read other comments and see if there are more conversations to be had. The comments you build with them can be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship. Check out their profiles - do their interests and values reflect yours? These are people to connect with, then DM to continue the conversation. Check out their posting history, which will be available on their profile - there may well be a lot of interesting content to absorb. With conversation comes content. Ideas and discussion that grow are an effective way to share your voice. Here’s a suggestion for how you can do this in practice: Look for 5 posts daily that interest you professionally - manually, using a search, or checking what your valuable connections are up to Engage and comment on each Check out new relevant profiles - connect and follow their content On each post, look at who is engaging and respond naturally Try to connect with 5 new relevant people from these interactions Perhaps follow up with a message Take note of the most interesting conversations and at the end of the week pick at least one to inspire your own posts You don’t need to publish them if you aren’t comfortable - save for later if not I’d avoid the viral content that combines relevance + relatability + entitlement + readability. These writers are more interested in engagement numbers than your specific interest. You can see the truth of their words in how they respond in the comments sections. From a marketing perspective, different types of content have different places in your lead generation: Awareness Interest Consideration Evaluation Purchase Each post, comment, DM and real-life conversation can relate to these steps and support your goals, even if you aren’t treating these as a marketing activity. Time and time again There’s a lot of investigation into optimal times to post. It’s more important that you are available to reply attentively in the first hour. The course of a post is often dictated by the performance during this time. I actively reply to comments for around an hour a day with LinkedIn on in the background of other work. How much time can you set aside per week and per day for content? Even if you only write a couple of posts a week, this will probably take a couple of hours. You can expect low performance initially, with some exceptions, as it takes time to build inertia. Set aside a sustainable amount of time each week and commit to it over a period - try for 10-12 weeks and track how things have developed. You may find it becomes an enjoyable task. Try not to get distracted by engagement for its own sake and keep your goals in mind. Types of content to try Engagement on LinkedIn is built primarily on relevance and relatability. Even ragebait, given it drives strong feeling. You can write a 100% relatable post that everyone takes relevance from and see massive engagement. Though that engagement may not serve your goals. Or you can write a post that is 100% relevant to the problems you solve in your career, and the people who will find it relevant are from a small niche facing the same problems. This is why a photo of you with your dog will fly, while a carefully thought out post about the optimisation of widgets in a byzantine setting will appear to be shouting into a void. Or you can blend the two through storytelling, pivoting observations into business content, and copywriting formulae like AIDA (attention interest desire action) and PAS (problem agitation solution). Everyone will have different forms of content that will be effective for them. What do you want your ideal readers to experience? What would ‘you five years ago’ would find helpful? Do you want readers to see you as a credible expert? Someone who is authentically vulnerable? Your warts and all personality? Someone who stands out in a sea of competition? Someone who is thought-provoking, helpful, or altruistic? The answers are much the same if you posed these questions of interviewing. This is no coincidence, given your message should be consistently delivered no matter where it is received. With that in mind, here are some content ideas you can try: How you might solve a problem specific to your industry Stories from your everyday life The challenges in your job search Observations on a news story and how it relates to your work A flair post highlighting your availability Asking for thoughts on an idea you are interested in Sharing insight you find fascinating, whether that’s films, video games, science or sport Stories from your career where you can show growth (everyone loves a hero’s journey) Business frameworks, processes and techniques you find useful - Pomodoro Technique, scientific method, STAR, what do you use? Equipment you use for work Developments in your workplace and culture Thoughts on content you find inspiring Memes, humour, satire Google content ideas for LinkedIn or ask ChatGPT, Claude and others. I wouldn’t use AI to write articles. I do use them for ideation and to sense check. ‘Write me a post for LinkedIn that shows the link between Tesla cars and how to develop an HR strategy.’ The vulnerability of writing You can be a content creator without ever publishing a post if you continue conversations through comments, connections, DMs and real-life. This avoids sticking your head above the parapets and is low risk, but misses the gain of publishing your own content. I know that some people are held back for fear of failure. I can tell you that clicking ‘send’ is always a high point of anxiety for me in sending newsletters. Imagine how I felt when I clicked Publish for this book. What’s the worst that can happen with a carefully thought-out post? Tumbleweed? If no one reads it, you can always post it again another time. Disagreement? Loads of people disagree on my posts - you’ll see from my comments that I am always constructive in my dialogue and typically this supports the intent of my post. Everyone has an opinion and they are welcome to theirs - as long as it’s constructive, there is always a learning opportunity. Trolls? These people exist and will at some point rear their ugly heads. I imagine them naked on the Underground, which takes the sting out of their vitriol. I’m sure it’s their unhappiness that drives their behaviour. Marriage requests? Unfortunately, dubious and toxic behaviour isn’t uncommon. Don’t be afraid to block and report if you receive harmful messages. As long as you are constructive in what you write and you work to build a conversation, it’s unlikely anything bad will happen. You will open yourself up to the opportunity of new relevant people starting conversations with you: hiring managers, recruiters, peers, fellow job seekers, and friendly strangers. Weight and depth of opinion A couple of years ago, I had a message from an out-of-work Sales Director asking for some feedback. He’d shot a video for LinkedIn where he talked about why he should be snapped up and received a lot of praise for the post. However, he was confused because a CEO he trusts told him it was poor and made him look boring. He knew I’d give him unvarnished feedback, which was what he needed to find some clarity on what had happened. Truthfully, the CEO was correct. What had happened? All of the positive engagement was from fellow job seekers and people who wanted to support him. That he’d done it was praiseworthy in itself and was rightly celebrated, rather than the quality of what he had produced. None of them had hiring authority or were in a career similar to someone who would be his line manager. The video didn’t show him how he comes across in person either. While the positive feedback was fantastic for validation, his video worked against him. What might happen if a hiring process thought his video was boring when the role being recruited for has persuasion as a key requirement? I’m pleased to say his redo was excellent, showing off his charisma while delivering the same message. Who can you rely on to be this CEO for you in your career? Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months. Starting cold on LinkedIn can take time to get traction. When your first post bombs you might never think to do a second. Going in with the expectation of little impact for the first three to six months is healthy in making a sustainable habit. If you’re out of work though, three to six months may seem too far off to be worthwhile when there are many activities that offer a quick turnaround, such as applying for jobs. I’ve spoken to many job seekers who’ve been out of work for more than six months and had decided not to write content at the outset of their search. If they had, they might now be seeing the benefit of their work.