Resume Tailor

---
name: resume-tailor
description: Reshapes an existing resume for one specific job posting, reordering, rewording and refocusing real experience so the match is obvious in a ten-second skim, and flags honestly where the user does not meet a requirement instead of inventing it. Use when applying to a particular role.
---

# Resume Tailor

You reshape a real resume to fit one specific job. You reorder, you reword, you cut. You never add anything that did not happen.

## Workflow

1. **Get both documents in full.** The resume as text, the posting as text. Do not tailor to a job you cannot read.
2. **Read the posting for what it actually wants:** the must-haves, the repeated words, and the priority its own ordering reveals.
3. **Build the requirement map:** every requirement against the evidence in the resume, marked strong, partial or none.
4. **Reorder** so the strongest matches sit highest and take the most space.
5. **Reword real bullets** into the posting's language without changing what is true.
6. **Trim** what does not serve this application. Shrink before you delete.
7. **Write the summary** for this exact role, two or three lines.
8. **Hand back three things:** the tailored resume, a what-changed list, and an honest gaps note.

Copy this checklist into your working notes:

```text
Resume tailoring checklist
[ ] Full resume text received
[ ] Full posting text received
[ ] Requirements extracted, must-have vs nice-to-have separated
[ ] Requirement map built: strong / partial / none for each
[ ] Most relevant experience moved to the top third of page 1
[ ] Rewording checked - every reworded line still describes what happened
[ ] Nothing added: no new tools, titles, dates, numbers or claims
[ ] Less relevant experience shrunk rather than deleted
[ ] Summary rewritten for this role specifically
[ ] What-changed list written
[ ] Gaps note written, with an honest suggestion for each gap
```

## Read the posting properly

The posting is a document with a structure, and the structure carries information the text does not state.

- **The job title** tells you the word the resume should echo. If they call it "Delivery Manager", the summary should not say "Project Lead".
- **The first three responsibilities** are what the person will actually spend their time on. Later bullets are frequently inherited from an old posting.
- **Repeated words** across responsibilities, requirements and the company blurb are the real priorities. If "stakeholder" appears five times, that is the job.
- **"Required" versus "desirable"** matters. Many people rule themselves out over a desirable, and many others ignore a required.
- **Boilerplate is real and detectable.** Ten years of a technology that has existed for six, or a list of twelve tools that no single person uses, means the requirements were assembled rather than written. Match what is plausible and do not panic about the rest.
- **The team and company lines** tell you the register: a five-person startup and a bank want the same experience described differently.

Extract five to eight requirements, in the posting's own words, before touching the resume.

## The requirement map

This is the core artefact and it is worth showing to the user. One row per requirement:

| What the posting asks for | Evidence in the resume | Strength | Where it will show |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Manage relationships with external suppliers" | Renegotiated 11 supplier contracts, current role | Strong | Summary and first bullet of current role |
| "Experience with budget ownership" | Ran a 30,000 supplies budget | Partial, smaller scale | Second bullet, current role |
| "Familiarity with Workday" | Nothing | None | Gaps note |

Build the map before rewriting anything. It tells you the order of the resume, and the "none" rows write the gaps note for you.

## Where honest rewording ends

This is the line the whole skill turns on. Rewording describes the same work in the reader's vocabulary. Inventing describes work that did not happen.

| Fair | Not fair |
|---|---|
| "Built dashboards" becomes "built reporting dashboards" when the posting says "reporting tools" | Adding a tool they have never used because the posting lists it |
| "Ran the weekly team meeting" becomes "ran weekly stakeholder updates" when those attendees were stakeholders | Turning "supported" into "led" |
| "Quarterly goals" becomes "OKRs" if that is genuinely what the company called the process | Claiming a certification that is half finished as held |
| Moving a real achievement from the third bullet to the first | Changing dates to hide a gap |
| Cutting an irrelevant role down to one line | Deleting a role entirely to hide it |
| Using the posting's word for a thing the user genuinely did | Inflating a number, or adding a percentage that was never measured |

The test: could the user, in an interview, be asked about this line and answer comfortably for two minutes? If not, it does not go in.

## The keyword question, honestly

Many applications pass through software that scans for terms before a human sees the resume. That is a real reason to use the posting's vocabulary, and it is not a reason to do anything strange.

**What helps:** using the exact term for something the user actually did, inside the bullet where they did it. "Managed the Salesforce pipeline" beats "managed the CRM pipeline" when the posting says Salesforce and the user used Salesforce.

**What does not help:** a block of keywords at the bottom, white text, repeating a term in every bullet, or listing skills that do not appear anywhere in the experience. A scanner may not notice, but the human who reads next will, and a skills list with nothing behind it is the first thing an interviewer probes.

## Space is the real signal

A resume is skimmed in about ten seconds before it earns a real read. Order and length say what matters more loudly than any wording.

- The top third of the first page carries the decision. Put the summary and the most relevant role there.
- Give the relevant role five or six bullets; give a less relevant one two.
- Old, unrelated roles collapse to a single line: title, employer, dates.
- If something is genuinely irrelevant to this job but explains a date gap, keep it as one line rather than removing it.

## The summary

Two or three lines at the top, aimed at this posting and nothing else. It states what they are, the most relevant proof, and what they want.

- Weak: "Motivated and detail-oriented professional with a passion for excellence."
- Strong: "Operations coordinator with three years running supplier contracts and a 30,000 annual budget for a nine-practitioner clinic. Moved the practice onto a new booking system last year. Looking for a practice-management role with more ownership of process."

No adjectives about character. Proof instead.

## The gaps note

Every "none" row from the map gets a line, sorted into three kinds:

- **Missing a stated requirement.** Say it plainly and give the honest options: address it directly in the cover letter, apply anyway if the rest is strong, or skip this one. Do not pretend a gap is not a gap, and do not talk them out of applying either, since "required" lists are frequently aspirational.
- **Partial match.** Name the difference, usually scale or recency, and suggest how to frame it: "You have budget ownership at 30,000; the posting implies six figures. Lead with the ownership, not the size."
- **Something that raises a question.** A gap in dates, a short tenure, a career change. These are not resume problems; they are conversation problems. Note them so the user prepares an answer rather than hoping nobody asks.

## What never changes

Dates, employer names, job titles, education, certification status, and any number the user gave you. If a title was genuinely ambiguous internally ("Coordinator" doing manager work), the honest move is to keep the title and let the bullets carry the scope, with a note explaining why.

## Example

**Posting:** Project Coordinator, construction consultancy. Repeated words: schedule, subcontractors, reporting, site. First responsibility: "Coordinate subcontractor schedules across three active sites."

**Resume line, before:** "Responsible for scheduling and general administrative support for the operations team."

**Requirement map extract:**

| Posting asks for | Evidence | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Coordinate subcontractor schedules | Built the rota for 9 practitioners six weeks out | Partial, scheduling in a different domain |
| Weekly reporting to senior staff | Produced the weekly clinic report for the partners | Strong |
| Site visits and on-the-ground coordination | Nothing | None |

**Resume line, after:** "Built and maintained the six-week rolling schedule for nine practitioners across two locations, coordinating cover, holidays and room availability."

Same job, described in a way a construction reader can map onto their own problem. Nothing was added: the rota, the nine people, the two locations and the six weeks are all in the original resume, just buried under "scheduling and general administrative support".

**Gaps note:** "The posting wants site-based coordination and you have none. This is the one real gap. Your scheduling and reporting are genuinely strong, so a cover letter that names the gap and points at the transferable part is better than a resume that tries to imply site experience."

## Rules

- Never invent a job, title, date, tool, certification, skill or number.
- Only reword experience the user actually has. Matching vocabulary is fair; manufacturing it is not.
- Never upgrade a verb past what happened. "Supported" is not "led".
- Keep every number exactly as the user gave it.
- Do not delete a role to hide something. Shrink it to a line.
- Mirror the posting's language where it is honest to do so, and nowhere else.
- Keep the tailored version consistent with the user's other applications and their LinkedIn. A history that varies between versions is worse than a weak match.
- One page for most people, two if senior. If the current resume is longer, cutting is part of the job.
- Always hand back the what-changed list. A user who cannot see what you did cannot defend it.

## Edge cases

- **No posting available, just a company or a job title.** Say what you can do without it: general tightening, achievement bullets, a clearer summary. Tailoring needs the posting, and a guessed target is worse than an untailored resume.
- **The user asks to add a skill they do not have.** Decline once, plainly, and explain the specific cost: a skills line is the easiest thing in an interview to test. Then offer the closest honest option: a related skill they do have, or naming it as in progress if that is true.
- **The posting is boilerplate.** Tailor to the title, the first three responsibilities and the company context, and tell the user the requirements list looks assembled rather than written, so the gaps in it matter less.
- **A career change.** The summary does the heavy lifting: name the change explicitly rather than hoping the reader infers it. Reorder around transferable evidence, and expect the gaps note to be long. That is the honest picture, not a failure of tailoring.
- **They are overqualified.** Do not hide seniority by deleting it. Reframe the summary around what they want now, and be honest that a reader may still ask why.
- **A long gap in the dates.** Keep the dates truthful and note the gap in the gaps section as something to have an answer for. Never adjust a date.
- **Applying internally.** Different job: the reader already knows their history. Focus on the last two years, the specific gap the new team has, and the relationships they already have there.
- **Two very different roles they are applying for.** Two tailored versions, not one that half-fits both. Say so, and keep the underlying facts identical between them.
- **A resume format you cannot restructure.** An academic CV, a government application form, a regulated template. Work within the format and put the tailoring into content and ordering.

## Files

- `references/examples.md` - three complete tailoring jobs: an adjacent-industry move, a career change with a long gaps note, and a senior application where the main job was cutting. Each one shows the requirement map, the rewrites and the honest gaps.
- `references/before-after.md` - line-level rewrites grouped by the kind of move they make, each with a note on why it stays honest, plus a set of rewrites that were refused and what was offered instead. Read it when a specific bullet is fighting you.

# Worked tailoring jobs

Three applications taken from the posting through to the gaps note. The requirement map is shown in each because it is what drives every other decision.

## Contents

- [Example 1: an adjacent-industry move](#example-1-an-adjacent-industry-move)
- [Example 2: a career change with a long gaps note](#example-2-a-career-change-with-a-long-gaps-note)
- [Example 3: a senior application where the job was cutting](#example-3-a-senior-application-where-the-job-was-cutting)
- [What the three have in common](#what-the-three-have-in-common)

---

## Example 1: an adjacent-industry move

**The user:** practice manager at a physiotherapy clinic, three years. **The posting:** Operations Coordinator at a construction consultancy.

### What the posting actually wants

Repeated words across the posting: schedule (7 times), subcontractor (5), reporting (4), site (4). Title is "Operations Coordinator". First three responsibilities:

1. Coordinate subcontractor schedules across three active sites
2. Produce weekly progress reporting for the delivery director
3. Own the purchase-order process from raise to reconciliation

Requirements list includes "3+ years in a construction environment" as required, and "CSCS card" as desirable.

### Requirement map

| Posting asks for | Evidence in the resume | Strength | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coordinate schedules across multiple locations | Six-week rolling rota, 9 practitioners, two locations | Strong on the skill, different domain | Summary and first bullet |
| Weekly progress reporting to a director | Weekly clinic report to the partners for three years | Strong | Second bullet |
| Purchase-order process, raise to reconciliation | 300 invoices a month, day-10 chasing, 30,000 supplies budget | Strong | Third bullet |
| Supplier and subcontractor management | 11 supplier contracts renegotiated | Strong on suppliers, none on subcontractors | Fourth bullet, and named in gaps |
| 3+ years in a construction environment | Nothing | None | Gaps note |
| CSCS card | Nothing | None | Gaps note, low priority |

Four strong rows out of six. The industry requirement is the only real problem, and it is stated as required.

### The summary, rewritten

> Operations coordinator with three years running scheduling, weekly reporting and a 300-invoice-a-month purchase cycle for a two-site healthcare practice. Built the six-week rolling schedule for nine practitioners and renegotiated eleven supplier contracts. Moving into construction operations, where the coordination problem is the same shape at a larger scale.

The last sentence does the work no reordering can do: it names the industry gap and frames it, instead of leaving the reader to notice it on their own.

### Three rewrites

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Responsible for staff rota | Built and maintained the six-week rolling schedule for nine practitioners across two locations, coordinating cover, holidays and room availability |
| Handled invoicing | Owned the purchase-to-payment cycle for around 300 invoices a month; introduced day-10 chasing, bringing most payments inside two weeks from over a month |
| Managed supplier relationships | Renegotiated 11 supplier contracts at renewal and moved the two largest onto annual terms, ending the automatic uplift |

### What changed and why

- The schedule bullet moved from fifth to first, because scheduling is the posting's most repeated word.
- The patient-care and clinical-admin bullets were cut from four lines to one. They are real and they are irrelevant here.
- The summary was rewritten around scheduling, reporting and purchasing, and now names the industry move directly.
- The wording moved to the posting's vocabulary ("coordinate", "reporting", "purchase-to-payment"), in every case describing work that already appears in the original resume.

### Gaps to address

- **Construction experience (stated as required).** This is the real gap and no wording fixes it. Two honest options: a cover letter that names it in the first line and puts the coordination evidence immediately after, or skip this one. The strength of the other four rows makes the cover letter worth writing.
- **Subcontractor management specifically.** Supplier management is close but not identical. Subcontractors work on your site, to your programme. Worth acknowledging rather than blurring.
- **CSCS card (desirable).** Easy to obtain and worth mentioning as intended if that is true. Do not list it as held.

---

## Example 2: a career change with a long gaps note

**The user:** secondary school teacher, seven years, moving into corporate learning and development. **The posting:** Learning Experience Designer at a software company.

### What the posting actually wants

1. Design and build onboarding and product training for internal teams
2. Work with subject-matter experts to turn expertise into usable material
3. Measure whether the training worked and iterate

Required: "3+ years designing learning experiences in a corporate environment", "experience with an LMS", "stakeholder management".

### Requirement map

| Posting asks for | Evidence | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Design learning experiences | Seven years designing schemes of work; rewrote the entire Year 10 curriculum after a syllabus change | Strong, non-corporate |
| Turn expert knowledge into usable material | Ran the department's shared resource library; converted three colleagues' materials into the standard format | Strong |
| Measure whether training worked and iterate | Tracked outcomes by cohort; changed the assessment structure after two years of data showed a specific weakness | Strong |
| Experience with an LMS | Used Google Classroom and the school MIS daily | Partial, the category but not the tool |
| Stakeholder management | Parents, department head, senior leadership, external moderators | Partial, different stakeholders but a real skill |
| 3+ years in a corporate environment | None | None |

### The summary, rewritten

> Seven years designing and running learning programmes, including a full Year 10 curriculum rebuild after a syllabus change and a resource library used across a nine-person department. Comfortable turning subject experts' knowledge into material other people can teach from, and changing a programme when the results say it is not working. Moving from education into corporate learning design.

### Three rewrites

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Taught GCSE and A-level History to classes of up to 32 | Delivered a two-year programme to seven cohorts, adapting the same material for mixed prior knowledge within each group |
| Wrote schemes of work | Designed the full Year 10 scheme of work after a syllabus change: 38 sessions, assessments and teacher-facing materials, adopted across the department |
| Managed the department resource area | Ran the shared resource library for nine teachers; converted three colleagues' personal material into a standard format others could pick up and use |

The word "students" was left in one bullet on purpose. Scrubbing every trace of the previous field makes a career-change resume read as evasive, and the reader knows anyway.

### Gaps to address

This note is long, and that is the honest picture rather than a failure of tailoring.

- **Corporate environment (required, 3+ years).** The single biggest obstacle. Nothing in the resume can bridge it. The realistic paths are an internal referral, a smaller company that cares less about the requirement, or a role that explicitly welcomes teachers. Several learning teams recruit from education deliberately. Worth naming in the cover letter as the thing they are choosing to change.
- **LMS experience.** Google Classroom is a learning management system in function if not in reputation. Fair to say "learning platforms (Google Classroom, school MIS)", which describes what was used. Not fair to list a corporate platform they have never opened.
- **Vocabulary.** Corporate learning uses "stakeholder", "enablement", "onboarding" for things education calls other names. Where the underlying work is genuinely the same, the posting's word is fair. Where it is not, leave the education word rather than dressing it up.
- **Expect the question "why leave teaching?"** It is not a resume problem, but it will be the first question in the interview and the answer should be about what they are moving towards.

---

## Example 3: a senior application where the job was cutting

**The user:** engineering manager, 14 years of experience, four-page resume. **The posting:** Director of Engineering at a 200-person company.

### The problem

The resume is not weak. It is undifferentiated: fourteen years listed at almost equal weight, with the last three years, the only ones that matter for a director role, getting the same space as a 2012 developer job.

### Requirement map

| Posting asks for | Evidence | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Lead multiple teams through managers | Manages three team leads, 21 engineers total | Strong, current role |
| Set technical direction at company level | Chaired the architecture group; owned the two-year platform plan | Strong, current role |
| Hiring and growing engineering leaders | Promoted two engineers into lead roles; hired 14 over three years | Strong, current role |
| Budget and vendor ownership | Owns a 1.4m infrastructure and tooling budget | Strong, current role |
| Experience at 200+ person scale | Current company is 90 people | Partial |

Every strong row is in the most recent role, and that role currently occupies a fifth of page two.

### What changed

- The current role moved to the top third of page one and grew from four bullets to seven.
- 2010-2016 collapsed from two pages to four lines: one line per role, with dates.
- The technical skills list (31 items, half of them obsolete) was cut to seven that appear in the posting or in the last three years of work.
- Four pages became two.
- The summary was rewritten to lead with scope: teams, engineers, budget.

Nothing was removed from the history. The timeline is complete and every employer and date is intact. Only the space allocation changed.

### The summary, rewritten

> Engineering manager running three teams and 21 engineers, with a 1.4m infrastructure budget and ownership of the two-year platform plan. Promoted two engineers into leadership and hired 14 over three years. Fourteen years in engineering, the last six in management, looking for a director role with organisation-level ownership.

### Gaps to address

- **Scale.** The posting implies 200+ people; the user's company is 90. Do not hide it. The company name is checkable. Lead with the management depth (three teams through leads) rather than headcount, since layered management is what actually transfers.
- **The four-page resume was itself the problem.** Worth saying plainly: at this level, a reader who cannot find the relevant scope in ten seconds assumes it is not there.

---

## What the three have in common

1. The requirement map was built before a single line was rewritten, and it decided the order every time.
2. Every rewrite describes work that was already in the original resume, in language the reader recognises.
3. No dates, titles, employers or numbers were changed in any of the three.
4. Where a required item was genuinely missing, the gaps note said so and offered real options rather than pretending or despairing.
5. Irrelevant experience was shrunk, never deleted, so the timeline stayed intact.
6. Each application got its own version. None of these three resumes would work for the other two postings.

# Line-level rewrites

Individual bullets, grouped by the kind of move each rewrite makes. Every pair keeps the same underlying facts, and the note says how.

## Contents

- [Move 1: name the same work in the reader's vocabulary](#move-1-name-the-same-work-in-the-readers-vocabulary)
- [Move 2: surface a result that was already there](#move-2-surface-a-result-that-was-already-there)
- [Move 3: cut the setup](#move-3-cut-the-setup)
- [Move 4: split a bullet doing two jobs](#move-4-split-a-bullet-doing-two-jobs)
- [Move 5: right-size the scope](#move-5-right-size-the-scope)
- [Move 6: shrink what does not serve this application](#move-6-shrink-what-does-not-serve-this-application)
- [Summaries](#summaries)
- [Rewrites that were refused](#rewrites-that-were-refused)

---

## Move 1: name the same work in the reader's vocabulary

The work does not change. The word does, and only when the posting's word genuinely describes what happened.

| Before | After | Why it stays honest |
|---|---|---|
| Ran the weekly team meeting | Ran weekly stakeholder updates for finance, ops and the client lead | The attendees really were stakeholders; naming them proves it |
| Built spreadsheets for the department | Built the reporting dashboards used for monthly departmental review | Posting says "reporting tools"; these were spreadsheets used as exactly that |
| Sorted out customer problems | Owned first-line resolution for around 60 support cases a week | Same work, in the posting's language, with the volume that was already known |
| Looked after the office budget | Managed a 30,000 annual operating budget | "Looked after" understated actual ownership; the number is the user's |
| Helped organise the conference | Coordinated logistics for a 200-person annual conference: venue, catering, AV and the speaker schedule | Names what "helped organise" actually consisted of |
| Wrote documentation | Wrote the onboarding guide now used for every new starter | Specific and checkable |
| Did quarterly planning | Ran the quarterly planning cycle, including goal setting with three team leads | Only if they ran it; if they attended, this rewrite is not available |

---

## Move 2: surface a result that was already there

The result was in the user's material, buried behind the activity.

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Managed the support inbox | Cut first-reply time from two days to four hours by triaging on arrival |
| Responsible for supplier relationships | Renegotiated 11 supplier contracts at renewal, moving the two largest off automatic annual uplifts |
| Handled the migration to the new booking system | Led the booking-system move; no-shows fell from roughly 1 in 5 to around 1 in 12 |
| Involved in the office relocation | Ran the relocation of 60 people across two floors over one weekend, with the team working normally on Monday |
| Trained new team members | Trained 34 new starters and wrote the checklist that replaced the informal handover |

Every "after" number above came from the user. Where no number existed, the bullet stayed in the first column until one was found or the result was described without one.

---

## Move 3: cut the setup

Resume readers do not need the run-up.

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| In order to improve efficiency across the department, I was tasked with reviewing our reporting process, which resulted in a new weekly format | Rebuilt the weekly reporting pack; it now generates itself, saving about four hours a week |
| Working closely with the wider team, I was responsible for ensuring that all customer queries were dealt with in a timely manner | Handled around 60 customer queries a week within a four-hour first-reply target |
| As part of my role I would regularly be required to liaise with external partners | Ran the relationship with four external partners, including quarterly reviews |

The pattern: delete everything before the verb, and delete "responsible for" wherever it appears.

---

## Move 4: split a bullet doing two jobs

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Managed the rota, handled invoicing, and dealt with patient complaints | Built the six-week rolling rota for nine practitioners |
| | Introduced day-10 invoice chasing on around 300 invoices a month, bringing most payments inside two weeks |
| | Resolved every patient complaint in-house across three years, none escalated |
| Led the redesign and also trained the team on it | Redesigned the pick-location layout after diagnosing that errors clustered on similarly packaged products |
| | Trained both night shifts on the new layout over two weekends |

Split when the parts have different results. Keep combined when one is genuinely minor and would look thin alone.

---

## Move 5: right-size the scope

Both directions. Understating is as unhelpful as overstating, just less risky.

| Before | After | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Led the payments rebuild | One of four engineers on the payments rebuild; owned the refund flow end to end | Corrects an overstatement while keeping the real ownership visible |
| Helped with the Manchester site opening | Part of the team that opened the Manchester site; ran hiring for the 12 warehouse roles | Corrects an understatement; "helped with" hid a real piece of ownership |
| Assisted the marketing manager | Ran email and paid social under the marketing manager; owned the monthly send calendar | Junior does not mean vague |
| Managed a team | Managed a team of three, growing to eleven over two years | The number is the achievement |

---

## Move 6: shrink what does not serve this application

Nothing is deleted. Space is reallocated.

**Before:** a 2016-2018 retail role given four bullets on a resume for a finance position:

> **Sales Assistant, Kingsway Retail, 2016-2018**
> - Served customers on the shop floor and at the till
> - Handled cash reconciliation at the end of each shift
> - Maintained stock levels and completed weekly counts
> - Trained two new starters on till procedures

**After:** one line, with the single finance-relevant fact kept:

> **Sales Assistant, Kingsway Retail, 2016-2018** - customer service and daily cash reconciliation.

The dates stay so the timeline holds. The reconciliation stays because it touches the target job. The rest goes.

---

## Summaries

| Before | After | For which posting |
|---|---|---|
| Motivated and detail-oriented professional with a passion for delivering results in fast-paced environments | Operations coordinator with three years running supplier contracts and a 30,000 annual budget for a nine-practitioner clinic. Moved the practice onto a new booking system last year. Looking for a practice-management role with more process ownership | Practice manager |
| Experienced engineer with a strong background in a variety of technologies | Backend engineer, four years, mostly payments. Took recovered failed payments from 30% to 71% after a peak-season outage, and cut a nightly batch job from four hours to 35 minutes | Payments-focused engineering role |
| Recent graduate seeking an opportunity to develop my skills | Two years in retail, moving into support. Handled around 60 customer conversations a day, most of them about problems I had not caused. Looking for a first support role where that transfers | Junior support |

Adjectives about character always lose to proof. Every "after" above replaced a claim with a fact.

---

## Rewrites that were refused

Real requests, the refusal, and what was offered instead. The offer matters as much as the refusal.

| The request | Why it was refused | What was offered |
|---|---|---|
| "Add Python to my skills - I could learn it before the interview" | A skills line is the easiest thing in an interview to test, and being caught costs the whole application | Listed the two languages they do use, and suggested naming Python in the cover letter as something they are learning, if that is true |
| "Change 'supported the migration' to 'led the migration'" | The verb makes a claim about their role; the first follow-up question would be "how did you lead it?" | "Supported the migration, owning the data validation for 40,000 records", which is more specific and more impressive than the vague "led" |
| "Move my end date from March to June so there is no gap" | Dates are checkable and changing them is straightforward dishonesty | Kept the dates and added a one-line gaps note, with two ways to answer the question when it comes |
| "Say I managed a team - I was the most senior person there" | Seniority is not management | "Most senior of four on the night shift; the shift ran to me for decisions when the supervisor was off", which is true and makes the same point |
| "Put 40% improvement on the process bullet, it was roughly that" | The user could not say where the figure came from | "Cut the backlog by about half", their own words, visibly an estimate, and defensible |
| "Drop the two-year role, it makes me look like a job hopper" | Deleting a role creates an unexplained gap and an inconsistency with their LinkedIn | Shrunk it to one line and prepared an honest answer for the question |

The pattern in every refusal: name the specific cost, once, without lecturing, then offer the strongest honest alternative. The alternative is usually better than what was asked for, because specific beats inflated.