Learning to properly interpret job description or a job adverts may sound a basic skill.

Well it is a basic skill, but a important one.

Before spending anytime on tailoring your CV / Resume you must ensure you are going to emphasise the skills and experiences that most interest your reader.

For various reasons job adverts and job descriptions are not always easy to interpret. Changes to legislation have meant that often the real message is hidden or softened to conform to legal requirements.

The intention of this page is to convince you that for desirable jobs there will be many applicants, and your resume is your ticket too interview.

Therefore tailoring your resume to meet both the obvious and less obvious requirements of the job ad or job description will be a very profitable skill to develop.

Its not a difficult process, an organisation of your observations and thoughts, with a little research mixed in if the advert of job specification becomes vague.

This disciplined approach will serve you well.

Process to extract the key requirements from Job Description / Advert

All that is required for this is the print out of the job description / Ad, a beverage of your choice, and a notepad and pen (highlighter pen if you have one).

A quiet place where you can think and consider without interruption.

Step 1 Simply read the job description or Ad 2 or 3 times SLOWLY - not the usual skim reading we all tend to do. The idea is you relax and absorb the information in your brain.

Step 2 Highlight or underline what you consider to be the critical skills, experiences and behaviours required by the role.

Some Ads and descriptions will leave you in little doubt by using words like critical, mandatory, or "must have" to describe key elements, others use vague wording such as "some knowledge of" or "experience of". Anyway don't get stuck with this just highlight or underline everything you feel they are interested in, even the vague stuff.

Step 3 Starts getting a little harder. Grab your pad and write a top heading. The job title for example "Project Manager".

Then create 3 columns in your page, and head them.

Skills / Sector / Behaviours

List all your highlighted points under each heading (most will be under skills and function)

Step 4 Put a value against each point use 1 for critical points, 2 for quite important and 3 for "nice to haves". You will probably find that most of the items are listed under skills and function, and market sector as these are the easiest to detail in a job ad.

Behaviours or soft skills are harder to write about, though most will contain "dynamic" or "self motivated". However behavioural skills are very important, and though the job ad / spec may not go into detail, when you are interviewed they will be looking for these skills.

Interviewing is moving increasingly towards behavioural / competency based questioning, and though the ad or job spec may not specify the detailed behaviour the role demands. This invites you to set yourself apart from the majority of other applicants.

For example for a project manager the ad may concentrate on the type of projects and the market experience, and offer little in the way of behavioural requirements.

But any experienced project manager will tell you that there are a number of critical behaviours that a successful project manager must have. If you knew this, and added them subtly to your CV, you give yourself a MASSIVE advantage.

Its vital to add behavioural context to your CV. It will levitate it from being a dull page of facts and figures, by adding your desirable personality.

For example if you weave into your resume that you are commercially savvy, a good motivator, communicator and are calm under pressure they are core competencies / behaviours for a project manager.

Step 5 Look to identify 5 - 10 desirable behaviours that you can weave into your CV; as long as they honestly apply to you. Add them under your behaviours / soft skills heading, and rank them if you can.

You know have a great foundation of knowledge from which to build or to modify your Resume to specifically appeal to your reader.

Your next task is to take this information and ensure your CV / Resume addresses all the points rated as 1 (critical) and 2 (quite important), ideally you can also cover most of the nice to haves as well (3's).

Download our free ebook "How to Prepare a Resume for Interview Success" for a complete picture of CV writing advice that will win you the interview.