What tailoring actually means
Tailoring is not rewriting your CV from scratch for every application. It is taking the CV you already have and moving the parts that match this advert to where they will be read, in the words this employer uses.
It matters more in hospitality than in most industries, because the job titles are so loose. “Supervisor” means running a section in one venue and running the floor in another. “Chef de partie” covers a 40-cover bistro and a 200-cover hotel restaurant. The title on your CV does not tell a hiring manager what you can actually do — the detail underneath it does, and which detail matters changes with every advert.
The five steps
1. Read the advert twice, and write down what it actually asks for
The first read tells you whether you want the job. The second is the useful one: list the duties it names, the systems it mentions, the certifications it calls essential, and the words it repeats. A pub group asking for "cellar management" and "line cleaning" is telling you exactly what belongs near the top of your CV.
2. Separate what you have from what you do not
Go through your list and mark each item: done it, done something close to it, or never done it. The middle group matters most — "ran a section" is close to "supervised a station", and it is worth rewording. The third group you leave alone. Adding a certification you do not hold is the fastest way to lose a job at the interview.
3. Rewrite the professional summary for this venue
This is the part worth rewriting every time, because it is the part that gets read. Three or four sentences naming the role you are applying for, the kind of venue, the scale you are used to, and the one thing that makes you a safe pair of hands. A summary that opens "Chef de partie with four years in high-volume gastropub kitchens" beats one that opens "Hardworking team player" every time.
4. Reorder and reword your bullets — do not invent new ones
Move the experience closest to the advert to the top of each role, and reword it in the advert’s own vocabulary where that is honest. If the advert says "allergen management" and your CV says "handled dietary requirements", change it. What you must not do is add achievements that did not happen, or numbers you cannot stand behind in an interview.
5. Read it once more as the hiring manager
Ask the only question that matters: can someone skimming this in twenty seconds see that you can do the job in the advert? If the answer is buried on page two, move it. Then save this version separately, so your next application starts from your general CV rather than from this one.
What it looks like on the page
Three bullets, each rewritten against a real kind of advert. Nothing has been invented — each one describes the same work in the terms the employer asked for.
Waiter
The advert asks for allergen awareness and experience of a fast turnaround.
Before
Served food and drinks to customers and took orders.
After
Ran a six-table section through Friday and Saturday service, taking allergen requirements at the table and checking them with the kitchen before the order went in.
Chef de partie
The advert asks for section ownership, HACCP records and training juniors.
Before
Worked on the larder section in a busy kitchen.
After
Ran the larder section across lunch and dinner service, kept the section’s daily HACCP records, and showed commis chefs the prep before service.
Hotel receptionist
The advert names Opera PMS, group arrivals and billing queries.
Before
Checked guests in and out and answered the phone.
After
Handled arrivals and departures on Opera across early and late shifts, including group check-ins, and resolved billing queries at the desk.
What tailoring will not do
It will not guarantee an interview, and it will not guarantee a job. Hiring turns on the other applicants, the venue’s timing and budget, and things no CV controls.
It is also not a way to beat screening software. Employers use different systems, configured differently, and we do not test HospitalityCV against any particular employer’s software or promise how one will treat your CV. What tailoring does is narrower and more reliable: it makes the relevant parts of your experience easy to find for whoever — or whatever — reads the CV first.
Doing it in HospitalityCV
You can do all of this by hand, and the method above works on any CV in any editor. In HospitalityCV, you paste the advert and our AI compares it with your CV across six areas — skills, experience relevance, keywords, certifications, job title and seniority — then suggests specific changes. The rating it gives is our AI’s assessment of fit for that advert, not a measure of any employer’s system.
You review every suggestion before it changes anything. Each one shows the before and the after, and you choose “Use this” or “Keep mine”.
Common questions
Do I need to tailor my CV for every application?
Not every application, but it is worth doing for the ones you actually want. A useful compromise is to keep one general CV and tailor the professional summary and the top three or four bullets for each serious application. That is usually twenty minutes of work, and it is the twenty minutes that changes how the CV reads.
Does tailoring my CV guarantee an interview?
No. Nothing guarantees an interview — hiring depends on the other applicants, the venue’s timing and budget, and a dozen things outside your control. What tailoring does is make sure that someone reading your CV against this advert can see the relevant experience quickly, instead of having to hunt for it.
Is this about getting past screening software?
Partly, but it is not the point, and we do not test HospitalityCV against any particular employer’s software or promise how one will treat your CV. Some larger employers screen CVs before a person reads them, and recruiters search their applicant pools by keyword — so if the advert’s language is nowhere in your CV, you may not appear in their results. Writing in the advert’s vocabulary helps with that and, more importantly, helps the human reading it afterwards.
Should I copy phrases straight out of the job advert?
Use the advert’s vocabulary where it honestly describes what you have done — swapping "dietary requirements" for "allergen management" is fine. Pasting whole sentences is not: it reads as copied, and it will not survive a conversation about what you actually did.
Tailor your CV to the next advert
Build your hospitality CV once, then adapt it for each venue you apply to. Free to start, no card needed.
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