Resume Keywords: How to Find the Right Ones for Any Job

Resume keywords are the skills, tools, job titles and qualifications an employer mentions in a job posting. To find them, read the posting and note the terms it repeats. Then use those exact terms, where they're truthful, in your summary, skills list and work experience.

No secret list. No tricks. Just matching your words to theirs.

Why keywords matter

Recruiters often search their applicant tracking system by term, the same way you'd search Google. If someone types "payroll" and "Sage" and your resume says "salary processing" and "accounting software", you might not turn up. Not because you're unqualified, but because you didn't say it in the same language. (For the wider picture, see our ATS resume guide.)

The three types of keywords

Hard skills and tools: Excel, Python, SQL, QuickBooks, AutoCAD, patient triage. Often the most important.

Job titles and qualifications: "Registered Nurse", "PMP", "ACCA", "Senior Accountant".

Soft skills and methods: stakeholder management, negotiation, Agile, Six Sigma. Useful, but only if you can back them up with an example.

How to find keywords in a job description

1. Copy the posting into a document.
2. Highlight repeated terms. If something appears three times, it matters.
3. Look at the requirements section first. That's where the must-haves live.
4. Check two or three similar postings. Terms that show up in all of them are industry standard.
5. Note both versions of acronyms: "Customer Relationship Management (CRM)".

Or speed it up: paste the description and your resume into our job fit analysis and it'll point out keyword gaps for you.

Where to put keywords

Summary. Two or three of the most important ones.

Skills section. A clean list of tools and skills.

Work experience. This is the best place, because it shows the keyword in action: "Built weekly sales dashboards in Power BI for a team of 12."

Job titles. If your official title was unusual, you can add a clarifier: "Customer Happiness Lead (Customer Service Manager)". Only if it's accurate.

What keyword stuffing looks like (and why not to)

Repeating "project management" fourteen times, hiding white text in the margins, or dumping a block of 40 buzzwords at the bottom. People notice, and some systems penalise it. Even if you sneak past the software, a human still reads it later.

A rough rule: if a sentence reads oddly because you forced a keyword in, rewrite it.

Keyword mistakes that cost interviews

Using old or internal job names nobody searches for. Listing skills with no evidence. Copying the posting word for word. Ignoring the "nice to have" skills you actually have. Using the same keywords for every application (see how to tailor your resume).

Example: before and after

The job posting asks for: "inventory management, supplier negotiation, Excel reporting."

Before: "Looked after stock and dealt with suppliers. Made reports."
After: "Managed inventory for 800+ product lines, negotiated pricing with 15 suppliers, and produced weekly Excel reports for the operations director."

Same job, same person. The second version reads better and hits the terms.

Check your work

When you're done, run your updated resume through the resume audit and compare it with the job in the job fit tool. If you want to browse roles in your field first, our job listings are filterable by industry, location and salary, which also helps you spot which terms keep coming up.

Frequently asked questions

How many keywords should a resume have?
There's no fixed number. Aim to cover the main skills and requirements from the posting, naturally.

Are keywords the same as buzzwords?
No. Keywords are specific (Salesforce, forecasting). Buzzwords are vague ("dynamic", "results-driven"). Prefer the first kind.

Should I put keywords in a separate section?
A skills section is fine, but weave the important ones into your experience too, so they have context.

Do keywords work the same in every country?
Mostly, but terminology differs: "CV" and "resume", "CRM" and "customer database", qualification names. Use the local term for where you're applying.