As of 13 August 2026, AI can make your CV ATS-friendly.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the job advert and copy the full job description, including the person specification and application instructions.
   2. Open your current CV and remove unnecessary sensitive details such as your National Insurance number, date of birth and photograph before copying it.
   3. Paste the job description and CV into a chatbot with the prompt above, then ask it to produce the revised plain-text CV and its change lists.
   4. Compare every employer, job title, date, qualification, responsibility and achievement in the draft with your original CV and correct anything that is inaccurate.
   5. Check the draft against the job description and remove any keyword that does not describe your real experience; add missing relevant evidence only if you can state it truthfully.
   6. Put the approved wording into a simple single-column document with standard headings, then save a PDF and an editable copy in the format requested by the employer.
   7. Open the saved file as plain text or copy its contents into a basic text editor to check that the reading order, headings, dates and contact details remain clear before submitting it.

   Prompt

   Make my CV ATS-friendly for the UK job market.
   
   Job description:
   [PASTE THE FULL JOB DESCRIPTION HERE]
   
   My current CV:
   [PASTE YOUR CV HERE]
   
   Instructions:
   - Use only facts stated in my CV or explicitly supplied below. Do not invent qualifications, responsibilities, employers, dates, metrics or achievements.
   - Keep the CV truthful and suitable for an application to this specific role.
   - Use a simple single-column layout with standard headings such as Profile, Employment History, Education, Skills and Certifications where relevant.
   - Avoid tables, text boxes, columns, graphics, icons, photos, headers and footers.
   - Use clear UK English and keep the wording concise.
   - Identify important skills and phrases in the job description, then include them only where my experience genuinely supports them.
   - Preserve my actual job titles, employer names, employment dates and qualifications unless you flag a suggested wording separately.
   - Do not add a photograph, age, date of birth, marital status, National Insurance number or other unnecessary personal information.
   - Produce: (1) the revised CV in plain text, (2) a list of changes made, (3) a list of job-description requirements not supported by my CV, and (4) a list of every factual point I must check before sending.
   - Do not claim that the CV will pass every ATS. Explain any remaining uncertainty about parsing or employer-specific screening.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.