This piece is part of my 2016–2026 archive migration. Some original formatting, content, and external links may be missing, changed, or not be optimized.
Hint: Job descriptions provide clues….
Only some job descriptions will be the perfect guide, but they will offer direct or indirect clues that help you land the interview.
Hiring teams that take time to build out the job descriptions give you direct answers to what you need to communicate throughout your resume.
ATS
Not only this, but if you don’t have enough keywords and similarities to the job description, your candidate profile will likely be skipped over due to ATS.
ATS will take you out before you even get a chance if you don’t build your resume correctly.
So Do I Copy The Job Description?
No.
Don’t ever copy a job description.
Instead, reflect on your experiences to determine which experiences best align with the job descriptions.
Transition: Product Management To Customer Success
I’ll give you a perfect example:
Years ago, I decided to transition into a customer success role – even though my background is primarily in product and program management.
I was declined multiple times for the specific role; I finally buckled down, studied the job description, and noticed several discrepancies in my experience.
There were several opportunities for me to reframe my experience’s verbiage to translate better how I am a perfect candidate for customer success.
After doing this, I immediately got an interview and, ultimately, an offer.
Though my experience is entirely different from that of a customer success manager, there are many similarities and transferrable skills – especially since product managers spend considerable time with customers, building the product, demoing the product, and teaching/introducing the product to internal and external stakeholders.
From Retail & Fast Food To Operations
I recently worked with two people in the retail and fast-food industries.
They were curious to learn how to break into a tech role.
After reviewing their profiles, experiences, and resumes, I noticed they both had perfect backgrounds to land operations roles at tech companies.
Bingo.
Let’s reframe it. Reword it. And apply.
They didn’t even know they had plenty of relevant operations experience.
Once we implemented the changes, they finally started landing interviews.
All they needed was a few simple tweaks, and the job description helped guide what changes we needed to make to their resumes.
You Thought
If you think you don’t have relevant transferable skills, I promise you do, or you can quickly acquire some relevant skills.
One of the easiest ways to acquire new skills and experiences is through certification programs, courses, boot camps (e.g., coding boot camps), personal projects, and entrepreneurial ventures.
Everything is transferable.
I repeat everything.
Using Self-Education To Land A Tech Role
In an upcoming article, we will tackle this topic (self-education for tech roles).<
This content is for informational purposes only — not professional advice. Consult a qualified professional before making any major decisions.