CV keywords: how to find and use the right terms

Keywords are terms that describe the key qualifications, skills or tasks of a position.

Typical examples include:

• Technical skills: controlling, recruiting, data analysis
• Software: SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft Excel
• Methods: Scrum, Agile, lean management
• Tasks: complaint handling, customer advice, budget planning
• Qualifications: project management, people leadership, accounting

Which keywords matter depends heavily on the specific position.

A CV for a controlling role needs different terms than a CV for a position in HR. There is no universal list that works for every application.

Keywords make the overlap between the requirements of a role and your actual experience visible.

They matter both for the technical processing of an application and for the later review by a recruiter.

An example: a job ad explicitly asks for experience with SAP and complaint handling. The CV only says: „Handling various customer enquiries and administrative tasks.“

The experience may well be there. It is simply not clearly visible.

A more precise version would be: „Handling customer enquiries and complaints, including documentation of cases in SAP.“

The prerequisite, of course, is that you actually carried out those tasks.

The most important source is the specific job ad.

Read the ad in full once, then look deliberately for requirements that recur or are highlighted.

Pay particular attention to:

• job titles
• software and tools
• technical skills
• concrete tasks
• methods
• certificates
• language skills
• must-have requirements

How to analyse an ad systematically is covered in detail here: How to read a German job ad and tailor your CV to it

The next step is to check which of these requirements genuinely match your own experience.

Not every word in a job ad is automatically an important keyword.

Start with the requirements stated as prerequisites. Phrases such as „Sie verfügen über…“, „Vorausgesetzt werden…“ or „Erforderlich sind…“ often signal particularly relevant requirements.

If you hold that qualification, it should be easy to find in your CV.

Create a simple side-by-side comparison:

The interesting rows are those where „experience present“ = yes but „visible in the CV“ = no. That is exactly where concrete potential for improvement lies.

Relevant keywords should not simply sit as a list somewhere in the document. They work best in these sections:

• Work experience: describe concretely in which tasks you applied the skill.
• Skills: software, languages, methods and technical knowledge can be listed clearly.
• Short profile: the qualifications most central to the target role can appear right at the top.
• Job title: use understandable, market-standard titles as long as they describe your actual position correctly.

Which sections to adjust is covered in the companion article: Tailoring your CV to a job ad

A common mistake is to squeeze as many terms from the job ad into the CV as possible. For example:

„SAP · Excel · Salesforce · Projektmanagement · Scrum · Recruiting · Controlling · CRM · Führung“

Such a list adds little if the rest of the CV does not show where and how those skills were applied. It is even more problematic to adopt requirements you do not meet at all.

Rule: use relevant keywords, but only where they describe your actual experience correctly.

Use the terms that are standard in your industry, and take the wording of the job ad into account where it describes your experience correctly.

For abbreviations it can help to spell out the full term with the abbreviation the first time – for example „Customer Relationship Management (CRM)“. After that, „CRM“ is enough.

Write naturally and avoid artificial repetition.

• 1. Work experience – the most valuable place, because a keyword can be tied directly to a concrete task.
• 2. Skills – good for software, methods, languages and technical knowledge.
• 3. Short profile – for a few particularly relevant core qualifications.
• 4. Education and certificates – when specific degrees or certifications matter for the role.

• copying every term from the job ad
• listing skills you do not actually have
• listing keywords without any context
• using exactly the same CV for every application
• focusing only on keywords and ignoring readability
• describing relevant experience too generically
• writing the CV purely for a presumed algorithm

Explained in detail in the article 7 common ATS mistakes in your CV – and how to avoid them.

ATS systems and recruiting processes differ between companies. There is therefore no universal keyword list and no specific number of keywords that automatically leads to an interview.

What matters is that your CV reflects the qualifications relevant to a role clearly and accurately.

So a keyword should never be added purely to lift a score.

ATS explained ATS-friendly CV Improve your ATS score

• read the job ad in full
• identified the must-have requirements
• marked the relevant technical terms
• only used skills you genuinely have
• integrated key keywords into your work experience
• named software and tools specifically
• avoided artificial repetition
• CV still reads naturally
• CV compared against the job ad

Applying in Germany: CV, cover letter and ATS ATS keywords overview CV in Germany