Original data · updated 7 September 2026
Does CV tailoring actually work? 36 measured before-and-after scores
By Hillel Lithwick, founder of ApexHunt · Melbourne
Most claims about CV tailoring are assertions. This is a measurement: 36 real CVs from 27 external users, each scored against a senior Australian job ad before tailoring and again after, using the identical frozen scoring rubric both times. Same job, same requirements, same measuring stick; the only thing that changed was the CV.
The headline numbers
Across the 36 rewrites, the average starting score was 66 and the average after tailoring was 76. The median gain was +7 points, the mean +10. Three in ten gained 15 points or more; two in ten barely moved; and 9 of the 36, one in four, scored lower after tailoring. We publish that last number on purpose, and we come back to it below.
The real finding: tailoring pays where the fit is weakest
| Starting score | Rewrites | Median gain | Did not move | Scored lower |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 50 | 10 | +22 | 1 of 10 | 0 of 10 |
| 50 to 64 | 7 | +9 | 1 of 7 | 1 of 7 |
| 65 to 79 | 7 | +7 | 1 of 7 | 1 of 7 |
| 80 and above | 12 | -1 | 5 of 12 | 7 of 12 |
The relationship is almost perfectly inverse. A CV starting under 50 gained a median of 22 points, and none of the ten came out lower, because a weak score against a role you can genuinely do is usually a translation problem: the evidence exists but is not written in the ad's vocabulary, the named tools are missing, the team sizes are absent. Tailoring fixes exactly that. A CV already at 80 or above mostly did not improve: five of the twelve were flat, seven came out lower, and the median change was minus one. When the evidence is already visible, rewording it adds nothing a screening system can detect, and cutting it costs points.
The practical rule that falls out: tailor when your score is mid or low, and apply as-is when it is already high. Time spent polishing an 85 is time not spent on the application where 8 points moves you across a screening threshold.
Which is worth saying plainly, because it cuts against our own interest in selling you a rewrite: for a strong CV, the valuable thing is not the tailoring, it is knowing the score you already have. An 85 you can trust means you apply tonight, confident, instead of spending the evening polishing something that was already going to clear the bar. The diagnosis is the time-saver either way: it tells the 55 what to fix and the 85 to stop fiddling and send it.
About the one in four that went backwards
Nine of the 36 rewrites scored lower after tailoring, the worst by 10 points, and seven of the nine started at 80 or above. Two honest reasons. First, any scoring system carries run-to-run noise, and a small negative on a flat rewrite is often just that. Second, and more usefully: a tailored CV that cuts "irrelevant" history can cut evidence the role actually wanted, which is why our rewriter now deliberately preserves industry-relevant detail rather than trimming aggressively. Anyone who tells you tailoring only ever helps has not measured it.
What tailoring actually changes
The gains do not come from invention. Scores move when existing experience is restated in the words the ad screens for: the named platforms in ecommerce ads, the ownership terms in marketing ads, quantified team sizes and budgets, and the sector stated in the ad's own vocabulary. Our data on what senior job ads ask for shows the most common CV gap is a tool the candidate likely used and never named: a writing problem, not an experience problem. That is the whole reason tailoring works, and the whole reason it stops working once the writing already matches.
Check before you polish
The order matters: score first, then decide whether tailoring is worth it for this role. Score your CV free against a real ad and see which band you are in.
Sources and further reading
- Harvard Business School, Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent (2021): More than 90% of surveyed employers use recruiting software to filter or rank candidates first, and 88% agree qualified high-skills candidates are vetted out because they do not match the exact criteria in the job description.
- Mercy University Career and Professional Development: Eye-tracking research puts a recruiter's first read of a CV at about seven seconds, which is the window a tailored opening has to work in.
Methodology and honest limits
Computed 10 September 2026 from ApexHunt production data by a saved, versioned query (scripts/guide-figures.mjs in the codebase): 36 rewrite pairs from 27 external users, one pair per person and role (the latest complete rewrite), each carrying a canonical before-and-after match score. The measurement design matters: for each job, a scoring rubric is extracted once from the ad and frozen; the original CV and the tailored CV are then scored against that identical rubric by two independent assessments whose results are merged conservatively (a requirement disagreement resolves downward, and an ATS keyword only counts when both assessments agree). Score totals are computed in code, not by a model. All figures are aggregates; no individual CV, user or employer is identifiable.
Limits: our users skew toward senior retail, ecommerce and marketing roles in Melbourne and Sydney; 36 measured pairs is a small dataset and not a census; and a match score measures how well a CV evidences an ad's requirements, which correlates with, but does not guarantee, recruiter behaviour. The skew is in the published sample, not the tool: scoring and tailoring work the same for roles in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide or anywhere else in Australia. The page will be updated as the dataset grows.
A correction: the version of this page published on 18 August 2026 reported 134 pairs, a median gain of 8 and 7% going backwards. That count included the founder's own account and internal test accounts, which made up more than half of it, and it counted every regeneration of the same CV. This page now reports external users only, one pair per person and role, from a saved query.