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Fit vs CV readiness

Two numbers instead of one, because a weak document and a weak background need opposite responses. The four combinations, and what to do in each.

Most tools give one percentage, which is the wrong shape of answer. It merges two problems that have nothing to do with each other.

What each one measures

Fit is how well your background matches the role: years in the discipline, the type of work, the level, the tools, and the sector where sector matters. It is a fact about you rather than about your file, and no arrangement of words changes it.

CV readiness is about the document: structure, ordering, whether your strongest evidence sits where a reader looks, whether bullets open with something informative, whether the summary points at this role or at a general idea of employment. It is entirely under your control.

The four combinations

The third row is the one people resist, because a good-looking document feels like being close. It is not close. It is a good CV for a job that wants somebody else.

The term list underneath

For each thing the posting asks for, one of three states:

• have. In your CV with evidence behind it.
• near. Adjacent work, wrong vocabulary. Read this column first. Turning near into have takes minutes and moves readiness.
• miss. Not in the document. Be honest about which kind: never done it, which is a Fit signal to leave alone; done it and left it out, which is a fix to your base CV that helps every future application; or asked for oddly, which is your judgement.

Fixing a low readiness

Usually ten minutes, and tailoring does most of it: bullets reordered so relevant evidence rises, the summary retargeted at this role, weak openers rewritten so a line leads with what you did.

Country formatting also affects readiness in ways people underestimate. Length conventions, photograph rules and section headings differ across European markets, and the document is built to the destination's rules at tailoring time.

Fixing a low Fit

You mostly do not. You apply elsewhere, and that is a use of an afternoon rather than a waste of one.

Three cases where pushing is fair: graduate schemes and leadership programmes, which are designed to hire people without the experience; an adjacent function with real overlap in the underlying work; and a role where you are the only person available with the rare thing they need.

Where the numbers are computed

In your browser, against the advert. Nothing about the score is sent to the employer, and no recruiter sees it. What they do see is in what recruiters actually see.