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Job-ad keywords: how to spot them and place them in your CV

Spot the words that matter in a job offer in 10 minutes, place them in the right parts of your CV, and avoid keyword stuffing and hidden text.

By the PisteJob team · updated October 31, 2026 · 4 min read

The recruiter who opens your CV is looking for specific words: the job title, tools, skills, sometimes a certification. If they don't see them within seconds, they move on. Some also run keyword searches in their recruitment software. Here's how to spot those words in a job ad and where to place them, without cheating.

Key points

• A job ad's keywords are the job title and its variants, technical skills, tools, diplomas and certifications, languages and the sector.
• Apec, the French executive employment agency, advises reusing the terms used most in the offer, the job description and other ads for the same job.
• Place them where they prove something: title, summary, skills, and above all your experience.
• Only write a keyword if it's true for you. Hidden white text is a bad idea.

Why keywords matter

For two readers. The human first: in a first screening, a recruiter skims a CV for 7.4 seconds on average, according to the Ladders eye-tracking study (HR Dive). The words they look for must stand out. The software next: Apec notes that some recruiters use tools that sort applications by keyword.

But don't panic: software rarely rejects a CV on its own because a word is missing. We separate fact from fiction in our guide CVs and applicant tracking systems (ATS).

Where to find the right words

1. The ad itself: the title, the tasks, the profile sought, the tools, and the "nice to have" items.
2. Other ads for the same job: words that recur from one ad to the next are the core of the job (Welcome to the Jungle).
3. France Travail's job sheets: each job sheet from France's public employment service lists the job's skills (know-how, soft skills, knowledge). France Travail uses this same framework, the ROME, to describe offers and match them with candidates.
4. The company's website: its vocabulary, its products, its values.

Sort them in 10 minutes

Copy the ad and highlight the words in four categories:

• the job: the exact title and its variants;
• the technical side: skills, tools, software, methods;
• formal proof: diplomas, certifications, licences, languages;
• behaviour: autonomy, rigour, customer relations…

Then, for each word, be honest: "I have it, with proof", "I have some of it", or "I don't have it". The first two go in your CV, the second with its real level ("basic knowledge", "used in a project"). The third doesn't.

Where to place them in your CV

• The title: reuse the ad's job title if it really is your job.
• The summary: two or three lines with the two or three most important words.
• Skills: write tools the way the ad writes them ("Power BI", not just "visualisation tools"). For an acronym, give the acronym and the full form once, for example "customer relationship management (CRM)".
• Experience, above all: there, a keyword becomes proof. A good line combines an action, the keyword and a result: "Planned preventive maintenance for 3 production lines".
• Not in an image, a header or a footer: these areas are sometimes misread by software.

Mistakes to avoid

• Keyword stuffing: a list of twenty repeated words reads badly, and a human sees it within seconds.
• Hidden white text: some candidates paste the ad in white text into their CV. Fortune reports that recruitment professionals advise against this trick, which they consider unreliable, and that it can get a candidate rejected.
• Copying the ad's sentences: reuse the words, not the sentences.
• A false keyword: it will get you through a screening, then catch up with you in the interview. Our guide Tailoring your CV without lying explains where the line is.

Example

A fictional ad: "Industrial maintenance technician: preventive and corrective maintenance, CMMS, electrical certification, reading technical drawings."

The keywords: maintenance technician, preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, CMMS, electrical certification, reading technical drawings.

In a CV where everything is true, they become:

Each word from the ad appears once, in the right place, with proof.

Frequently asked questions

How many keywords should I include?

There's no magic number. Every requirement in the ad that you really meet should appear at least once, where it's proven.

Should I use exactly the same words as the ad?

When you did the same thing, yes: use the company's vocabulary, as Apec advises. If your former employer called it something else, the ad's word is what counts for the reader.

Does software reject a CV without the right keywords?

Rarely on its own. Automatic screening mostly relies on knockout questions in the application form (right to work, diploma, licence, location). Keywords mainly serve the searches recruiters run, and then their reading.