How to Find Keywords in a Job Description
The right keywords are what get your resume past ATS. Finding them accurately — and mirroring the exact phrasing — is the single highest-leverage action you can take when tailoring your resume.
Job description keyword analysis used to mean reading a posting carefully and guessing what mattered. Now there's a better way. This guide covers both the manual method (so you understand what you're looking for) and the fast, automated approach.
What counts as a keyword in a job description
Not every word in a job posting is a keyword. The terms that matter for ATS are the ones that describe specific qualifications:
Hard skills and technical terms — programming languages, software tools, platforms, frameworks, and technical methodologies. Examples: Python, Salesforce, AWS, machine learning, SQL, AutoCAD.
Certifications and credentials — specific qualifications mentioned by name. Examples: PMP, CPA, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Six Sigma Green Belt.
Methodologies and frameworks — ways of working that the role requires. Examples: Agile, Scrum, Lean, GAAP, HIPAA compliance.
Job-specific phrases — multi-word terms that describe role responsibilities. Examples: stakeholder management, financial modeling, demand generation, patient care, curriculum development.
Soft skills — mentioned less often by ATS but still read by recruiters. Examples: cross-functional collaboration, leadership, communication, decision-making.
Words like "responsible", "excellent", "dynamic", and "passionate" are filler — not keywords. Focus on the concrete, specific terms.
The manual method
If you want to analyse a job description by hand, follow this process:
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Read the full posting — not just the title. Pay attention to the job summary, responsibilities list, and requirements section.
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Identify the requirements section — this is where the highest-value keywords live. Terms listed as "required" or "must have" are the non-negotiables. Terms listed as "preferred" or "nice to have" are lower priority.
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Highlight repeated terms — any word or phrase that appears more than once is a strong signal that it's important. Employers repeat what they care about.
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List hard skills and tools separately — these carry the most ATS weight. Note every specific software, platform, language, or tool mentioned.
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Note certifications and credentials — if a certification is mentioned even once, it's worth including if you have it.
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Capture multi-word phrases — "project management" is more specific than "projects". "Machine learning" beats "ML experience". Write down the full phrase as it appears.
This works well for one or two applications. For multiple applications, or when you want to be thorough, the manual method is slow.
The fast method: use the extractor tool
The faster approach is to extract them automatically — paste the full job description and the tool identifies the must-have and nice-to-have keywords in seconds.
The extractor:
- Pulls out single keywords and multi-word phrases
- Weighs frequency and position (terms near "required" score higher)
- Matches against a curated dictionary of 800+ resume/ATS keywords
- Classifies results into must-have vs. nice-to-have
- Optionally compares against your resume to show which keywords you're missing
This takes about 30 seconds and is significantly more accurate than manual scanning, especially for longer or complex postings.
Which keywords matter most
Not all keywords carry equal weight. Prioritise in this order:
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Terms in the requirements section — these are the employer's non-negotiables. Include all of them that are genuinely true of your experience.
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Terms that appear multiple times — repetition signals importance. A tool or skill mentioned three times in the posting is more important than one mentioned once.
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Job title keywords — the exact job title and related variants (e.g., "Senior Product Manager", "Product Manager", "PM") tell ATS what role this resume is for.
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Certifications and credentials — if mentioned, they're often filtering criteria. Include any you hold.
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Industry-specific terminology — terms specific to a field (e.g., "pharmacovigilance" in pharma, "HIPAA" in healthcare) signal domain knowledge.
Nice-to-have keywords — mentioned once in the posting, often in the "preferred" section — are worth including if they're true, but don't let their absence stop you from applying.
Once you have your keyword list, the next step is adding them to your resume correctly. See how to add keywords to your resume for exact placement guidance.