How to improve gaps before rewriting

The most common mistake at this stage is to rush from the Alignment Report straight into a rewrite. A gap left unanswered will usually stay a gap, or worse, be softened by generic wording. A few minutes spent answering gaps honestly produces a much stronger rewrite.

What a gap actually means

A gap flagged in the report almost always falls into one of three categories. Naming which one applies is the first move.

• No evidence: you genuinely have not done this. Leave it as a gap.
• Weakly expressed evidence: you have done it, but your CV describes it in generic terms.
• Transferable experience: you have adjacent experience from a different context that could reasonably support this responsibility.

How to answer gap questions honestly

1. Read the gap prompt carefully. Focus on what the role actually needs, not the exact wording.
2. Ask yourself whether you have done this, or something close to it, in any previous role.
3. If you have, write the answer in plain, specific terms: what you did, for whom, and with what result.
4. If you have not, say so. It is better to leave a gap than to invent an answer.
5. Add the confirmed answer to your Candidate Profile so a future project can draw on it too.

Adding context without exaggerating

Strong context is specific, proportionate and something you can defend in an interview. Weak context inflates the same story until it stops being true.

When transferable experience helps

If the role asks for something you have not done under exactly that label, ask whether a previous responsibility covered the same skill in a different context. The evidence has to be genuinely comparable, not simply the same word appearing somewhere in your history.

When a gap should stay a gap

• You have never done the thing and you do not have adjacent evidence to offer.
• The gap is a hard requirement (a specific certification, a legally required licence) that you do not hold.
• Closing the gap would require you to overstate scale, scope or outcomes.

Common mistakes

• Filling in gap prompts with generic wording so the report looks tidier.
• Copying words from the job description that do not describe your real experience.
• Skipping the Candidate Profile update, so the same gap has to be re-answered next time.
• Answering a gap once, thinly, rather than adding the underlying facts to the Profile.

How Candidate Profile helps future roles

The Candidate Profile is where confirmed facts live between projects. Every time you close a gap honestly by adding evidence to the Profile, future Alignment Reports have more to work with, and you spend less time re-answering the same question for different roles.

A short checklist before you rewrite

• Every gap classified as no evidence, weak wording, or transferable.
• Answered every gap you can answer honestly and specifically.
• Left the rest as gaps, without softening.
• Added the confirmed evidence to your Candidate Profile.
• Skimmed the strengths list to confirm the priority you want the rewrite to keep.