How many keywords should a resume have?

There is no magic number. Cover the essential skills and qualifications from the ad that you genuinely have, and use each naturally once or twice.

Should I copy the job description into my resume?

No. Use the same terms for skills you really have, but write your own sentences about your own results.

Do keywords matter for small employers?

Less for software, but a hiring manager still scans for the skills in their ad, so matching their language still helps.

Resume Keywords: How to Find and Use the Right Ones for Each Job

What counts as a keyword

Keywords are the specific terms that describe what the employer needs. They usually fall into five groups:

Job titles: "Payroll Officer", "Enrolled Nurse", "Forklift Operator".
Hard skills: "accounts payable", "medication administration", "inventory control".
Tools and systems: "Xero", "Salesforce", "SAP", "Microsoft Excel".
Qualifications and licences: "CPA", "forklift licence", "Working with Children Check", "CSCS card".
Industry terms: "NDIS", "WHS", "lean manufacturing", "safeguarding".

Soft skills like "team player" matter less for searching. Show them through results instead.

How to find them in 10 minutes

Copy the job ad into a document.
Highlight every skill, tool, qualification and title. Pay extra attention to the "essential" or "must have" section.
Look at two or three similar ads for the same role. Terms that appear in all of them are the core keywords for that job.
Note the exact wording. If the ad says "customer service", do not only write "client care".

Where to put keywords

Headline and summary: the target job title and your two or three strongest matching skills.
Skills section: a clean list of tools, systems and technical skills.
Work experience: the most valuable place. Keywords inside real achievements show you have actually used the skill. For example: "Processed fortnightly payroll for 240 staff in Xero, with zero errors over 18 months."
Certifications: full names and common abbreviations.

Do not keyword stuff

Repeating a word ten times, pasting the job ad into your resume or hiding words in white text does not help. Recruiters see the extracted text, and stuffing makes your resume read badly to the person who decides. Use each important keyword naturally, in context, where it is true.

Tailor for every application

Keep a master resume with everything you have done. For each application, adjust your headline, summary and skills list, and move the most relevant achievements to the top of each role. Ten minutes of tailoring often makes a bigger difference than a full redesign.