Recruiter guide | Updated 17 October 2026
How to screen job applications by keyword in your inbox
When an ad brings in hundreds of emails, you can't read every one with the same care. Keyword screening helps you find the applications most likely to fit, so you can spend your time on those first. Done badly, it also hides good people. This guide covers how to build a keyword list that works, and where its limits are.
Start with your email search box
Every email program can search. Typing a role title such as electrician into Outlook, Thunderbird or webmail shows every email that mentions it. For a quick check that's enough. Its limits show up fast: one keyword at a time, no record of which applications you have already looked at, and no way to save the attachments from the results in one go.
Build a keyword list for the role
Good keyword lists have three layers:
- Role titles and their variations. Applicants describe the same job differently: electrical engineer, electrical site engineer, EE, commissioning engineer. List the names people actually use, including local ones.
- Must-have skills, tools and licences. For example AutoCAD, HV, PRC licence, TESDA NC II, forklift. Pick the few that genuinely decide whether someone fits.
- Exclusions. Words that point to emails that are not applications for this role: newsletter, invoice, unsubscribe, or the title of a different opening you are also running.
Keep the list short. Ten precise keywords beat fifty vague ones. A word like management appears in almost every CV and tells you nothing.
Account for spelling and wording
Include common spellings (licence and license, CV and resume) and abbreviations. Watch out for short words that hide inside longer ones. Test the list on a few applications you have already read: if strong candidates are not matching, the list is missing their words.
Know what keyword screening misses
Keyword matching is a way to order your reading, not to make decisions:
- Some strong applicants write a one-line email and put everything in the attached CV. If your search only sees the email, they look like a weak match.
- A keyword hit doesn't mean experience. Someone may mention welding because they want to learn it.
- Keywords can carry bias. Words tied to particular schools, ages or backgrounds have no place on the list.
Always look at low-scoring applications before rejecting anyone, and make every decision from the CV itself.
Keyword screening with Applicant Packager
Applicant Packager is a free Windows app that applies your keyword list to a whole mailbox at once:
- You enter target roles, include keywords, optional keywords per role, and exclude keywords, and save them as a preset for next time.
- It searches the email subject, the email body, and attachment filenames; you can switch each of these on or off. It does not read inside the attached CV files, so check the applications marked for review.
- Each application is labelled Match, Review or Excluded, with the matched keywords and the reasons shown. The labels are search aids, not hiring decisions.
- You select the applications you want and it saves their CVs into folders by search, role and applicant.
It reads the mailbox without changing anything, and everything stays on your computer.
Download Applicant Packager free