Greying out buzzwords on CVs to target CV filter software

[Robinho]

...whilst avoiding CV bloating and silly exaggerations/lies.

Just dicking about on word now, if you set the font to white and the size to 1 it's essentially impossible to see any text, even if you highlight it. But if you go to *insert IDE of choice* and rip the text off in code it is indifferent to the style.

Only concern would be the software for looking at the CV would show the ripped text to the pimp.

Anyone tried this?

(awaits customary n00b abuse)

[cojak]

I do that on public sites like monster and jobserve but not when I apply for specific contracts.

(and there's little noob abuse on the Professional fora apart from 'use the search button' )

[MarillionFan]

As a lot of agents will load your CV into their own system your formatting would disappear after the 1st ctrl c ctrl v

[RichardCranium]

Just mark the text as 'hidden'; it is an option under text properties. It is such a common practice the agents expect it.

Put a section at the end of your CV entitled "Keywords" or "search terms" to make it clear what it is, then fill yer boots with search terms. Remember to include common typos. Then set the whole section to 'hidden'.

When the agents see the CVs, they see them as raw text on most sites. Formatting is omitted, including hidden text, so the search terms come up.

As Cojak said, only use such a CV for uploading to job sites.

[northernladuk]

Do people really do this? Surely if you can't get these targetted keywords in the main body of your CV you are wasting your time. So what if you managed to get you CV infront of an agent using these hidden words the experience required to go with it won't be evident so you will just get binned anyway?

They call this blackhat SEO in the webworld (or something similar) and google bans pages with it on so I wouldn't have thought it was very well respected in the CV world either surely?

[cojak]

We're talking about agents harvesting here, not real business people...

[Robinho]

Actually, i tried the hidden text thing first and my little app for testing it didn't pick the text up.

[RichardCranium]

Do people really do this? Surely if you can't get these targetted keywords in the main body of your CV you are wasting your time.

Agents search for:
- project manger <-- very common typo
- project managing
- project management
- project leader <-- I've never had that title, but I want to come up in the searches
- prince II <-- wrong but common
- princeII <-- wrong but common
- prince 2 <-- wrong but common
- prince
- pricne <-- common typo
- ms project
- msproject
- microsoft project

I can't put all them in the body of my CV


And if I had worked for the BBC I'd want:
- BBC
- B.B.C.
- B B C
- British Broadcasting Corp
- British Broadcasting Corporation
- British Broadcasting Company
- media
- television
- TV

[RichardCranium]

Actually, i tried the hidden text thing first and my little app for testing it didn't pick the text up.

How many agents use your little app?

[Robinho]

They won't be using my app because only the Beta version is available at the minute, silly.

Chances are however that the class library their software is using to access the text from the word document is indeed the same or behaves similarly to the one i used, ie ignores hidden text.