Natural light, camera, action: Need an updated headshot for your job search? Skip the low-lit selfie and do this: Sit somewhere with natural light and a neutral background. Make sure the flash is off. Use your camera’s Portrait mode. Smile! You look marvelous, darling!
The trick tech-savvy job seekers are using
You apply and apply and hear nothing back. Is your job search doomed? It might all be down to the bots. Studies show three out of every four resumes never make it to a real person.
How do you get your resume out of digital purgatory and into a hiring manager’s hands? A crazy trick some tech-savvy job seekers are using made the news, and I want you to know about it.
Bottom of the pile
Applicant tracking systems help managers and recruiters filter out applicants based on a job’s requirements. Some programs have built-in AI that can rate and rank applicants, help recruiters search by keyword and prioritize internal candidates or referrals.
They can also auto-reject applicants who lack preferred certifications or years of experience. In a perfect world, the hiring manager would check over each resume to make sure AI is doing its job, but this is not a perfect world.
Resume power moves
That’s where a new technique called “white fonting” comes in. Social media influencers who’ve had luck with white fonting say it helps you get past that initial AI bot screening that scans resumes for keywords.
All you have to do is copy the relevant keywords from a job you’re applying to, paste them into your resume, and then change the font color to white. Wait, what?
The color change makes the keywords invisible to the naked eye, so your resume looks totally normal to hiring managers and recruiters. But AI bots will pick them up and potentially bump you to the top of the list.
The trick has a proven track record of success, but it’s not always a guaranteed win. Some programs automatically scan your resume and input sections into an application. If that’s the case, your white font may also slip through to human eyes.
Jazz up your calling card
Whether you try out white fonting or not, spend some time making sure your resume’s polished to perfection.
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If you’re looking for a new job, you have a long road ahead of you. Not only do you have to hunt down the perfect position, but you also have to craft the perfect resume, which means hours of formatting and designing. Luckily, you can save yourself a lot of time with free resume templates you can find online.
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COVID-19 had a serious impact on the economy over the last year and a half. Now that millions of Americans are vaccinated, things are beginning to open up again. But that doesn’t mean we should drop our guard completely. The Delta variant is spreading quickly. Tap or click here to track this new, dangerous variant.
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