Key words recruiters look for.

shikoku

It has been suggested to me that I add some key words to the blank space on the second page of my CV.

That is to say white on white which would be picked up by a computer checking a scanned CV but invisible to the naked eye

Any thoughts on this or suggestions for the words to use?

treetrunks

sounds like rubbish to me.

shikoku

To clarify this came from my 'advisor' at the job centre plus who also stated he had had feedback from 'clients' confirming they were hearing back from more recruiters after doing this.

I don't have a position on this, just wondered what others thought.

Wellery82

If you are searching for CVs then the more often a word appears on a CV the higher up in seach listings it will appear. For example if you searched on Monster for every individual with the word administration on their CV there would be thousands of responses. Those highest up the list would have the word on their CV more times as i understand it.

It depends entirely what type of work you are looking for - i guess a generic tip would be to have your job title a few times on your CV if possible as this is what they would search for. For example if a recuiter has to find a facilities manager they will be searching for CVs, amonst other searches, with the words "facilities manager" on them. I hope that helps

bobbiely

For the white space in my C.V I made a skills profile to showcase the experience my jobs had given me - ie. IT Skills - what software I was used to despite lack of qualifications. Team working - worked a bunch of low level catering teams where team work is highly essential. etc. etc. I adapt this to each job spec I apply for .... this is the advice I've got.

Google Skills based CV - I have a feeling this is what he was on about.

I take what the advisors say with a pinch of salt though, during my first work focused interview the advisor told me there was nothing he could do to help me. At least it was honest lol.

shikoku

Actually what I was told to do was to type those key words white on white as many times as they would fit into the free space.

shikoku

bobbiely wrote: »

I take what the advisors say with a pinch of salt though, during my first work focused interview the advisor told me there was nothing he could do to help me. At least it was honest lol.

I have just had pretty much the same experience, this was the only suggestion he had to offer

Gordon_Hose

Try it and find out

shikoku

The problem I can also imagine it being printed out with everything in a different colour, all the words showing making me look like a total head case...

Gordon_Hose

shikoku wrote: »

The problem I can also imagine it being printed out with everything in a different colour, all the words showing making me look like a total head case...

lol, have you got a printer you could test it out on first?

jadziad

I did this when I was last jobhunting.

I used the whitespace as a place to type the name of every local town where I would be happy to work, misspellings of specific relevant words so that only my CV would show up, variants of the same word (including plural), uncommon words which only more technical people would search for, and words which are related to the line of work I was persuing.

You must make sure that the hidden words (I call them metadata for agencies) are actually relevant & appropriate - you must be a suitable candidate for those keywords, otherwise the calls you get will annoy both you and the recruiter, as you really won't be qualified for the job anyway.

If the hidden information isn't actually well hidden, then you'll get found out and they could blacklist you. In addition, if everyone does this, then CV database software will just be updated to exclude white text - I doubt it would be that difficult to code. There are some technical quirks to be aware of when doing this keyword thing, which I'll leave you to find out for yourself.