Ask HN: Have you ever used “white text” in a resume to pass through filters?

I actually have a story about this, while I never did it myself I had someone apply to a role two jobs ago who did. HR didn’t catch it, and I only did by highlighting a refererence name off the resume to put into an email and accidentally picked up more text, white text.

We brought him in, interviewed him, ultimately couldn’t afford what he was asking for but I put him in touch with an agency recruiter I knew to be top notch and would advocate for the fella, only on the promise that he cleaned up his resume and gave him a very knowing and telegraphed look. He picked up what I was putting down immediately.

Got an email from him two months later, he had gotten an offer from a company agency recruiter sent him to and thanked me for the referral. The guy was otherwise qualified, maybe a little green for some of our specific requirements, but throughout the interview checked all the right boxes as an engineer and seemed like a good dude overall, but he just was not getting calls back.

To this day I maintain had my CFO given me more money for the position I would have hired him, I thought he was trainable and could easily pick up and contribute. Ultimately lost contact but I like to imagine he’s doing fine.

Hahaha, this is brilliant. You made my day, @OP :-)

Yes, on several occasions when I was very young (therefore stupid) and angry, I put something like "suck by balls" with white font on my resume, when I was targeting companies I didn't respect. I don't know why / I don't remember. I guess I wanted to feel superior with my 1999 MS Word skills? Lol.

No, because that isn't going to work the way you think. Keywords search is usually performed internally on corporate HR systems, but not on the docs you attach to the process - ONLY on what you put in the forms on their website during apllication. They also calculate some BS numbers from that data, like: how many years of experience total, how many years of education, how old is the candidate, bla bla bla.

Rather than "invisible text", I've typically included a block of relevant items at the bottom of my resume in a smaller font under the heading "Keyword Clickbait".

I don’t think it would work, text is text, but it’s an interesting idea! Someone should hire you for your ideas!