Shenanigans and shortcuts

The easy route isn't so easy - or useful

Especially when you’re older, job hunting can feel like a game.

Because it is a game.

And it’s a game where the people you are playing with don’t want you to know the rules.

That can lead to a search for shortcuts and tricks that will move you to the head of the line. That’s understandable.

A friend forwarded to me a story about “white fonting,” a technique where people are stuffing their resume files with keywords and the text of the job listing that are changed to a white font, making them visible to applicant tracking systems but invisible to human HR reps.

Beat the computers at their own game, right?

This reminded me of the early days of the web, where page owners would stuff META tags and other invisible code with keywords like “SEX” so the pages would turn up higher in web searches.

But the search engines caught on, and the scammers had to find new ways to try to cheat the system.

That’s the problem with cheats: they all eventually stop working. And all that effort you took will be wasted.

Even before the white text “stops working,” there are dangers. If an HR rep highlights your text, or an app pulls the text from your doc and inserts it into a database, you could be branded a cheater. That’s not a good look.

It’s important to stay current with technology, especially as an older job seeker. Learning the ins and outs of LinkedIn, for example, can be a boon to finding a job. And knowing how to do online research is another way to increase your chances of landing a good job, and performing well once you’re there.

But looking for shortcuts is wasting time you could be using productively.

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When I was in grade school, we read a story about a group of friends, one of whom had a father who was a computer scientist. And this father had designed a computer he kept at his house that could do the kids’ homework for them.

The catch was that they had to input the information into the computer in order for it to complete their class assignments. And they found that in the process of entering the data into the computer, they actually learned the subjects that they were asking the computer to “cheat” for them.

I’ve thought a lot about that tale since I read the “white fonting” story.

At the risk of sounding like Grandpa Simpson, doing the work will make more difference to your job search than looking for cheats and shortcuts.

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I think “white fonting” is a waste of time and effort. What isn’t a waste is customizing your resume and cover letter to use as many terms from the job listing as possible. You can even use ChatGPT to help you with that.

That’s painstaking work. And it’s not fun. I know. But understanding how the world has changed and modifying your process to fit is the way forward. There’s no magic pill.

Onward and upward. See you next week.

-Adam.