AMA about Crafting CVs for the UK Job Market : still using the old trick of including a black sheet with keywords using a white font colour?

Today, it's mostly a bad idea.

Modern ATS systems don't just count keywords. They:

A recruiter who discovers hidden keywords is also likely to view it as deceptive rather than clever.

Not really a "trick"—more of an optimization.

If the role asks for:

then use those exact terms where they're genuinely relevant.

Many candidates write:
Experience with automated testing tools.

Instead of:
Built Playwright automation suites integrated into Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines.

The second version is better for ATS and humans.

For example:

That's effectively a visible, honest keyword section.

ATS systems increasingly reward evidence.

Compare:
Selenium

v/s
Led migration from manual regression testing to Selenium-based automation, reducing execution time from 3 days to 4 hours.

The second helps both machines and humans.

Many ATS systems actually struggle more with over-designed CVs than simple ones.

The biggest ATS killer today isn't missing keywords—it's:

A plain Word document with strong content often outperforms a beautiful designer CV.

Modern ATS optimization is mostly about making sure the important words appear naturally in evidence-based achievements. Ironically, that's also what makes a CV more enjoyable to read.