Recruiters and hiring professionals review hundreds to thousands of job applications every year, and over time, they have spotted consistent patterns of red flags that can get a candidate disqualified immediately. Below, industry experts share their insights on the most common mistakes applicants make that you should steer clear of.
Skip the Outdated White Fonting Trick
It may surprise many job seekers, but countless candidates still rely on the “white fonting” tactic on their résumés. This practice comes from an old piece of bad advice that has spread widely for years: stuff your document with extra keywords or even copy the entire job description, shrink the font size, and change the text color to white. The goal is to make the text invisible to human readers but still detectable by applicant tracking systems (ATS), which makes this nothing more than an attempt to game the hiring system.
As a recruiter, I have encountered this trick more times than I can count. But the moment I highlight the full text of the résumé or open the file in dark mode, this hack becomes immediately obvious. It instantly raises red flags about the candidate’s integrity, and will almost always move your application to the reject pile.
To be clear, optimizing your résumé with relevant keywords is a good practice. But the correct approach is to naturally weave relevant terms from the job description into your experience bullet points, and demonstrate how you have used those skills with concrete examples and measurable results.
The simplest way to avoid this misstep is to never use this trick at all. Remember that your goal is not to outsmart a piece of software. It is to present your experience clearly, relevantly, and compellingly to the human recruiters who will review your application.
— Ana Colak-Fustin, Founder, HR Consultant and Recruiter, ByRecruiters
Proofread Your Application Thoroughly
Another consistent red flag that stands out to hiring teams is unaddressed grammatical errors and typos in applications. These small, avoidable mistakes immediately signal a lack of attention to detail — a core quality that recruiters consider essential for any professional role.
Skip the Outdated White Fonting Trick
