Should you put your photo in your CV or resume?
When it comes to preparing your Curriculum Vitae (CV) or resume, there are generally 2 types of belief. The first is those who believe that attaching your latest photo in the CV will help increase your chance of landing a job interview, and the second is those who believe it is better not to attach your photo in your CV at all.
But I believe that there’s no definite right or wrong here. It depends on what you want to achieve with that photo of yours and how confident you are with it.
When applying for a job, you are hoping that the company will give you a chance in terms of job interview based on your qualifications and experiences and NOT based on your look. Unless, you are applying for marketing or personal assistant kind of role where good look is very important. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is better not to attach any photo in your CV. Why?
- Your photo might not look like your real person. This might cause a very big disappointment to the interviewer if he/she calls you for an interview based on your “good-looking” photo.
- Your photo might be mislead the interviewers and they might neglect your true qualifications.
- Your photo might not be as nice as you would’ve hoped for. Thus, by placing your photo there, they will just filter you out without looking at your CV’s content.
- By placing your photo in there, you are trying to cover some facts about your skills and trying to mislead the person doing the filtering. And yes, I’ve said this before.
Not convinced? Let me give you an example. The other day, I was talking to a recruiter friend of mine who used to work in the Human Resource department of a large multinational company. She has to go through a lot of resumes and CVs in a single month…and I do mean A LOT. Some of the CVs have the photos attached and whenever she saw such type of CVs, there will only be 2 outcome. Either the photo is very bad and the candidate got filtered out straight away, or the photo is very good and she will proceed to the content. Because by placing a photo there, that is the first impression you are giving to the HR. Imagine if you received a CV with a photo belonging to someone who cannot even open his eyes properly…the sleepy and tired look. Do you think you want to hire him as a consultant? Ok, first filtering done….so she called up the group of people qualified for the job interviews. Apparently, a lot of those with good looking photos, didn’t appear to look as nice. Some of them were …well…ridiculously different. And they got penalized for that too because they were not being honest.
Do you want to hire an employee who always looks like this?
Conclusion? I really feel that the disadvantages you get by placing your photo in the CV or resume far outweight the advantages.
That’s why I’ve never adviced any of my friends to attach their photo in the CV or resume (even though some of my friends are really good looking people). Whenever they ask why, my answer will be “Don’t blindfold them with your photo. Convince them with your skills and experiences. That is how it should be done.”
I never place my photo in the CV … I always belief it’s a discriminate and not fair…
I had a bad experience before in an interview. The interviewer actually scolded me because of my simple resume (template from Microsoft Word which provide sufficient information) and not putting photo into my resume where he can see my face on spot.
If you ask me, I’ll vote for no photo in resume except you’re looking for jobs like modeling and show girls.
@ TZ
Haha, same for me.
@ Jessen
That interviewer is an idiot. Haha. It’s not really necessary to put a photo there. If I were you, I would’ve told him “Just in case you find my real person to be completely different than the photo”.
Modeling and show girls, yea, I also think those PR jobs need to put photos. Other than that, skills and experiences are more important.
interesting topic. i would not put it unless if they asked for it. but sometiems, i feel like i have to put it too. so it is quite confusing too.
@ cbenc12
I think it depends on what kind of job? But there are some experts who suggest people to put their photos.
Perhaps advantage for those good looking people. I screen resume but I (to be honest to you guys). Ya, I did pay more attention to those good looking girls or guys. Maybe especially girls.
But anyway what the really matter is still the skills and the personality of that person during an interview.
P/S: Looks like you very close with HR folks.
Good relationship with that can sometimes know something that we shouldn’t know. 
haha Happy new year to all you!
@ ChampDog
Hmm, if I were you, I will also be tempted to choose the better looking or more pleasant looking people. They do make people more energetic
But as you said, photos only make good first impressions. After that, it’s all about skills and how you handle the interview.
My HR very secretive one wor =_=