Recent surveys have confirmed that the majority of recruiters check your social media accounts before calling you in for an interview – some studies claim the figure to be as high as 68%. It is understandable then, that candidates might assume recruiters are interested in what they look like, and in response put a photo of themselves on their CV. On the contrary, research has indicated that doing this can be extremely damaging to a candidate’s job prospects.
Orchard, a UK-based recruitment firm that specialises in digital, creative and marketing recruitment, cited that 88% of candidates who put a photo of themselves on their CV are rejected by hiring managers. One writer, Alison Green, describes them as being wholly unnecessary, except in cases where the job really does require you to look a certain way: “Unless you’re applying for a job as a model or actor, photos of yourself have no place on your resume. Since your appearance has nothing to do with your ability to do the job, including a photo comes across as naive and unprofessional.”
It can be especially risky when you consider that some recruiters frequently only spend seconds looking at applications. The photo might simply act as a distraction from what really matters: the detail listing experience and how qualified (or not) you are to do the job.
Career consultant, Melissa Cooley, considers things from another angle: “A picture’s worth a thousand words, and recruiters and employers would rather not hear most of them. It’s illegal to consider factors like age, race, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability status in hiring decisions. So hiring authorities prefer to not “officially” know whether you’re a member of one of these protected classes. If you put a photo on your resume, you reveal some of these details.”
This argument is somewhat redundant however. In this book, ‘The One Page CV’, Paul Hichens mentions that if a recruiter wants to discriminate against you based on your appearance, ethnicity, religious beliefs or some other factor than manifests itself physically, then they can at any point, including when they come face-to-face with you at interview. Other commentators agree. Indeed, many say that a photo should never be included on a CV.
Writing for Forbes, writer and executive communications consultant Rob Asghar gives a counter argument based on the observation that photos are a natural part of the “visual, multimedia age” that we live and work in. According to him, opponents are thinking far too deeply about the purpose a photo serves. It has a lot less to do with whether the candidate is good-looking, likeable, or meets possibly discriminatory requirements, and more to do with natural curiosity: “…in our new day, we have all become far more visual in our communications. It [a photo] allows us to match names and faces.”
As far as Asghar is concerned, having your photo on your CV is the natural evolution from having your photo on LinkedIn or even Facebook. And if your image appears to be a welcoming one it could encourage recruiters to contact you.
There are arguably pros and cons to including a photo on your CV. When deciding whether to do so, it is a good idea to research the local custom. For example, in the UK, photos are not usually needed, whereas in the Gulf they are much more common. You might choose to stick closely to such conventions, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, straying from convention can be worth the risk – as long as there are good logical good reasons for doing so, and you do it well.
It’s your application, and the ultimate decision is yours. If you do decide to use a photo on executive job applications then at the very least make sure that your photograph is as professional as possible.
