With accusations of harassment & beauty-bias hovering around, you would assume the answer to this question is obviously “ No”. However this tricky question invites lot of debate. Your photo reveals a lot about you- age, sex, religion, ethnicity & physical characteristics.
Lot of career experts question the professionalism of candidates who include photo in their resume unless the candidate is a model or actor. Some folks also consider candidate with photo resume as unethical. In all such cases, we assume our personal bias is in favor of attractiveness of physical appearance. However this is not the case. Males who include photos in their resume are more likely to be called for an interview than females. The reason is female jealousy of hiring attractive women at workplace. Such unconscious stereotyping of women still exists in the workplace.
Differences in resume styles depends upon cultural preferences. However now laws relating to this is also regulating/restricting the information employers can ask the applicant. When you are applying for a job in the US, it is not mandatory to ask for gender or race. The applicants can choose not to answer these questions. Similarly, if you are applying for a job in a local company in middle east, they specifically ask for a photo, nationality, passport & visa status. Some recruiters prefer resumes without photo to protect themselves against any allegations of discrimination. In some sectors such as consulting & investment banking, resume gets rejected if it has photo attached.
For international job seekers, this is a bigger problem. Format & requirements of content to be included in resume vary country by country. Some require photo to be included & some require detailed profile to be included in the resume. For some countries such as those in Asia & Europe, it is acceptable to include photo in resume. For countries such as Australia, there are no specific guidelines as to whether the photo has to be part of resume & it depends upon the discretion of candidate
You can get creative to showcase your professional image & lend a credibility to prospective employer. Including link to LinkedIn profile is perfectly acceptable for prospective employer as they will refer to LinkedIn profile at some point in the application process. Increasingly job application are going one step beyond & including their social media profiles & personal websites in their resume. This is the case particularly in creative or consulting sectors where your personal brand matters. Here Photos & even videos are recommended to be part of your career portfolio documents. However make sure that your photo has business like portrait.
If you’d like help with any aspect of your career, from having your resume written, to getting your job search strategy made, reach out to us here.
