Hacker News Reader

Comment by denzil_correa | Hacker News Reader

> Also: never, ever put a photograph of yourself in your resume. You're just asking for someone to judge you based on your looks, gender, age, or ethnicity. Likewise, don't put your age. If you've been around for a while, trim everything but the last 5-10 years of positions off your resume to avoid the unfortunate but oh-so-common ageism. Even old hiring managers can be ageist! Don't give anyone a chance to judge you on irrelevant characteristics until you've firmly established your appeal to the employer.

In Germany, you ALWAYS put a photograph in your resume.

View on HN

> In Germany, you ALWAYS put a photograph in your resume.

Not really.

The more educated people are about this topic (e.g. have read "The Google Resume" by Gayle McDowell, which I highly recommend), or have had startup experience, the less common it is.

We all should stop doing it, everybody will benefit.

Not "Not really". It's the majority by far.

Yes "Not really". The majority is not really everybody.

I think something has been lost in translation here. At least in the US and UK, responding with "Not really" to a statement usually implies that the statement is completely incorrect. As in, you aren't offering a simple correction from "everyone" to "a majority", but rather suggesting that it isn't even a majority.

I've lived quite a long time in the U.S if I say not really I don't mean it's completely incorrect - I do mean there are very glaring omissions though.

It depends. Larger companies with traditional HR departments stickung to "the rules" will sort you out.

Smaller companies like startups, especially without large HR, don't care about photos.

I never place a photo, martial status, or birthdate on my CV. Yet, I even got hired by Novartis (in Austria).

If a German company of any size really were to sort me out sure to those "omissions" on my CV, it's probably for the better - I doubt we could ever be a match.

Here, you can use this one: https://portfolio.stavros.io/escapism/escapism@973.jpg

What I actually find more problematic is that you traditionally put your marriage status in your CV in Germany.

If you haven't married your partner but have children together, they might think you are a single parent. If you are married, they worry that you might get kids and take parental leave (which is by law quite generous in Germany compared to other countries). And so on. I personally leave that out now.

It depends on where you apply I guess.

I work at a startup and we get a mixed amount of applications with a photo and without, doesn't really make a difference for us.

You could explicitly specify that you want applications without photos (or age data, or other private stuff). That can encourage people to apply who otherwise might not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com