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Comment by joegahona | Hacker News Reader

Do you ever recommend that the resume writer puts his/her picture on the resume? It struck me as really odd when Linkedin started to encourage this, as I was told ages ago that a photo on your resume will get it thrown out instantly because it opens up the potential employer to discrimination.

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As others have said, it depends on the country. For my US clients I never add a photo, but I will offer to add a LinkedIn URL at the top. The ability for the reader to view your profile (and photo) can help them to understand that this is a real person, and my guess is it's harder for most people to say 'no' to someone they have seen (of course this is assuming several things about each party).

> it opens up the potential employer to discrimination.

This argument never seemed to hold any water for me. Ok, most cases of "discrimination lawsuit" were because people were discriminated negatively, not positively. Wouldn't discarding the resume _because it has a picture_ have the exact result that the person discriminated person complained of? If that is so, it seems NOT accepting the resume would open you to lawsuits, not accepting it. Yet, I don't see a lot of fuss being made about job-seekers claiming discrimination because of CV pictures out there.

“People who put pictures on their resumes” are not a protected class.

Yes, but "black people" is and you can easily extract that form a picture. Outright removing the CV because of the picture, regardless of reason, can be argued that you _actually_ did that because of being a protected class.

Of course, it's probably easier if you can prove that you discard _all_ CV's with pictures anyways. But have some exceptions go through and you might get screwed.

Regardless, if you don't have a clearly stated policy of dismissing CV's with pictures, it just feels like an asshole move, frankly.

Of course, it's probably easier if you can prove that you discard _all_ CV's with pictures anyways

That's exactly why it's done.

Depends on the accepted practices. For example in France it's always welcome (AFAIK).

That is Problematic on so many grounds. I am surprised the EU hasn't banned that on discrimination grounds.

As a matter of fact the "standard" EU CV (so called Europass) has the photo "field" :

https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/about-europass

(with a recommendation to check whether it is allowed in the specific destination country):

>Add your photo only if required. Check local provisions in the country where you intend to send your CV.

As someone with a visible 'disability', I wish it would.

In Portugal I have not received any without a picture on it. It does not help.

It does not help what? How would you know?

Because I review those resumes for our company and, as others have said here, it adds bias even if you don't want to. That does not help.

Europe and Asia generally require photographs, America generally requires no photographs.

It’s more granular than just ‘Europe’. Having a picture would be pretty weird in Ireland, say.

In the UK, too. I've heard lawyers advising a policy of blanket-discarding CVs with attached photos to avoid any possibility of discrimination during screening stages (though I don't know whether this is because of a specific law or just their judgement regarding minimising risk).

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