Hacker News Reader

Comment by holub008 | Hacker News Reader

Does this dilute the headshot currency in the professional marketplace? If anyone can generate a flawless, idealized photo of themself, surely it reduces the signal headshots once provided: that you have the means to pay a photographer & are willing to invest the time / give a damn about appearing professional.

It might also damage the sense of identity they provide, if the generated images wander too far from reality of the source images.

View on HN

Most companies strongly discourage you from submitting headshots already. At this point, it's considered unprofessional to submit a picture on an application.

This is highly location specific. In Thailand it's more or less required to include it.

Good point, but headshots are essentially required in arenas other than job hunting. For a startup, it would be unprofessional to pitch investors without headshots of the founding team in the deck. Even in hiring, I'm willing to bet most hiring managers look candidates up on LinkedIn where they will see a headshot.

> At this point, it's considered unprofessional to submit a picture on an application.

Really? This does not match my experience (Europe) Quite the contrary actually.

Where in Europe? Over here in France, it's not that common. I've never had a picture on any of my applications. I don't handle hiring, so I don't get to see many CVs, but the last time I saw some (mid-2022), they didn't have a picture, either.

My experience (also Europe) tends to agree with GP.

:shrug:

ive had a very mixed, in fact I would go so far as to say polarized, experience with it across varius european countries.

Headshots are expected in CVs in the vast majority of the world. To my knowledge the big exceptions are US, UK, Canada, and Australia. But even there it's more like an "exception" since there's generally an unstated expectation that an employer can find more information, including a headshot, of you online.

These are going the way of the dodo. Just a couple years ago you were supposed to include a mini-cv of your parents in your cv, too, and people claimed not having a photo would automatically disqualify.

> vast majority of the world

> minus the largest English speaking economies

There are more people in India than those 4 countries combined. Not sure of your point?

Pretty sure I got rejected from TopTal the other day because I didn't have a decent headshot.

Just uploaded the first photo I could find that fit the size requirements.

Got a rejection email and took a look at other profiles, only to realize they were all using 'professional' looking headshots (which I'm sure reflects better on Toptal)

I have 9 YoE in software and an in-demand skillset, so I think it was the headshot. It's possible they really just have an influx of people now with all the layoffs, but I was signing up because of a recruiting email I had received from them days earlier saying my skills were in demand and they were trying to grow their network

Reply on news.ycombinator.com