Bhinish Dhiman
Resume photo: which countries expect one and which discourage it
Leave the photo off for jobs in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Ireland, where employers avoid photos to reduce bias and US federal guidance says not to request one. Include one where it is customary: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, much of the Middle East, Japan and China. Follow the convention of the country where the job is, not the one you come from.
Whether a photo helps or hurts depends entirely on where the job is. In Berlin, an application without one can look incomplete. In Chicago, a recruiter may set aside one that has it, because the photo creates a discrimination risk the employer would rather not hold. The same face, the same qualifications, opposite conventions.
The countries, grouped by convention
| Convention | Countries and regions | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Discouraged | United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand | Leave it off. Recruiters may remove or ignore it |
| Customary, not required | Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy | Include a professional headshot unless the advert says otherwise; international firms often do not mind either way |
| Often expected | Much of the Middle East, Japan, China and parts of East and Southeast Asia | Include one; some application forms have a box for it |
| Mixed | Netherlands, the Nordic countries, multinational employers anywhere | Check the advert and the company’s own careers pages |
Conventions shift, and employers within a country differ. If an advert or application form asks for a photo, supply one; if it asks you not to, leave it off whatever the local custom.
Why the US and UK discourage photos
In the US, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lists requests for photographs among practices that can point to discrimination. Its guidance is that a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted, if it is needed for identification. An employer who collects photos at the application stage has evidence of appearance, race, age and sex in every file it later rejects, so most US recruiters would rather not see them.
The UK reaches the same place by convention. The Equality Act 2010 protects characteristics such as age, race, sex and religion, and the National Careers Service’s guide to CV sections includes no photo and advises leaving out your age, date of birth, marital status and nationality. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland follow the same practice.
What a photo can do to your chances
The concern is not theoretical. In a field experiment in Germany, the economist Doris Weichselbaumer sent 1,474 applications for three fictitious women with identical qualifications. The one with a German name was called back by 18.8% of employers. The same profile with a Turkish name was called back by 13.5%. With a Turkish name and a headscarf in the photo, the callback rate fell to 4.2%: she would have had to send 4.5 times as many applications to get the same number of interviews. The paper chose Germany precisely because job seekers there typically attach a photo to their résumé.
| Applicant in the experiment | Callback rate |
|---|---|
| German name, no headscarf | 18.8% |
| Turkish name, no headscarf | 13.5% |
| Turkish name, headscarf in the photo | 4.2% |
Germany has tested the alternative too. In a pilot run by its Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency in 2010 and 2011, five companies and three public employers screened about 8,550 applications with names, photos and personal details removed, and the evaluation found that women and applicants with a migrant background had better chances of an interview invitation.
Germany: customary, not compulsory
Since Germany’s General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) came into force in 2006, no employer can require a photo, and an application without one is complete. In practice a professional photo, the Bewerbungsfoto, remains common, particularly at traditional and mid-sized firms. International companies and public bodies are more relaxed about leaving it out. If you are unsure, include a good one; an amateur snapshot does more harm than none.
If you include a photo, make it a good one
- Head and shoulders, facing the camera or slightly turned, with your face filling a good part of the frame.
- Plain, light background and even, soft lighting. No holiday scenery, no cropped-out friends.
- Dress as you would for the interview in that field.
- Recent: taken within the last couple of years.
- Placed top left or top right, beside your name and contact details, at a modest size.
- A small file: a compressed JPEG keeps a PDF light enough for upload limits.
The tracking-system angle
Applicant tracking systems read text. A photo carries no information they can use, and placed inside a two-column layout it can disturb the order in which the text is read. That is one more reason to keep a version without a photo for job portals, even in countries where a photo is customary, and to send the version with a photo by email or where the form asks for it. What makes a resume ATS-friendly covers the parsing side.
Adding or removing a photo in the builder
The photo in the resume builder is optional and off in most templates.
- On the Content tab, use Add a photo (optional) under your contact details. The image stays in your browser; it is not uploaded.
- On the Design tab, under Photo, choose Circle, Square or None. Atelier, Cascade and Studio show a photo by default; the other 13 templates start without one.
- The Word file and the one-column PDF never include the photo, so you always have a photo-free version for portals and for countries that discourage it.
- If a photo is on, the Check tab reminds you that photos are usual in parts of Europe and Asia but discouraged in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
Whether you call the document a CV or a resume also depends on the country; see CV vs resume, country by country. For everything else on the page, start with how to write a resume, step by step.