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Comment by auggierose | Hacker News Reader

In countries like Germany it is normal to include your picture. Don't see what the problem is, before you hire someone you are usually seeing them in person anyway.

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In the United States it is definitely not normal to include your picture, and doing so can lead to conscious or unconscious bias against someone because of their race, gender, beauty, etc.

Germany has these problems too.

These problems don't go away by not including a picture... In Germany a resume without a picture looks odd.

It does reduce bias in the screening stage, which is exactly what its intended purpose is.

But it's not something that you can decide to do as a candidate. Without a picture, you're the oddball that doesn't get past the first screening.

Has this changed as hiring gets more international? When I started seeing CVs with pictures I thought it was really, really weird, but I soon realised it was just the norm in some countries.

I still think CVs with _pie charts_ are pretty weird, tho...

FWIW, I'm with you on pie charts. :)

That is only true when everyone else includes a picture. As others said it is great in the US that nobody includes pictures on their resume.

What's the benefit to employees and employers?

This reminds me of a funny conversation I had with a coworker: he's black and was complaining that his sister named his nephew "Lashawn" (for those outside the US: it's a very stereotypically African-American name). He remarked: "do you want his resume to go directly to the trash bin every time?" Funny at the time but kind of depressing in retrospect.

I have to add the obligatory reference to Freakonomics and the impact your name has on "how a child performs in school and even her career opportunities".

Great write up in either the first or second Freakonomics book about how adversely impacting being called Jasmin is in the the US.

[0] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-much-does-your-name-matt...

Dr. Marijuana Pepsi, holds a doctorate in higher education leadership. Her dissertation was entitled, “Black names in white classrooms: Teacher behaviors and student perceptions."

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/columnists/jim-stingl/20...

We call her Mary Jane Pepsi

She goes as Marijuna, but in some situations, she goes as “M P”.

I know your coworker was probably exaggerating for the point of the joke but Lashawn isn't even that bad. It's when people slam together parts of three different names to make some four syllable albatross of a name that your resume gets trashed by default.

There's also white people names that will get your resume trashed for implying low class but they tend to lack the aural flare that stereo-typically low class black people names have.

Examples of low class white names? I'm curious.

Jeb, Cecil, Jethro, Dustin...

Cecil is lower class? I'd say the opposite, that makes me think mortarboard and prep school. Similar for names like Percival.

Lower class names are going to be the cliche'd, trying-to-be-different names like Corbin, Jameson, McKenna, Liam, Elijah, Aiden, Kaydon, Grayson, Mason, etc.

That's, "Jeb!", for your information.

In france it's even forbidden if I'm not mistaken

No, it’s not.

Not only is it not forbidden in France, in tech at least it is expected that you put a picture. Yes it's also allowed not to put one (and illegal to discriminate because it's not here), but from my experience most people do.

(source: graduated there)

I'm pretty sure I was told at school to never include a picture, but that was more than a decade ago. Today I see most resumes having pictures, especially those from Epitech candidates.

I don't like it though, I don't see how a picture is relevant to a resume.

It's absolutely not. Most of my friends put a picture. I'm in tech and I don't but that's a personal choice.

> In the United States it is definitely not normal to include your picture

LinkedIn?

they bother me every time i login because i have no picture set

Ditto. And they ask for an explanation why.

Recruiters spend 60% of their time looking at your profile picture.

Is there a source for this where I can read more?

> And they ask for an explanation why.

Really? That's funny. Did they just throw up a text box for you to fill in?

It's a radio box; I've never selected it so I'm unsure if they ask for clarification when you select other

I have, they do.

I occasionally write rude things into it like "stop asking me, you idiots". Not very professional, I suppose. Of either of us.

There have been many studies that show bias in the a screening process when gender or ethnicity are known. Ideally, the hiring manager should be given anonymized resumes so they can better make objective decisions about the candidates.

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-03-women-percent-hiring-men.htm...

Does that bias go away when meeting the candidate in person?

Perhaps we should do phone only interviews with voice changing tech.

Sometimes the biggest hurtle to getting a job is just getting to the interview.

You can't avoid it forever, but it's more critical in the early stages where small signals have a big impact. If you've invested enough time in a candidate to do an interview, you're more (subconsciously) motivated to plow through (subconscious) biases.

Or via chat.

It's been my experience that this often happens nowadays - either the third party recruiter or HR removes identifying information from the resume before passing it onto the hiring manager. I've seen my resume with this treatment during interviews.

It may be because I’m hiring for very senior roles, but you can bet I’m looking on LinkedIn and github before bringing someone on-site. Doesn’t mean you have to be on there, but for sure I’m looking to see if I know a connection or have a look at your code and commit habits.

The problem is people having a prejudice one way or another due to how the person looks. I know personally, being based in North America, the few times I've seen resumes my initial thought is, "Oh, they must be new to the country since they don't know that isn't acceptable here."

I grew up in Switzerland and I remember that for our very first application right after school, for apprenticeships, we should put the names and jobs of our parents on it...

Out of interest I searched and read a guide and lo and behold, it is no longer recommended for anyone - except for applying for apprenticeships.

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