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Comment by rileyt | Hacker News Reader

Photos should not be included on resumes sent to most American companies. They are a huge source of bias in the the hiring process and will either be rejected or have the photo removed immediately.

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But there are markets where they are expected. In Germany, your resume has a good chance of being discarded if it doesn't display a photo. That has to be kept in mind when making tools like this. They seem to have templates both with and without photos.

Is there a reason why a photo should be included?

I mean... other than the obvious ones? (i.e. the same reasons which are why North American companies usually don't or can't request a photo...)

I can't think of an obvious reason why anyone -- other than someone being hired specifically for their looks such as a model or an actor -- should include their photo along with their curriculum vitae. What "obvious" reasons are you thinking of? To prove they're not a bot or a house pet?

To quote Drawn Together's Foxxy Love: "This whole test is racially biased! Question one: 'What SPF lotion would you use if your were going down to the polo grounds, fellow Klan member?'"

... I don't get it. I mean, I get the joke, but not how it supports your argument.

I'm sorry... I mean, really? I thought you were just trolling originally, playing up the "I don't see race" trope. Well, I'll spell it out very plainly for you then: A profile picture facilitates hiring discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, beauty, and possibly other factors as well.

You'd get into trouble if you wrote "I am a young, white, normal-looking man" on the top of your resume... but maybe if you just sliiide a little headshot in you'll get the message across.

People assume white/male would benefit. But something tells me attractive people and females would receive more interviews requests.

Perhaps, and who would get picked because they look the most “professional”, “relatable” or “likable”?

It doesn’t have to be an active decision to be racial bias. Could just be your gut, “looks like a good person to me” instinct

“professional”, “relatable” or “likable”

I really do think women would get high marks and probably beat out many males in these categories.

Maybe young/old but a resume clearly gives that away.

> A profile picture facilitates hiring discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, beauty, and possibly other factors as well.

I agree with you. That's why I said I don't see why anyone other than an actor should put their photo on a resume, because it makes it easier for the reviewer to discriminate based on illegitimate reasons.

Perhaps there's a misunderstanding? This discussion thread has been about why anyone should include a photo, not why they shouldn't. Unless they want to attempt to benefit from such discrimination by having a favored appearance, which we want to discourage.

The reason people should do it today is because in some places, not including a photo would be like leaving out your name. The likely reason that custom began, which is I think what was being explained, is racism.

given that germany is the country where this custom is common, and adding that especially in germany any non-german can easily be recognized by their name alone, giving racism as the reason for that custom to develop is almost absurd.

Germany may be a country where this is common, but not the only one by a long way. And no, a German name does not tell the potential employer that your mother was a foreigner? https://us.experteer.com/magazine/should-you-put-a-photo-on-...

it doesn't, but in germany that's a small minority of cases. and even germans who would want to preferably hire other germans would not worry about that case as long as one parent is german.

you have to keep in mind that germany has a strong fear of history repeating itself and has strong laws to prevent that. so any hint of xenophobia in the hiring process could be a PR or legal nightmare for a company.

if photos on the resume would be a problem in that regard, they'd have been outlawed already.

Germany does outlaw requesting photos on a job application, so they clearly see some kind of problem with it. But attitudes today are not the ones to look at when trying to figure out why it became a common practice in the past.

yup, i noticed that. things are changing. however, i was arguing about the reason why the practice started. and i still strongly doubt that racism is the one. not that there aren't racist germans, but because with a few exceptions in germany a picture doesn't tell anything more about race that a name wouldn't already tell.

if i were to speculate for the real reason then it is whether the applicant looks presentable. german office culture is rather uptight. it is also likely that it started on the candidate side, and that people realized that including a picture would make them stand out more.

"If X was a problem it would already be outlawed" is so riddled with fallacies...

you are right. that was kind of a cheap shot. my apologies.

Positive discrimination. If you're a young, white male you can include a headshot and get a better-than-average crack at the job.

How much do you think this increases the candidate's odds?

Because of racism and sexism, so they can hire other people that look like them.

If you're REALLY naive, so you can put a face to the person. Could also be seen as a form of “authentication” i.e. to stop people from submitting multiple resumes. I personally consider that misuse far outweighs any reasonable use except for actors models and such

Culture, customs. Things are just like they are in various countries. Asking why makes little sense. Most customs can be useful in some situations and less useful, even disturbing in others.

That said if you apply for a qualified job in a foreign country you should have some familiarity with the customs of the target country, at least from reading. Otherwise working there might cause quite some difficulties for both sides.

I know what I am talking about. I knew foreign country B from being a trainee there. Later I went to its neighbor country C to work permanently. Given the fact that they are neighbor countries I assumed to know both of them. Well, there were quite some surprises...

>Asking why makes little sense.

Foucault would like a word.

Everybody here is drowning in their conspiracy theories...it's just culture.

Why do we shake hands, other than to give the other person our germs so that if I have a deadly disease the other guy will die too? Well maybe because it's just established. To show that you have respect for the other party, even that you are willing to follow customs. Calm down everyone!

"Culture" is just a set of practices and assumptions that have been internalized - talking about where they came from is anthropology/history. You can certainly have conspiracy theories in there, but you seem to have confused those with any explanation at all.

(As for shaking hands - it seems to be pretty well established that it is a way of showing that you aren't going for a weapon - https://deepenglish.com/2014/07/handshake-history-listening-...)

Probably signaling.

If you put some effort into looking nice on a photo, people think you care.

On the other hand, they will see you sooner or later anyway, so there is not much gain but time.

You get a lot of weird stuff from overseas resumes: photos, religion, gender, marital status, father's name, etc...

Overseas being not America?

Well, I'm not American...

America being the continent or the US?

Being from America the nation, obviously. I'm sure you're just being pedantic, but that is how it's used. I'm not sure why you feel a need to make a point about this.

Not trying to be pedantic, I’m still somewhat confused when I read “america” when referring to the United States of America. Reason being, everywhere outside of the US, we learn that America is the continent. People who are much less into reading forums in English, or with a high percentage of US readers, can get even more confused, specially when the context is as vague as in this specific response.

Except no one refers to "America, the continent". It's always North America, South America, The Americas, or possibly Central America (though that's not really a continent). Typically America is the nation. This is doubly true because there is really no other good term for a citizen; "United States Citizen" is verbose and somewhat clinical, and there is no such word as "United Statesian". That's part of what happens when you choose a name for a nation with more than one word.

Asking for father's name is pretty much India's equivalent of Americans asking "what's your current salary", you use it to judge the person's situation.

How does that work?

I will delete my comment if I am wrong, but I believe that is in reference to the caste system.

Isn't the applicant's own name sufficient for that? Why do they need the father's name as well?

I don't see how. Last name is same usually for both father/son, and you can't figure anything out from first name. It's almost useless information I think, except maybe differentiate between two people with same name, which is useful only for government applications I think.

In some parts of India, first names can be very lengthy, and contain lots of information, like: where you're from, your father's name, your grandfather's name, etc.

Wow, I'm an Indian, and I didn't know that. But yeah, I still dunno what can be potential use of that information in a resume. Sometimes, I think it's just because of old traditions where people introduce someone as "X son of Y from Z".

Wow. Can you share more about this? Is it due to names being stratified by income/background?

Without knowing more, this seems both easy to cheat and biased towards... people with father's with certain names?

And asking "what's your current salary?" is pretty sleazy and in many cases illegal (e.g., in New York)

Wow, I didn't realise this was the norm in Germany. In the UK, a photo would never be expected, and would seem odd if received; I assumed the rest of the EU was the same, but especially the Western-most parts.

Are there any sources you can cite on this? I've never heard of HR chucking resumes because they have a headshot of the person. If companies are that paranoid about bias, I'd think they'd go as far as to never use LinkedIn.

They may not dispose of the resume, but they may ask for a resubmission without the photo, or may black it out before passing it further into the process.

See below, there are templates without picture to chose from.

And yet, most companies readily ask for LinkedIn profile.

I think this is actually pretty rare...

While it may be true for some companies, I've never seen a company do this.

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