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Would you bring your kid to the job interview? Being able to separate your work and family life is important to productivity.

It's not discrimination, it's that the author lacks professional boundaries.

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Why is showing your child a professional boundary? Different phases of life necessitate different accomodations.

This person is advertising their priorities upfront. Startups might see it as a weakness. Established companies might see it as a sign of stability.

LinkedIn is a historical anomaly anyways. It's generally considered bad form to include any photo on a technical resume.

> It's generally considered bad form to include any photo on a technical resume.

This varies culture by culture, in much of Asia it's standard to include a head/shoulders shot photo with a CV.

Same goes for Germany. Companies may not ask for one by law, but its considered good form by most (through some progressive companies are starting to ask you not to send one).

Yeah, ditto for Estonia - when I was screening resumes I was shocked to see that everyone was including an (unsolicited) headshot... also many people would write their age too and even sometime their marital status.

What could the possible justification be to prefer a photo be included, besides discrimination?

For one it's a bit of a cultural standard - like appearing in a suit for the interview; it doesn't show your qualification, but it shows basic etiquette (it's no longer as usual as it used to be and not the best example, but I think it gets the point across). Also, an image helps you form a more personal connection to a person.

But I'm not a recruiter myself, so take that with a grain of salt.

I think that ‘personal connection’ is a easy way towards discrimination, just like ‘cultural fit’.

Humans are naturally more inclined to feel a connection to people who are in their same group.

Some societies believe it is acceptable to judge people based on their appearance. Arguably, most people do it instinctively. It is just that in America it was deemed illegal. I know there's an epidemic of plastic surgery taking place in some Asian cultures - people getting cosmetic surgery so that they can be employable.

Right or wrong, that is how some societies are functioning.

Sure, it is, and that's why you may not require one. But I can see why people would want that, even with no malicious intention, which was your question :)

Wait a minute how is this even a question? I have interviewed (and taken interviews) during the covid and had kids walk in (both sides). Not only was this totally ok, I actually had the candidates take time off during the interview to take care of their kid and given extra time at the end or even helped with rescheduling or given them the benefit of the doubts.

Yes typically you wouldnt bring your child to your "real-world" interview but if I had parent struggling to find day care during interviews I'd be more than happy to accommodate (as long as it was legally ok etc). We are living in crazy times and to project the illusion that professionally everything is ok is disingenuous and highly unhealthy.

Honestly I wish I could bring a kid to work on a regular basis. Before Covid I brought my dog to work every day. Provided the kid is well behaved, why can’t I bring a kid everyday?

That's a pretty big inferential leap to make from a single picture. I wonder what you would make of my refusal to post pictures anywhere. "Candidate is hiding something," perhaps?

Anything to shrink the resume pile.

I don’t think it means he’s going to bring his kid into work.

An avatar photo on the world's shittiest Facebook clone is not "a lack of professional boundaries". Or do you scoff at coworkers who put up photos of their kids at their desk, too?

LinkedIn is clearly aimed at the professional world and recruiters are arguably using it as a professional tool.

Putting you child into your profile picture is more akin to bringing it to the interview.

This implies that recruiters set the order and people using a tool should oblige the recruiters.

There are LinkedIn users who use it to just keep in contact with people they have worked with, don't accept recruiter contact requests and so forth (I am not one of those people, but I have seen their periodic articles on how they use LinkedIn, and also I know one guy who is basically like that - he has some recruiters but only the ones he actually worked with)

At any rate dependent on your job putting your child into your profile picture might not be a problem for the normally understood parameters of that job, as for me it wouldn't affect my view of the person's suitability for any position I can think of but then I tend to be more on the lax spectrum of social requirements and etiquette.

I think your username is going to be more of a challenge than the photo of your kid.

Nope

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