In most cases, CVs for the United Kingdom, United States and Canada should not include a photo. This is largely due to anti-discrimination regulations.
Recruiters and hiring managers are very eager to ensure they don’t make recruitment decisions based on race, age, weight, disability and other sensitive details. If you decide to include a photo on your CV, you are drawing attention to these areas that are so sensitive in recruitment. This could potentially open the door to claims of rejection due to discrimination.
Because of this, some companies in the UK, the United States and Canada instantly reject CVs that are submitted with photos.
It’s also important to note that, we’re assuming, all recruiters are not perfect. You can’t be certain that the person who reads your CV will not adopt some form of prejudice against you. Some recruiters may be unconsciously biased against you after seeing your photo.
Of course, we expect this not to be the case. But we can never be certain.
To avoid running into potential problems, simply leave your photo off your CV. For most professions in the UK, US and Canada, they are not expected or wanted.
In any case, at this stage of the application process, you don’t want recruiters to be forming an opinion on your character and personality, which is what including a photo on your CV leads to. You want to impress them with your experiences, achievements and how you can add value to their company. Adding a picture to your CV isn’t going to help you accomplish this.
There are, of course, exceptions, which we will touch on later in this guide.