Everyone knows that first impressions are important and that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. Your resume is focused on making the best possible impact on a potential employer, so job seekers might be tempted to include a picture of yourself to give them a good idea of who you are. This blog will discuss acceptable ways to handle your photograph on your professional resume.
When to Include a Resume Photograph
Your resume gives a future employer an overview of your professional skills, work experience, and qualifications in your job application. In most cases, what you look like has nothing to do with your capability to do the job. Appropriate reasons for including a head shot on your resume are usually limited to resumes of actors and models because their look is decidedly their most important feature to get hired. Keep this in my when creating a resume.
That said, sometimes an employer may be looking for salespeople, public relations representatives or other positions that openly deal with the public, so they want to attain people who have a certain look. Specifically, one that is attractive, seems to be welcoming, and looks trustworthy. In this case, employers likely judge you based on what the public will think when they see you.
If you feel your prospective employer is looking for someone as described above, you can include on your resume your Linkedin profile URL and/or a link to your personal website. You can also attach your business card to the resume. They will see your headshot by accessing this information.
Professional headshots are used frequently, so it is important to have yours on hand for easy distribution. Some examples of where you might want to include your headshot include
· social media profiles
· any job networking sites
· email accounts
· an “About Us” page
· business cards
Make sure that you keep your headshot updated so that it accurately shows what you currently look like. An updated photograph every two years is considered acceptable. It’s important to use a professional photographer as digital photography is considered optimum. Other considerations include choices that will make you look more professional, such as black and white photographs, options a professional photographer will recommend.
When Not to Include a Resume Photograph
Generally, according to U.S. standards there is agreement among employers that photographs on a resume are not considered appropriate. A few reasons for this opinion include the following.
First is bias: in the US discrimination is illegal. This includes gender, race, age, or any other feature that can be viewed in your photo. Not including your photograph can eliminate any potential biases and help to create that important good first impression.
Second, you will make a much better first impression when the prospective employer sees you in person instead of on a piece of paper.
Third, your resume should be no longer than a single page in length, so you want to make it look clean and uncluttered. Placing a photograph on a single page can take up a lot of valuable space. Instead, this valuable space can be used to maximize your abilities and qualifications.
Fourth, if an employer is interested, they will do an online search where any of your photographs will appear, which makes it unnecessary to include them on your polished resume.
Fifth, if a recruiter or hiring manager sees a photograph, they tend to remove it before forwarding it to the appropriate department. Applicant tracking systems also get confused and do not forward resumes with photographs in them.
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