Why You Don’t Need Photo In Your Resume

“Application for the job vacancy must be submitted together with a passport sized photo…”

This is a common phrase that usually comes together with many of the job advertisements. If my observation is correct, more than 85% of the job adverts in the major newspapers in the country requested the candidate to accompany their resume together with a photo.

This is where they get it all wrong. Here are two reasons why you don’t need photo in your resume:

1. It’s not how you look, but it is how you do your job that matters.

Unless you’re applying for weather girl’s job, newscaster, actor, model, product ambassador and the likes, then your look will play little or no role in determining whether you can do your job or not. Instead, the 3 deciding factors are 1 – qualification, 2 – skills and 3 – work experience, and packaged together with the right personality and interpersonal capability. You meet 2 or more requirements, you are on your way for a flourishing career.

Once I was arranging a job interview between a candidate and a hiring manager for a logistic company. The candidate’s resume came with a smart looking photo but the guy looked a bit plump in the shot. After screening the resume, the manager called me up and asked, “Is this guy fat? Because if he is fat, I am not going to interview him! I don’t want any fat person in my department.” If I had recorded the conversation, the HR Manager would have soon find himself out of the job in no time.

2. Look what happens to your photo.

I hope this will be an obvious reason why you should keep your photo with you rather than giving it away unnecessarily. Recently, our recruitment team was doing a housekeeping, clearing hardcopy resumes from the desk and cabinets which were years old long.

It so happened that many of the resumes came with their photos attached, and they were all destined for dustbin. However, rather than dumping them all, I collected a number of them, to remind me of my work in the recruitment world. Those photos you see above are just some of them.

Does this mean that I do not need to put my photo, even if I look like Prince William and Halle Berry combined?

It’s up to you. If you have a good photo that reflects a professional outlook, by all means do it. Otherwise, leave it out.

Other posts you may want to read:

1. Resume Pitfalls – Don’ts!
2. 5 Common Types of Job Interviews
3. The Professional Resume and The Interview Trio
4. How to Write a Good Resume
5. References In Your Resume
6. 3 Different Formats of Resume
7. The Wrong Way To Advertise Job Vacancy
8. 10 Useful Websites for Free Resume Samples

Author's bio: Zul is the founder and principal contributor for the SKOR Career blog. He is the author of two books, The Malaysian Job Seeker's Dilemma and Buat Duit Tanpa Kerja Makan Gaji (How to Make Money Without a Job), available in major book stores nationwide. You can reach him at zulkiflimusa[at]gmail.com.