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From the Waters....

Tampa, FL, United States
In the late 90's, I created "The Resume Dolphin" column for the online Morrock News Digest. Thus, "the dolphin" theme continues in a new era. I'm a Tampa Bay Based Career Advisor as well as a Recruiting and Career Services professional with over 10 years of experience. I have worked while in career services and recruiting/placement to assist people in improving their job search and their marketability! With experience in recruiting and placement for Technology, Engineering, Marketing, Advertising, Sales, Finance, Allied Health and HR, I've found out much about WHAT EMPLOYERS LOOK FOR. Knowing how employers view things can help job seekers make their searches much more effective! -This blog is a way to share that info! ...And, hopefully be of help to those "navigating the waters" of the job market!

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Tales from the Resume Reef- A Picture Can Paint a Thousand Rejections


If you are thinking of putting your photo on your resume for jobs in the US, save that picture for friends and family.

Take it OFF your resume!

Over the years in my recruiting work, I've come across resumes submitted with someone's picture on them. In fact, quite recently, I spoke to a very "high end" technical professional who had sent out a resume for a year with picture on the front page. And it was only after this person was told not to do so that employers began to respond.

A decade ago, in a smaller staffing firm, I was working with graphic artists; in that field, there's a need to balance a resume's "creative touch" with basic resume information. Some would put a rendering/drawing of themselves on the resume, and I'd have to ask them to go into Quarkxpress or Pagemaker or InDesign and remove that element.

In some cultures, a picture is EXPECTED on a resume; however, that's not true in the US. In fact, it creates potential difficulties for employers: thus, they don't look at the resume at all!

Here's what a good friend in corporate recruiting told me about this. If someone puts a picture on a resume (or information about marital status, religion or age,) and isn't hired, that individual can make a case that he/she wasn't hired because of that personal information. Further, that case could become a legal one. Thus, these resumes are simply set aside so that employers don't put themselves in such a position. It's information ignored, which means your chances of getting that opportunity are null and void.

Keep the personal stuff out. Keep the pictures out.

So that you have a chance to stay "in the picture" as a viable candidate.

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