Guides
Should you put a photo on your CV?
It depends entirely on where you are applying. A country-by-country answer, and what to do when you are not sure.
Updated August 15, 20264 min read
There is no universal rule, only local convention — and getting the convention wrong is one of the few CV mistakes that gets noticed before anybody reads a word you wrote.
Where a photo is expected
- Germany, Austria and Switzerland. A photo is close to standard, and a CV without one can look incomplete. It should be a proper headshot, not a cropped holiday picture.
- Spain, Portugal and much of southern Europe. Common and unremarkable.
- Parts of Asia and the Middle East, where a photo is often requested explicitly.
Where a photo is usually left off
- The UK and Ireland. Not forbidden, but unusual, and some recruiters will ask you to remove it.
- The United States and Canada. Actively avoided. Employers there are wary of holding material that could support a discrimination claim, and some applicant tracking systems strip images anyway.
- Australia and New Zealand, where the convention follows the UK.
If you do include one
- Plain background, even lighting, no sunglasses, no other people.
- Dress roughly one step smarter than the role you are applying for.
- Head and shoulders, looking at the camera, taken in the last couple of years.
- Keep it small. It is a detail on the page, not the headline.
Every template on this site can show or hide a photo, and switching between them changes nothing else on the page — so you can keep one CV and export it both ways depending on where it is going.