It’s
standard human behaviour for people to judge each other from what they look
like and employers are no exception to this.
It doesn’t help that many people who add a picture to their CV, add one
which they think they look particularly adventurous/glamorous/interesting which
only adds to further judgement or rash and inappropriate interpretations of
your character.
In
reviewing a CV, clients typically want to know where you work, how long you
have worked there, what your skills are, what accounts or clients you have
worked on. That’s what is important in
terms of whether you can do the job and whether you deserve a first
interview. It’s more important to spend
your time toning up the CV in terms of describing what you do and what you’re
looking for, rather than spending time
on selecting the photo which you think best represents you and your character.
This
topic can also extend to the use of ‘interesting’ templates, non standard fonts
etc, In particular, for a creative, a prospective employer is interested in
your creative portfolio, not how fancy schmancy you can make your CV.
Also
I’ve seen some very special CVs in my time with adornments ranging from
outlandish fonts to hidous clip art. In
summary, my advice is to keep it simple, the purpose of a CV is to inform the
employer what your skills are and whether you are a suitable candidate for the
role. I understand the argument about
making it stand out but adding any element of subjective judgement to this
equation can go either way and in my experience, it’s best to let your skills
and experience do the talking.
NB:
Don’t
get me started on interests and hobbies…. It’s not really worthy of it’s own
blog post but seriously think about the skills and interests which will help
your application. Grade 1 violin is an
achievement at the age of 8 but a red herring when you hit 35. This area is full of subjectivity and
prejudice, my best advice is to keep it brief and neutral…