Should You Put a Photo on Your Resume?
The short answer: If you're applying in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, or Australia — no. Leave it off. A photo gives the reviewer age, race, and gender before they read a word, which is exactly what employers in those markets are trying to keep out of the file, and some recruiting teams set photo resumes aside on sight. In much of continental Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia and the Middle East, a photo is standard and leaving it out looks incomplete. The market decides, not your preference.
This question comes up because resume templates keep shipping with a circular photo slot in the corner, and because it feels like adding a face should make you more human to a stranger. In the wrong market, it does the opposite: it makes you a file the employer would rather not have.
Where a photo hurts
In the United States, hiring is governed by anti-discrimination law, and the practical consequence for you is this: a recruiter reviewing an application with a photo attached now holds protected-characteristic information they didn't ask for. If that candidate is rejected and later complains, the photo sits in the file. Employers avoid this, which is why some organizations tell recruiters to discard or redact resumes that arrive with one. The UK, Ireland, Canada, and Australia land in the same place for similar reasons.
None of this is a judgment on your photo. You can be immensely photogenic and still have your application quietly moved out of the pile — and you'll never be told that's why. That asymmetry is the whole argument: including a photo has a small upside and a silent, unrecoverable downside.
There's a mechanical cost too. Applicant tracking systems read text, and an image contributes nothing they can index, while photo-slot templates usually put it in a header or sidebar — two of the layout patterns that parse worst. The photo also eats prime real estate: the top-left corner is the most-read region of the page, and it should carry your name, title, and the line that makes someone keep reading.
✗ Photo in the top-left, name beside it in a sidebar column, experience squeezed into a narrow right column.
✓ Name, target title, one contact line, then straight into experience — full page width, nothing decorative above the fold.
Where a photo is expected
The no-photo rule is regional, not universal. In much of continental Europe — Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and others — plus many Latin American, Asian, and Middle Eastern markets, a photo on the CV is conventional, and some employers still expect a fairly formal one. Norms are shifting in a few of these places, and some large multinationals apply a global no-photo policy regardless of country, so the reliable move is to check the specific employer and country rather than assume either way. Where a photo is standard, omitting it can read as an incomplete application.
If you're applying into one of those markets, keep it plain and current: a recent headshot, neutral background, business dress matching the field, head and shoulders, well-lit, and placed near the header without crowding out your contact details. No holiday cropping, no sunglasses, no group photo with someone's arm still in frame. And note that the document is often a CV rather than a resume, with different conventions about length and personal details attached.
The real exceptions, and the near-misses
Acting, modeling, on-camera presenting, and some performance work are genuine exceptions — appearance is part of the job. Even there, the photo travels the way the industry expects it to: a proper headshot or comp card alongside the resume, in the format casting asks for, not pasted into a document corner.
Everything else that feels like an exception usually isn't. Customer-facing sales, hospitality, real estate, and fitness roles come up often — but in a no-photo market, none of them change the answer. The one clean rule: include a photo when the employer explicitly asks, or when their own application form has an upload field for it. If nobody asked, don't.
Two adjacent things people conflate with this. Your LinkedIn profile should absolutely have a photo — it's a networking surface, not an application document, and a profile without one looks abandoned. And a personal website or portfolio can carry a photo freely, which is often the best of both: the resume stays plain, and anyone curious can click through, exactly as designers handle the portfolio link.
What to do with the space instead
The photo slot is roughly a square inch and a half of the highest-value area on the page. Fill it with something a reviewer can act on: a target job title under your name, a two-line summary that says what you do and at what scale, a credential block if your field gates on one, or a portfolio URL. If you're using a template with a built-in photo frame, delete the frame rather than leaving a placeholder — and while you're in there, check that removing it didn't leave you with an empty sidebar column that parses badly anyway.
No photo slot, no sidebar traps. PlainResume's templates are built to parse cleanly and put your name and title where they belong. Free, no sign-up, no paywall on the PDF — everything stays in your browser.
Build your resume free →Frequently asked questions
Should you put a photo on a resume?
In the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, and Australia, no. In much of Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia and the Middle East, it's conventional. Follow the market.
Why do US employers not want one?
It puts protected-characteristic information in the file before the first bullet is read, which employers avoid — and it adds nothing an applicant tracking system can parse.
Which jobs are real exceptions?
Acting, modeling, and on-camera work — and even there it's a proper headshot or comp card, not a photo pasted into the resume corner.