You’d get exactly the same response in the UK. (Or should do.) A picture makes those short-listing vulnerable to accusations of discrimination, whether by race, looks, height, age, disability, whatever. Some of these are illegal, some against company policy. Those short-listing just don’t need this extra hassle so a photograph would be unwelcome.
It’s also likely to make you look either weird or vain.
Well, that’s not quite what I meant. They shouldn’t be racists at all, and shouldn’t be racists trying to hide it. But the fact of life is that some people are racist and will refuse to hire the most qualified person on the planet if that person is also black/Jewish/female/whatever. I just meant that an employer can refuse to hire you for any reason inside his head but it’s quite possible that you will never know it as long as he keeps his mouth shut.
There are certain types of jobs or contracts here too that are earmarked for minorities or women, for example. And many companies will make an active effort to hire them either to make it harder to sue for discrimination, or to make themselves seem more friendly to diverse groups of people. Or because they just want the best people for the job!
Why would you presume that someone is telling you their race?
Are you that bothered about the race of a person you might hire?
“CV”??
That’s not true, is it? I thought this was specifically prohibited (in California at least) by anti-discrimination laws.
At the time that they first look at your resume, they don’t care what you look like. They want to see the right words on the page.
Next time they look at it, you’ll be in the room, so they can see your face then if they want to.
If you don’t make enough of an impression on them at the interview that they remember what you look like, a picture won’t help, because they’re never going to look at your resume again.
Nah, I realise you were being a bit tongue in cheek, but a photo would be unusual in the U.K. too, and even if we DO tend to follow U.S. 
trends, I’m thinking of over 25 years ago - it jsut serves no puprose unless acting/modelling etc. And I have always felt that the only thing a photo is likely to show is racial, ethnic or even general good-looking vs. ugly or whatever characterstics. It doesn’t show anything much about general tidiness or mode of dress becasue anyone can put on a good face for the time it takes to have a photo taken.
As for the O.P.'s reference to current technology, well, wouldn’t that tend to make a photo rather less trustworthy than more? I mean, in the days when you could only put a photo on a C.V./resumé by photocopying it, there wasn’t teh same room for deception (oops, “creativity” 
) as is now offered by Photoshop and similar toys.
Ah, two nations divided by a common language, sort of thing.
“C.V.” or “curruculum vitae” is U.K.-speak for resumé.
…only, of course, when I’m not typing with the sun in my eyes, it is spelled “curriculum vitae”.
oops.
Handsomeness isn’t a protected class. I don’t see anything in that article that addresses this anyway; am I missing it? It seems to discuss questions that are ill-advised to ask, which have to do with the person’s belonging to a protected class.
For the record, it’s not illegal to ask someone “Are you American?” or “Do you have children?” - it’s only illegal to discriminate based upon those answers. But, since it’s very hard for an employer to prove that he asked the questions but didn’t base his hiring on the answers, they just don’t ask the questions in the first place.
Do not put your picture on your resume. It can be okay on a CV sometimes, especially if you’re well-known or if you’re applying for work that puts you out in front of people (spokesman, model, etc.), but not on a resume.
I have reviewed many hundreds of resumes, mostly for technical people, and I’ve never seen a picture on one of them. The picture would make you appear vain. Also, as others mentioned, I usually obscured the names and any information that might reveal gender, marital status, or ethnicity when I circulated resumes for others to look at. I’d just end up removing the picture anyway.
Actually, it’s fine to hire only American citizens - at least it was when I was hiring in the 80s and 90s. I specifically checked on the legality, because we had certain positions we wanted only U.S. citizens in.
It is definitely illegal to hire (or not hire) based on whether someone has children.
For certain positions, it may well be that a person must be a U.S. citizen. There are relatively few of those types of jobs, mostly having to do with sensitive security projects or possibly government contracts in which the person would be working on a military installation. (There could be more, but overall, there are very few jobs that require the employee be a U.S. citizen.) For the great majority of jobs, the only requirement is that the person be legally allowed to work in the U.S. It doesn’t matter if that’s because they are citizens or have a green card or the proper visa.
it is definitely illegal to hire based on whether a person has children - but it’s not actually illegal to ask them if they have children. It’s just illegal to base the hiring on the answer. So, most employers don’t ask at all.
Now that I think about it more closely, “children” are not a protected class either under federal labor regulations. However, sex is. Asking someone if she has children is lumped under the laws against sex discrimination. Or, it could be a way of finding out someone’s religion - lots of children might equal Catholic. But “children” by itself isn’t protected.
The federal protected classes are: age (if over 40), race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and disability. Some states expand their own discrimination laws to include marital status or other factors.
“Children” is a protected class under the Federal Fair Housing Act; a person cannot refuse to rent to someone who has children except under a few exceptions.
Maybe I’m missing something, but aren’t *resume * and *CV * just two ways of saying the same thing?
In the U.S., a CV is often longer and lists all the persons publications and research projects, as well as employment. It is the format often used in academia. A resume is usually a lot shorter - one or maybe two pages - and more focused on just the person’s education and employment. In academia, it’s not uncommon for a CV to be 10 pages long but a resume would be the “normal” length. Someone applying for a professorship is almost certainly going to be asked to provide a CV - not a resume.
However, many people use the term interchangeably. I believe Europeans use the term CV even to mean what we would normally call a resume.
Either you are very young, very sheltered, or are just trying to think that people always have the best motives. I envy you. 
Like Paul in Saudi said, it’s how you tell them you are white now that you cannot include it on the job application.
When I am unemployed I sometimes find work through temporary agencies. It’s a technical field so most companies don’t much care what your race is, how presentable you are, or how well you interview but one agency always had me drive thirty miles through Chicago traffic so I could drop off my resume and meet with my [del]pimp[/del] agent for about three minutes. At first I called it an “Is he white?” interview. The third time I called it my “Is he still white?” interview.
As for the reason the Germans and Dutch insist on picture, I presume it is for the same reason, or at least started out that way.
Don’t know about minorities in the Netherlands but in Germany the photograph would be superfluous for purposes of ethnic discrimination - if you are a racist you just need to look at the first name. I suspect it’s mainly lookism - a sales rep visiting farmers must look the part (solid, not too young), a sales rep selling to fashion stores must look the part too, someone for a stressful job must not carry too much weight, a receptionist mustn’t be a Gorgon, etc.
Or D - none of the above. It seems to me quite plausable that someone is trying to say, “Hi, I’m white.” However, if someone presumes that is the motivation and says that that behaviour is inoffensive to them, doesn’t that suggest more about the predispositions of the recipient?
If someone sent me a pic on a CV, I might suspect them of trying to win points by being of a certain race though I would consider other motives.
I would never say that it is an inoffensive or acceptable way of telling me this applicant is white as trying to win a job on those grounds would offend me based on the racism of the individual and what I would perceive as an implied insult that I might share their racist views.
Picture the scene: White Dutch applicant wins job from American employer having posted a pic with CV. Thinking that the applicant was reassuring his prospective employer that he was white, the employer remarks: “Smart move, using the pic so I knew you were white.”
I’m guessing that you would be likely to have one very pissed off Dutch applicant with a very low opinion of his new boss.
And if I recall correctly, the French word résumé means “summary” and has nothing to do with employment documentation… the French use only the term CV. So it’s anyone’s guess how résumé ever came to be synonymous with CV… I suppose at some time in history, someone wanting just the summary of a CV requested a résumé, and a false cognate was born.
Yes, I’ve always heard to write a resume to apply for a job, but to write a CV to apply for something academic, like a scholarship or bursary,
In the UK (or anywhere else, for that matter), what do you call the written-up academic history you’d send in with a scholarship application?