A New Technique for Getting Your Resume Noticed
In the last few months I’ve reviewed dozens and dozens resumes for potential developer candidates. After awhile, they start to get blurry and blend together. I don’t want to miss good candidates, so I only review a handful at a time in order to stay fresh.
But, not all hiring managers might be as conscientious as I am, so this is pretty bad for the candidates: they want to get noticed, but they’re blending in. In today’s job market, that’s not what a candidate needs.
Today, I saw a new technique for getting your resume noticed. Something I’ve never seen before, so elegant and simple…literally anybody and everybody could do this and improve their resume in a matter of minutes.
The candidate included a picture of himself.
As you can see from the image below (which is actual size) it was just a small head-shot taken with a digital camera. Nothing fancy or garish.
In fact, the rest of his resume was pretty ordinary and tedious. Yet, the impact of that photo was immediate and powerful.
Automatically, the picture caused me to form a personal connection with this candidate. For better or worse, in my mind, I could look at his face and imagine what it might be like to work with him.
In the end, from a set of 30 resumes, his was one of 8 that were selected for the next phase in our interview process. But, it wasn’t his pretty face that was the deciding factor; he was a very qualified candidate who would have passed our screening regardless.
There’s a counter-argument: wouldn’t it be awful to be judged by your photo in the blink of an eye? Yes, it would be, but I think the gains out weigh the risk. To me, personal connections are priceless, so the value of the image is entirely worth it.
I am reminded of how Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the power of first impressions in his book Blink. The core assertion of Gladwell’s book is that:
There are lots of situations…when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world.
This candidate was able to tap into the power of first impressions by using the simple feature of Microsoft Word that allows an author to embed an image into a document. As a result, he strengthened personal connection, and increased his chance of being hired.
Interesting that this worked for you. Runs counter to the traditional resume wisdom that says “thou shalt never include thine photo if thou wishes thine resume not to end up in the trash.”
JustinS
23 Jun 10 at 9:45 am
I think it’s pretty creepy and would probably be turned off by the photo!
It’s an opinionated way to apply for jobs – some employers are going to throw your resume away the moment they see the photo, others (like you apparently) like it.
Galen
23 Jun 10 at 9:57 am
Justin makes a good point. But the old rules were made at a time when people didn’t have profiles (with pictures) all over the web. Scott, maybe the image resonated with you more because you are more accustomed to using Web 2.0 tools.
I think this brings up an important thought about resumes 2.0. If you know the company is more tech savvy, go with a resume that has that “profile” feel. If you are applying to a company that isn’t savvy, stick with the old rules.
Mary-Lynn
23 Jun 10 at 10:01 am
a LOT of small startups are looking for culture-fit (and disqualify folks based on lack of it). If your photo makes you LOOK like a good fit, it might be worth a shot.
Also, I read about a study that showed that the more you look like someone, the more they implicitly trust you. If you’re a hispanic guy with a goatee and you know the guy picking through the resume is ALSO a hispanic guy with a goatee, might be worth a shot.
One note: At BigCo, people are wary of knowing age/gender of applicants due to legal concerns.
Tony Wright
23 Jun 10 at 10:04 am
You make a great point, Scott, and I think more and more resumes will become profile-like and even interactive (e.g., VisualCV). Many industries have used headshots for business, such as real estate and insurance. Why not IT professionals?
Veronica Sopher
23 Jun 10 at 10:16 am
While we all make note and piece those things together while interviewing or reading a resume (year graduated / years of experience / etc), I would definitely leave off age/sex/race/orientation, as any company with an HR professional or a recruiter won’t want to risk the liability of explicitly having that knowledge.
Also, in regards to photos, this was a big topic of discussion a few years back, when LinkedIn turned on profile photos. Prior to that, they had always held strong that photos had no place in a professional network. A lot of people (mainly women and minorities) agreed.
http://www.brazencareerist.com/2009/11/05/your-linkedin-profile-picture-maybe-killing-your-job-prospects
http://blog.linkedin.com/2007/09/27/a-pictures-wort/
http://www.mnheadhunter.com/mh/2009/08/poll-should-everyone-have-a-photo-on-their-linkedin-profile.html
http://www.centernetworks.com/linkedin-photos-good-or-bad
Daryn
23 Jun 10 at 10:27 am
In some countries, it’s very common to include your picture on your resume. If I would take a guess, I’d say this guy was not born in the US.
Marcelo Calbucci
23 Jun 10 at 10:43 am
I like the use of the photo. Job hunting is like PR – the first step is getting noticed. I’ve been on the job hunt for a couple of weeks and would love to have the attention of hiring managers, even if it means alienating a percentage who don’t like the picture idea.
I think the photo also works because we take visual cues from photos. Our brain matches up facial expressions and poses then scours our memory bank. I see the picture above and I see someone who is nice, honest, comfortable enough in his own skin to post a picture, and knows how to smile. Probably not a psycho, a good start.
There is definitely a risk though. The HR director could be negatively triggered by the photo. “That dude looks like the guy ran into my car last week, no way that guy’s working here.” Humans aren’t 100% rational beings.
My personal approach will be to do some testing with the picture. One out of five will carry my picture and if I get a “hit” from a photo (email inquiry or interview) then I’ll crank up the ratio to one out of four.
@JesseLuna
23 Jun 10 at 10:51 am
When I was looking through resumes, I thought of Blink as well, although I came to a different conclusion. I was thinking of how orchestras generally didn’t have any women performers until they started auditioning behind a screen, based solely on the quality of their musical ability, not what they looked like.
I was thinking of a resume processing service that would anonymize the names of the candidates, so the immediate cultural/gender impressions of getting resumes from candidates named Jane, Venkatesh, and Steve would be removed from the initial review. Only after seeing (and presumably accepting) the relevant experience and education would you see the candidate’s name.
Martin Cron
23 Jun 10 at 10:56 am
IMO, putting your face on your resume is sort of like riding a Segway.
It may make sense, but it makes you look ________ (insert not politically correct descriptor of a really dumb person making an ass of themself)
Dave Schappell
23 Jun 10 at 11:16 am
I’m not a fan of adding photos on resumes, although if it fits with the culture — I guess it’s fine for you. I wouldn’t want facial preferences to be one of the deciding factors in whether someone puts me in the next round. Although, in the end — companies are going to find your Linkedin, Facebook or website and see who you’re all about anyways so you can’t hide from showing your face.
Obvious better ways to get noticed is a letter of recommendation from a mutual contact (referral), or even being an active member in the Cheezburger Network — what better person to join the team, than a person excited about the product already. Just my two cents.
Joseph Sunga
23 Jun 10 at 11:23 am
beat this,
“Since I am applying for a Unix job, please note I have no interest in working with: Visual Basic, C#, F#, LINQ, SilverLight, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft OS’s or any other type of inferior rubbish not specified in the ad, hence if that is what you are after, please don’t waist my time. Additionally, since I am expected to complete a series of aptitude tests, then so are you.
Please note that me passing all of your exams does not imply you will pass mine. Thank you very much.”
robocock
23 Jun 10 at 11:43 am
At my company the HR department filters out all resumes that have photos and we never even see them. They are trying to keep us from forming opinions based ethnicity, gender, etc. Kind of pointless since most names and education histories will leak that information anyway.
John
23 Jun 10 at 11:56 am
It’s kinda weird for me to read this. In Germany, it is considered normal to include your picture in a resumé
Marc
23 Jun 10 at 1:48 pm
In Sweden it’s more or less standard that all candidates have a picture of them in the resumé. I would personally not take a CV serious without one, actually.
Anton
23 Jun 10 at 2:14 pm
It’s pretty common in Argentina, too…
Alan
23 Jun 10 at 2:56 pm
I remember seeing Moo cards for the first time and thinking how cool it was that they included Flickr (or other social network) profile photos on them. It was a great little bonus to folks who had an avatar picture on them that they used everywhere on the Internet, as if saying, “when you see me on the net or IRL, this is basically what I look like.” Photos are extremely helpful for remembering that person that you’ve just met.
I remember juxtaposing that with the only other business cards I’d ever seen with photos on them, those from real estate agents. Real estate agent’s business cards always have a hyper-idealized photo of the agent that smacks of a bit of smarminess, whereas Moo card avatar images don’t.
I suppose that this is a really long way of saying, there’s a right and wrong way to do this. Thankfully for your candidate, he did it the right way.
randy stewart
23 Jun 10 at 4:54 pm
[...] comments The feedback in comments and on Hacker News to yesterday’s post about getting your resume noticed was really [...]
Getting Your Resume Noticed vs. Hiring the Best Candidate at Scott Porad
24 Jun 10 at 8:43 am
Do resumes matter all that much? I’d rather look at code samples, open source contributions, github accounts, etc for developer hires. Especially when hiring for a startup.
Karthik
24 Jun 10 at 11:35 am
Resumes I used to get from Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and maybe a couple other countries would have all sorts of extraneous (at least to my American eyes) info on them: gender, age, marital status, blood type, and sometimes photograph.
That is, before I stopped accepting resumes nearly ten years ago. These days, I won’t look at a resume until the candidate has been shortlisted through other means. I’m convinced that the “typical” recruitment process is deeply flawed. It’s guaranteed to deliver a choice that is typically middling to bad in the range of actual applicants.
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24 Jun 10 at 11:02 pm
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