I’m about to do it again! I’m about to go against a popular CV writing rule that most jobseekers have been following to their disadvantage. Earlier in life, I discovered that most of the things we believe are mere opinions of others and most are not based on sound principles. An example is that of inclusion of picture in CVs.

CV writing experts have been screaming, “Avoid attaching your picture to your CV!” Of course, they have their reasons. One of them is that employers would discriminate on the basis of the applicant’s age, race, sex, and so on.

And according to Wikipedia, in a standard British CV, photos are not required at all, unless requested. But then, they added, “modern CVs are more flexible.”

Now, guess what the CV writing experts did? They shot themselves in the foot by making a 360 degree turn to say you can attach your picture to your CV if you are applying for a job where physical traits are very important, for example, modeling, acting, and so on.

Confusion, right? Yep! So, what’s my take on this? Of course, you saw it in my title — tap the power of picture to enhance your CV’s effectiveness; plaster your attractive picture right in your CV header.

Hey! Before you chew me up, let me quickly tell you why. Pictures have tremendous power. Forget about age, colour, race, sex, or whatever. We’re talking about taking advantage of recruiters’ emotion based on principle. In case you don’t know, employers read CVs based on emotion and later justify with logic.

Listen up, it is a well-known fact that individuals perceived to be attractive are also perceived to be intelligent, responsible, amiable, and trustworthy and they tend to have a powerful force that attracts people to them.

To prove, Robert T. Kiyosaki writes, “An investigative TV program recently sent in very attractive job applicants and unattractive job applicants with exactly the same qualifications on the résumés to interview for the same jobs. It was interesting to note that the attractive applicants got more job offers than the unattractive ones.”

And according to studies by D. Byrne, O. London, K. Reeves, as far strangers are concerned, individuals perceived as deficient in physical attractiveness are undesirable for any kind of an interpersonal relationship.

Hello! Grab the point?

Now, for all my talk about the power of including your picture in your CV, it must not be forgotten that the picture must be attractive. It should convey the right mood — the kind that is suitable for the position you’re applying for. In fact, it is better to leave out your picture if it is unattractive.

As you can see, including your picture in your CV works powerfully, so don’t send out a faceless CV unless it’s going to work against you.

When done well, you can increase the response rate of your CV and the problem you will face all day is which interview you’ll choose to attend to while others keep going through the stress of looking for job. So update your CV with your picture today!

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