Should You Put a Photo on Your Resume in the US?

Short answer: no, don't put a photo on a resume for a US job application. This is one of the few resume questions with a genuinely clear-cut answer, and it surprises a lot of people who've seen photo-inclusive resume templates online or come from a country where photos are standard. Here's the actual reasoning, not just the rule.

Why US employers don't want a photo

It comes down to hiring law, not aesthetics. US employment law — enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — prohibits hiring decisions based on race, age, gender, and several other protected characteristics. A photo makes several of those instantly visible before a hiring manager has read a single qualification, which creates legal exposure for the employer even if no bias was intended. Many companies' HR and legal teams instruct recruiters to disregard, or even discard, any resume with a photo for exactly this reason.

The practical effect: including a photo doesn't help you stand out in the US market — it can actively work against you, either by triggering an unconscious bias risk the recruiter would rather avoid entirely, or by making your resume look like it wasn't written for a US audience.

What to do instead

Use the space a photo would have taken for something that actually helps you get hired — see our guide on what makes a resume stand out for what earns that real estate instead. A resume header without a photo typically has room for your name, target title, and contact info on one or two clean lines; check our skills to include if you're looking for something more valuable to fill that space with.

The exceptions

A short list of cases where a photo is normal or expected in the US, too:

• Acting, modeling, and on-camera roles — here a headshot is a work sample, not decoration, and goes on a separate document anyway, not the resume itself.
• A personal branding choice on a portfolio site, separate from the resume file you submit through an applicant tracking system.

Outside those, the rule holds for essentially every professional application — corporate, healthcare, education, trades, tech.

If you're applying internationally

This is genuinely a US-specific norm, not a universal one. If you're applying to roles in much of continental Europe, parts of Asia, or Latin America, a photo is customary and sometimes expected — leaving it off there can occasionally read as incomplete rather than professional. The rule of thumb: match the country's hiring convention, not your own. If you're building resumes for both US and international applications, keep two versions rather than trying to make one resume serve both norms — our resume builder makes it easy to keep a photo-free US version and a photo version side by side without rebuilding from scratch.

What about the profile photo on LinkedIn?

Different rule entirely — LinkedIn photos are standard and expected in the US too. The resume-photo rule is about the document that goes directly into an applicant tracking system and a hiring file; a professional headshot on your public LinkedIn profile is normal practice everywhere, US included.

Frequently asked questions

Will a resume with a photo get automatically rejected in the US? Rarely rejected outright, but it can quietly work against you — some companies' screening processes flag or discard photo resumes specifically to avoid bias liability, and it signals unfamiliarity with US norms even when it doesn't.

Does this apply to a resume submitted through an online portal? Yes, and it matters more there — the file usually goes straight into a database an ATS parses, exactly the systems our ATS-friendly resume guide covers, and a photo adds nothing to that parsing process.

What if the photo is a company logo instead of my face? That's fine — a small, tasteful company logo next to a former employer's name in your experience section is a design choice, not the same issue. The rule is specifically about a photo of the applicant.

Should a video resume include my face? Video resumes are a separate, less common format with different norms and are usually explicitly requested by the employer — not a substitute for the standard written resume this guide covers.