The Resumé

Yesterday I was updating my Curriculum Vitae (i.e. Resumé for American speaking people), updating all that kind of irrelevant information that seems to be relevant only at the time of showing the CV to a new employer or else.

I was told that it is the standard in American CV not to put the date of birth and I was told is for avoiding discrimination that could come linked with age, dodgy to say the least.

Anyway, I also realized that in most cases an update picture is not normally included in this particular kind of documents, and, I am guessing here, for the same reasons (discrimination) age is not included. So, where is the line? it could be argued that profesional qualifications shouldn't be added because that will bias the employer in a clear extent (in fact it happened to few years ago; I was "overqualify" for a particular job and I wasn't hired because the company realized that a less qualify bloke was cheaper)... What about your name? Perhaps the company does not like some ethnic group so your chances are slim because your name is Pedro or Muhamad? Gender is out of question; it is in fact the most recurrent issue in term of discrimination in human societies.

So my suggestion: next time when your CV is requested you could send 6 or 7 A4 pages neatly stapled in utter white! (an electronic file pdf or Word can also be prepared for printing purposes).