[MandieD]

It's still the usual way of things in Germany. You bet I had a nice professional photo taken. You list not only your birth date, but birthplace and marital/family status.

Job-hunting as a married-but-childless 30 year old woman here is awesome. Not. When I was stupid enough to make the whole "why do we list our family status on our resumes" thing a point of smalltalk towards the end of one of my first interviews here, the guy cheerfully told me, "oh, because we need to pay a family father of 3 more than we need to pay a single guy"

... and the young, childless wife of an engineer working at that small city's most generously-paying employer? The guy did not seem to believe I needed a job at all. All's well that ends well, and I'm now in a far better job that has a relatively transparent union payscale, but it stung at the time.

My husband, a German, has told me that you used to also list the occupations of your parents!

[cr1895]

Good grief, that's incredibly off-putting. I've refused to add a photo and DOB to my CV on principle and fortunately it hasn't seemed to hinder my job seeking.

[jacquesm]

You should see the stuff the gradeschool of my kids asks me about without so much as blushing.