[hn_]

I don't believe it is out of date. The reason is the resume is the first impression of you - someone has to make a 60 second choice to look into you further - to call you or Google you. If you include a photo you are asking the company to evaluate your looks as part of the initial resume which have zero to do with your job qualifications. (we are talking about software here)

Like it or not employers make snap judgements without consciously thinking about it based on irrelevant characteristics. We know people with black sounding names get callbacks significantly less than white sounding names.[1] I can't imagine how much more difficult someone who was a dark skinned black would have it if they included a photo. Remember - employers give a resume a once over and their unconscious bias in in effect.

No hiring manager or HR person will tell you they are openly racist or disregard candidates based on their name - and they aren't lying! They just do it because social biases effect their evaluation without them realizing it. As much as we love to believe we are rational beings in a lot of ways we are not.

Also the reason why employers asked for a photo in a resume in the olden days was to openly discriminate against candidates. They didn't want to waste their time interviewing or following up with someone who is black, Hispanic, ugly[2], or a woman when they were seeking a white male. Their resume would just be discarded. Now that sort of discrimination is illegal in hiring so they stopped soliciting photos because they stopped (openly) taking that sort of information into consideration. Since your looks are irrelevant to the job they will often throw out resumes that contain photos so they aren't accused of taking looks into account when reviewing resumes.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/opinion/nicholas-kristof-i...

[2]Being ugly/fat isn't a protected class under federal discrimination laws in the US.