Do I need to put my nationality on my CV?
October 21, 2012 3:00 AM   Subscribe

I'm going to be on the hunt for tech jobs in London soon and I'm putting together my CV. I read here that people with foreign sounding names (me!) should put 'British Citizen' somewhere near the top. Is this actually still an issue? It feels awkward to stick it in there next to my contact details.
posted by jobby to Work & Money (8 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I'm not so sure "foreign sounding name" is a reason to put your nationality onto your CV but I'd do so purely to make it obvious to the people reading your CV that you have the legal right to work in the country.
posted by gadha at 3:16 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


When looking for a replacement team member a few years ago we just assumed that anyone with a UK address and/or UK previous job had a legal right to work here. We didn't go by name at all.

So unless there is something in your CV that throws doubt on your nationality I wouldn't bother.
posted by antiwiggle at 3:27 AM on October 21, 2012


I've hired a lot and wouldn't need this if it was just a case of a foreign name. If someone had non-EU education and/or and all or most of their work experience (say in the case of citizenship by marriage) was non-EU it would be helpful to see visa status just to tick that box (ie right to work) which could be expressed as "British Citizen", but it's the visa status, not the nationality that is important.
posted by MuffinMan at 3:41 AM on October 21, 2012


I would consider including this if your address is outside the UK - or if a lot of your work experience and education is. What MuffinMan said, in fact.

For a "foreign sounding name" - no; in London recruiters are used to names from every corner of the globe.
posted by rongorongo at 4:04 AM on October 21, 2012


If you apply through one of the number of UK job websites there will always be a check-box to confirm that you are eligible to work in the UK.

If you're not going through a website but applying to a company directly they usually mention in the advert to either a) be sure that you're eligible to work in the UK before applying, or B) write something like "I am eligible to work in the UK" in your cover letter.

That's all they're interested in. Many British nationals have foreign names.

In other words, there's not really any need to put it on the CV.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:32 AM on October 21, 2012


You might want to just tuck it away among the "for the record" boilerplate stuff, like date and place of birth, NI number, email address or whatever at the foot of the CV, where it's there for the record but doesn't stand out as something you've wanted to emphasize particularly.
posted by aqsakal at 4:32 AM on October 21, 2012


I had no UK experience, so I stuck details of my eligibility in both my cover letter and in my "personal statement". Worked fine!
posted by teststrip at 12:18 PM on October 21, 2012


I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you included it, and it might help you in the initial 15-second-scan-for-review-vs-throw-out-pile. i wouldn't bet a potential job interview on the resume reviewer carefully reading my resume and inferring that i can legal work someplace. it can cost a lot of money to sponsor someone for work, it's as legitimate of a reason to hire someone, in terms of a cost/benefit analysis, than anything else. put the most important information near the top, that's the bottom line.
posted by cupcake1337 at 8:20 PM on October 21, 2012


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