An anonymous CV hides the details that let a reader guess who the candidate is and keeps the details that show what the candidate can do. The name, photo, address, date of birth and contact details go first, while qualifications, skills and job titles stay. This guide lists where each detail sits and how to remove it.
What counts as a detail to hide
A direct identifier names the person: the name, the photo, the email address, the telephone number, the home address. An indirect signal lets a reader infer something about the person: a language, a place of study, a gendered job title, a year of graduation. The GDPR defines personal data as any information relating to an identifiable person, identified directly or indirectly, and Article 5(1)(c) asks that the data processed be limited to what is necessary for the purpose. For a first screening, the purpose is to judge qualifications and experience.
The CNIL guide for recruiters says the same in practice: the information requested must serve to assess the ability to hold the post, and information without a direct and necessary link to the job is not to be collected. Article 9(1) of the GDPR prohibits in principle the processing of data that reveals racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, trade union membership or health, so a CV that mentions such a fact deserves a second look before anyone passes it on.
A checklist of what to hide and what to keep
The German pilot of 2010 and 2011 used one list for every application: name, gender, nationality and place of birth, disability, date of birth or age, marital status and photo. The table groups the details of a CV by where they appear.
| Detail | Decision | Where it hides in the file |
|---|---|---|
| Name, photo, address, telephone, email | Hide | Header block, Word header and footer, cover letter signature, file name |
| Date of birth, age, marital status, nationality | Hide | Personal data block, a line such as "Born on" |
| Gender | Hide | Pronouns, a title such as "Mrs", a job title with a gendered ending |
| Language skills and places of study or work | Decide once for all candidates | The French report says they can reveal origin or residence |
| Links to profiles | Hide | Header, footer, a "Profile" section |
| Job titles, skills, tools, duration of roles | Keep | The body of the CV |
| Degrees and certificates | Keep, with the name on them hidden | Attachments and scans |
| Author and company in the file properties | Remove | Word and PDF metadata |
How to anonymise a CV step by step
- Write the list of fields before you open the first CV, and apply the same list to every candidate. The German pilot did this with one list for all participants.
- Give each application a reference number and note it next to the name in a separate file. The pilot ended the anonymisation when the invitations went out and gave the readers the full application from that point.
- Cover the header block: name, photo, address, telephone, email, date of birth, nationality and marital status.
- Read the body for indirect signals. The German report found that special language skills such as Hindi, Thai or Swahili pointed to origin, and that applicants who filled in a standard form gave away their gender with a job title such as Bürokauffrau. The French report names sex, age, languages and places of work.
- Treat the attachments the same way. In the German pilot, organisations that blacked out incoming applications also anonymised the certificates and the readers still saw them, which kept the general impression of the application.
- Remove the author and company from the file properties, and rename the file with the reference number.
- Check the result as a reader would: search the file for the candidate's surname, select the area under each black box, and open the attachments.
By hand, blacking out one conventional application took the pilot organisations 15 to 40 minutes on average, and 5 to 10 minutes when few details had to go.
What to keep, and what the recommendation says
For the time after the pilot, the German report recommends a qualification-centred application: photo, name, address, date of birth, place of birth, nationality and marital status stay off the first page, while certificates and the usual documents stay in the file. It adds that other details allowing indirect conclusions could be tolerated in that case. The organisations in the pilot found that the absence of these personal details was unproblematic for most readers.
Keeping the substance is the point of the exercise. Job titles, skills, the length of each role, the field and level of each degree and the content of the certificates are what the reader needs. Hiding them leaves the reader nothing to judge. The sibling article Anonymous CVs: what the experiments found compares what five European programmes hid and what their evaluations reported, and this guide stays with the method.
What goes wrong in practice
A header block can be clean while the running text still carries a pronoun, a gendered job title, a university or a hometown. The attachments are another place to look: the name on a certificate, a reference letter signed by a former employer, a scanned diploma. The file itself can also give the candidate away, through the author name in the properties or the candidate's name in the file name.
Time is the other problem. The German report records that the readers in larger organisations did not expect blacking out to become standard because of the time it takes. Redactic applies the same choices to every file of a ZIP in one pass.
How Redactic anonymises a batch of CVs
Redactic replaces names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, ID numbers and dates of birth next to a birth label with placeholders, and a ZIP of up to 200 CVs keeps the same placeholder for the same candidate in every file. Nationality, gender words, an age written as a number and profile links are not detected in running text, so you select the word and Redactic masks every occurrence of it. Tick Black out all images to turn the photo of a PDF or Word CV into a black box, and use Review and edit to check every item on the page. The HR and recruiting page shows the steps with a sample CV, the free trial lets you try your own document, and documents are never stored and never used to train AI models. For the AI side of the same desk, see shadow AI in HR under the GDPR.
Frequently asked questions
Should the photo always be removed from an anonymous CV?
The German pilot of 2010 and 2011 put the photo on its list of details to hide, and its recommendation for a qualification-centred application leaves the photo off the first page. In a PDF or Word CV, ticking Black out all images in Redactic turns every image, such as the photo or a signature, into a black box. On a scanned page you draw the box yourself in Review and edit.
Is hiding the name enough?
The sources in this article hide more than the name. The German report says that email addresses, telephone numbers, addresses and employment periods allow indirect conclusions, and the French report says that sex, age, languages and places of work can show in the body of the CV. The table above lists the places to look.
How does the recruiter find the candidate again after the shortlist?
Give each application a reference number before you hide the name, and keep the list of numbers and names apart from the files the readers see. In the German pilot the anonymisation ended when the invitations were sent. With Redactic, a ZIP of up to 200 CVs keeps the same placeholder for the same candidate in every file.
Can I keep the city of the candidate?
That is the choice of the recruiter. The German recommendation puts the address on the list for the first page, and the French report warns that places of work can reveal where a person lives. If you keep a city, keep it for every candidate.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Articles 4(1), 5(1)(c) and 9(1), accessed 2026-11-09.
- Krause, Rinne, Zimmermann, Böschen, Alt, Pilotprojekt Anonymisierte Bewerbungsverfahren, Abschlussbericht, IZA Research Report no. 44, April 2012 (in German), accessed 2026-11-09.
- Behaghel, Crépon, Le Barbanchon, Évaluation de l'impact du CV anonyme, March 2011 (in French), accessed 2026-11-09.
- CNIL, Guide Recrutement, 30 January 2023, sheets 5 and 17 (in French), accessed 2026-11-09.