A CV prepared for the Vietnamese job market commonly includes a photo, and the reason most often cited is that it is simply the long-standing local convention: a photo, alongside a short block of personal details, is a familiar and expected part of a Vietnamese CV's header in a way it is not in markets like the United States, and leaving one off can read as an unusual omission rather than a considered choice. This is a commonly observed hiring convention rather than a verified, universal rule, and practice still varies by employer, industry and whether the reader is a domestic or a multinational company.
The commonly cited reason for including a photo
A photo on a Vietnamese CV is commonly treated as a standard, expected element of the header rather than an optional extra, closer in spirit to how a name or a phone number is treated in many other markets. The convention is generally attributed to a long-standing local hiring norm rather than a specific written rule, and it holds most consistently for domestic Vietnamese employers; a multinational company hiring in Vietnam may follow a leaner, more international header instead, so checking the specific employer or application portal is worth doing where that information is available.
What else commonly sits in the header alongside it
A Vietnamese CV header commonly pairs the photo with a short block of personal details beyond a name and contact information, such as date of birth or gender, in a way that would be unusual on a CV prepared for a market like the UK or Australia, where those fields are commonly left off. None of this is presented here as something every employer requires, since practice does vary, but it is commonly enough expected that including it is unlikely to read as unusual to a domestic reader, in much the same way leaving contact information off entirely would read as an unusual omission almost anywhere.
Commonly expected length
A Vietnamese CV is commonly kept to one, or at most two, pages, a similar range to what many other markets expect, and the same general judgement covered in how to write a resume about matching length to genuinely relevant content, rather than padding a document to fill a page, applies here as it does anywhere else. The header's photo and personal-details block take up some of that limited space, which is one more reason the rest of the document commonly stays concise rather than trying to fit in everything a longer, less space-constrained CV might include.
When an English-language version is commonly asked for
An employer hiring for a role with international clients, or a multinational company's Vietnam office, commonly asks for an English-language version of a CV alongside, or instead of, a Vietnamese one, and that English version commonly follows a more international convention: it may still keep the photo, since that is not unusual internationally either, but the personal-details block beyond contact information is more likely to shrink toward what an international reader would expect. Which version, or which mix of conventions, a specific employer actually wants is generally worth confirming from the job posting itself rather than assuming either convention applies by default.
How this compares with a market like the United States
The convention runs in close to the opposite direction in some other markets. Why US resumes leave off a photo covers the commonly cited reasoning behind that different norm, bias avoidance during early screening being the reason most often cited there. Neither convention is more objectively correct than the other; each reflects what is commonly expected in its own market, which is exactly why checking the target market's own convention matters more than applying one global default everywhere a CV gets sent.
Illustrative example: a Vietnamese CV header with a photo
Illustrative example, not a real person. A header with a small, professional photo placed in the upper corner of the page, the candidate's full name beneath it in a clear typeface, followed by a compact line of personal details, date of birth, phone number and email, and a short line stating the target role beneath that. The layout keeps the photo and personal-details block compact enough that neither crowds out the summary and experience sections that follow underneath.
Writing the CV itself in Vietnamese
CVBuilderKit writes CV documents in Vietnamese, alongside every other interface language the site supports except Arabic and Chinese, so a CV prepared for a Vietnamese employer can be written directly in Vietnamese rather than only in English and translated separately afterward. Choosing the document's own language is independent of whichever language the builder's interface itself happens to be displayed in at the time.
A photo stays a simple choice either way
A profile photo is an optional field on a CVBuilderKit header, so building toward either convention, a Vietnamese-style header with a photo and a compact personal-details block, or a photo-free header suited to a market where one is not commonly expected, simply means filling that field in or leaving it empty, rather than working around a layout that assumes one choice over the other.
Build yours
Browse the full set of templates for a layout with a clear photo placement in the header, and build your own in the builder, keeping the personal-details block compact so it does not crowd out the rest of the page.