Anonymizing a CV before you send it

An anonymized CV shows the skills and the history without identifying the person.

Who this is for

Agencies and intermediaries. An agency that sends a client an identified CV has just given away the one thing it is paid for: the introduction. So they ask for a blind version, and if you cannot produce one they will retype your CV badly.

It is also used where a hiring process is deliberately blind at first sift.

What is removed

The identifying material: name and portrait, and the contact details.

What stays

Everything that makes the argument: roles, dates, employers where naming them is not identifying, projects, skills, education, languages.

The document has to remain persuasive. An anonymized CV that removes so much that the reader cannot judge the person is not anonymized, it is useless.

Check it before it goes

Read the finished document as a stranger would, because identity leaks back in through details the software cannot judge:

• A summary that says "my studio in Leipzig".
• A project named after a client who only worked with one person like you.
• A portfolio URL that is your own name.

The obvious fields are handled. The prose is on you.

The filename

Check what you are attaching to the email. Sending anna-schmidt-cv.pdf as your anonymized CV undoes the entire exercise before anybody opens it.