To write one's nationality/ethnicity in the CV if relevant

[Philp]

Hello all,

I am new to this forum, and first, may I say that I like this forum already. I've looked through a few threads here and I haven't seen a single troll, it all looks to be very civil!

Now, on to my question. I'm in the process of updating my CV, and I looked at a thread here, called something along the lines of "how to write a curriculum Vitae". There, there was a discussion about including race in one's CV.

While I disagree in principle with putting one's race on one's CV, I can't help but feel that in some cases it could be relevant. Well, I don't really mean race, I mean ethnic background, or the nationality of one's parents (I still haven't found a satisfactory term for it. One's "ancestry"? No, still not good).

Citing my CV as an example might help if I've lost you. I am half-British, half-Japanese. In "languages" under the "skills" subheading, I wrote "English: native, Japanese: native". After that, I imagine it may be suitable to write, in brackets, "I speak to my mother solely in Japanese" as a basis for claiming that my Japanese is native level.

However, this throws up a conundrum. Under "nationality", I write British, because that's what I am, but then, whether or not to write that I am half-Japanese there? I do not have Japanese nationality, but the fact that I am half-Japanese is the single biggest reason why I speak Japanese. I would never dream of writing, for example, "race: mixed race" in a CV, but does what I am writing amount to the same thing?

[Fan Of Arabian Horses]

Hi Philp,

As I´ve got your self discription, I think if you mentioned your skills of the Japanese and most likely add your photgraph at your CV every employee or whoever reader would trust in your command of the Japanese.

A good CV-reader will, surely, get much more information from your CV. So not what you write is important only, but the complete form of it.

Regards

Michael