An anonymous CV is a CV from which whatever identifies the candidate or could lead to discrimination has been removed: name, photo, contact details, age, family situation. In France it is optional: the 2006 law requiring it in companies with at least 50 employees was never applied, for lack of a decree, and the obligation was repealed in 2015.
Here is what French law says today, what to remove from an anonymous CV and how to anonymise it without letting anything slip through.
Article checked on 11 November 2026. History of the scheme: Conseil d'État, decision of 4 November 2015 (in French).
What is an anonymous CV?
An anonymous CV is a CV stripped of the information that identifies the candidate (name, photo, contact details) and of what could bias the selection (age, address, nationality, family situation). The recruiter then judges the career path, skills and qualifications. Anonymity is lifted when the candidate is shortlisted for an interview.
The term covers two uses:
- Fighting discrimination. The employer anonymises the applications it receives before the first screening, so that prohibited criteria do not weigh on the shortlist.
- Presenting a candidate to a client. A recruitment agency, an IT consultancy or a temporary staffing agency sends an anonymised CV to a client or a prospect. The client judges the profile and cannot reach the candidate without going through the agency. Some public tenders also require it.
Is the anonymous CV mandatory in France?
No. The equal opportunities law of 31 March 2006 made it mandatory in companies with at least 50 employees, but it relied on a decree that was never published. The law of 17 August 2015 on social dialogue and employment removed the obligation. Since then, anonymous screening of applications has been the employer's choice.
The steps, in order:
- 2006. Article 24 of law no. 2006-396 of 31 March 2006 requires that, in companies with at least 50 employees, the written information sent by a candidate be examined in a way that preserves their anonymity. The rule, recodified in 2008 as article L. 1221-7 of the Labour Code, refers to a decree.
- 2006 to 2014. The decree is not adopted. Without it, the obligation does not apply.
- 9 July 2014. The Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court, orders the Prime Minister to adopt the decree within six months.
- 17 August 2015. Law no. 2015-994 rewrites article L. 1221-7: anonymous examination becomes an option. On 4 November 2015, the Conseil d'État accordingly refuses to impose a penalty on the State.
Today, article L. 1221-7 of the Labour Code provides that the written information sent by the candidate "may be examined in conditions that preserve their anonymity".
Why anonymise: hiring discrimination
The French Labour Code prohibits excluding a candidate from a hiring process on discriminatory grounds. Article L. 1132-1 lists them, including origin, sex, age, family situation, physical appearance, surname and place of residence. A CV carries several of them from its first line: anonymising it removes them at the screening stage.
Among the criteria of article L. 1132-1 of the Labour Code, those that can be read on a CV:
- the surname, and what it suggests about origin;
- age, read from the date of birth or the year of graduation;
- sex and family situation;
- physical appearance, through the photo;
- place of residence, through the address;
- nationality, when it is stated.
Anonymity only covers the first screening: it is lifted at interview, where the same prohibition applies. It needs a method alongside it, set out in our guide to recruitment bias: criteria written down before reading the CVs, and a shared interview scorecard.
What to remove from an anonymous CV
An anonymous CV keeps the career path and removes the identity. You delete first and last name, photo, address, email, phone, LinkedIn profile, date of birth, nationality and family situation. You keep job titles, durations, responsibilities, skills, qualifications and languages, which are what the profile is judged on.
| Remove | Keep | Depending on use |
|---|---|---|
| First and last name | Job titles and durations | Employers' names (replaced by their sector) |
| Photo | Responsibilities and achievements | School names (replaced by the type of school) |
| Address, email, phone, LinkedIn | Skills and certifications | City or region, useful for mobility |
| Date of birth, age | Qualifications and education level | Graduation years, which give away age |
| Nationality, family situation | Languages and level |
When presenting a candidate to a client, employers' names are replaced by their sector ("software publisher", "mid-sized industrial company"): the client understands the career path without being able to identify the candidate.
How to anonymise a CV without letting anything slip through
Anonymising a CV by hand is mostly a matter of checking. The name and photo come off quickly; what leaks is free text (the summary, descriptions that name the employer), a page footer and the file properties. Starting from a structured record rather than the original CV avoids most of these leaks.
- Start from a structured record, not the candidate's file: each piece of information sits in a field, and you choose which ones to show.
- Remove the identity fields: name, photo, contact details, date of birth, nationality, family situation.
- Check the free text: the summary, job descriptions and profile headline ("SAP consultant at …") often mention the employer or the name.
- Check the file: file name, author in the PDF or Word properties, headers and footers.
- Keep an internal reference (a number or initials) to find the candidate when the client replies.
The anonymised CV in a recruitment agency
In an agency, an IT consultancy or temporary staffing, the anonymised CV is first a way to present a candidate without the client hiring them directly. It goes out in your branding, with the agency as the only contact. The candidate must know who receives their profile; anonymity is lifted when the client wants to meet them.
Three practical rules:
- The candidate's agreement first. The GDPR requires informing them of the recipients of their data; an agency also asks for their agreement before each presentation.
- One layout. The same template for every consultant avoids a version that forgets to hide a field.
- A record of each send. Knowing which client received a CV, and when, avoids presenting the same candidate twice, and answers the candidate if they ask.
For an IT consultancy, the anonymous version of the consultant's skills profile follows the same rules: see our article on the consultant skills profile.
In Marvin
A candidate's record can be downloaded as a PDF or Word file, complete or anonymised, in your branding. You choose what is hidden: full name or surname only, photo, email, phone, address, LinkedIn, names of companies and schools (replaced by a generic label) and the employer or name mentioned in the profile headline.
The anonymous mode setting is saved in the document template for the whole team, and the anonymised version can go out as an attachment to an email sent from Marvin. In the export, job descriptions stay as entered: check them. In the client portal, what is displayed is set mission by mission, down to an anonymised version.
FAQ
Is the anonymous CV mandatory in France?
No. The law of 31 March 2006 required it in companies with at least 50 employees, but the implementing decree was never published. The law of 17 August 2015 made the scheme optional: the Labour Code now only provides that applications may be examined in a way that preserves the candidate’s anonymity.
What do you remove from an anonymous CV?
First and last name, photo, contact details (address, email, phone, LinkedIn profile), age or date of birth, nationality and family situation. An agency presenting a candidate to a client often also removes the employers’ names, so that the client cannot contact the candidate directly.
Is there a difference between an anonymous CV and an anonymised CV?
Not in substance: both mean a CV from which whatever identifies the candidate has been removed. In France, "CV anonyme" usually refers to the anti-discrimination scheme, and "CV anonymisé" to the document an agency or consultancy sends to a client.
Is anonymising a CV enough to prevent discrimination?
No. An anonymous CV removes signals at the screening stage, but anonymity is lifted at interview. Article L. 1132-1 of the French Labour Code prohibits discrimination at every stage of hiring: criteria written down before reading the CVs and a shared interview scorecard matter just as much.
Must the candidate be told that their anonymised CV is sent to a client?
Yes. The GDPR requires informing candidates of the recipients of their data, and a client is one, even if the CV is anonymised. In practice, an agency asks for the candidate’s agreement before presenting them, and tells them which company at the latest when anonymity is lifted.