Resume vs CV: Which One Do You Need, and Where?
“Resume or CV?” sounds like a stylistic question. It is a geographic one. The same word means different things in different markets, and sending the wrong document reads as unfamiliarity with the market you are applying into.
United States and Canada
A resume is the standard hiring document: one to two pages, reverse-chronological, achievement-led, tailored per application. A CV in North America means something else entirely — the long-form academic record, with publications, grants, teaching and conference talks, running to as many pages as your career needs. You send a CV for a faculty or research position and a resume for everything else.
North American convention also strips personal data: no photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no nationality. Recruiters expect that omission, and including those details creates a compliance headache for the employer.
United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand
“CV” is simply the word for the standard two-page hiring document. It is the same artefact an American would call a resume, and nobody will ask you for a separate resume. Two pages is the norm; three is acceptable for senior or highly technical careers. Photos are unusual and unnecessary.
Continental Europe
The word is CV everywhere, but expectations vary by market. German applications are the most formal: a structured Lebenslauf, often with a cover letter and scanned certificates attached. French applications lean toward a tight one-page CV. Dutch and Nordic markets sit closer to the UK convention.
Photos and dates of birth used to be standard in several of these markets and are steadily disappearing as employers align with anti-discrimination practice. Omitting both is safe everywhere; including them is a market-by-market judgement call, so follow what the employer’s own careers page asks for.
What does not change
Regardless of the label, every version needs the same things: a single-column layout that parses cleanly, exact employment dates, achievements rather than duties, and the language of the job description reflected in your skills and bullets. Those are the parts an applicant tracking system reads, and they are identical across markets.
Running one master document
You do not need five documents. You need one master file with everything in it, and a per-application pass that cuts it to the right length, reorders the top third to match the role, and mirrors the posting’s vocabulary. Change the label — “Resume” for the US, “CV” for everywhere else — and strip personal data by default.
That per-application pass is the part people abandon after week two. Our AI toolkit does it from your master CV in seconds, and on the done-for-you plans a specialist does it before every submission. If you are applying across borders, start with your target country or read the ATS formatting guide.