cv['resume basics']
Resume vs CV: which to send in Europe, the UK and the US
cv[0]10 min read
In short
In the US, a resume is a one-to-two-page summary of your work and a CV is a long academic record. In the UK, Ireland and most of Europe, "CV" means the short document. Send whichever word the posting uses, at that country's length, and leave off photos, birth dates and marital status unless local custom clearly expects them.
The two words cause more confusion than they deserve, because the answer depends on where you are sending the document. In one country they are different documents with different jobs. In another, they are the same document under two names, and the choice of word tells an employer nothing about you. Get the length and contents right for the market and the label stops mattering.
The two words
"CV" is short for curriculum vitae, Latin for "the course of your life". That origin explains the academic version: a complete record, growing over a career, with publications and conference talks and grants. "Resume" comes from a French word meaning "summary", and the American document is exactly that: a short, targeted argument for one job.
The trap: the Latin phrase survived as the everyday word in most of the English-speaking world outside North America, while losing its "complete record" meaning. So:
| Where | "Resume" means | "CV" means |
|---|---|---|
| United States, Canada | the short, targeted document, one to two pages | an academic record, as long as it needs to be |
| UK, Ireland | less common, but understood | the short, targeted document, one to two pages |
| Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Nordics | rarely used | the short, targeted document, one to two pages |
| Academic hiring anywhere | the short document, if used at all | the full academic record |
A US university careers service puts the distinction plainly: a CV "is an academic resume and is used for research and college/university teaching positions", while a resume is brief, usually one page, and focuses on work experience. The same page adds the sentence that saves a lot of anxiety: "Sometimes people ask for a CV when they really want a resume." (UC Berkeley Career Engagement)
So the first rule is not about vocabulary at all. Send what the posting asks for. If a Berlin startup asks for a CV in English and you send a two-page resume, nobody is confused. If a US university asks for a CV and you send a one-page resume, you have failed the request, because they wanted the publications.
The US
The American resume is a marketing document with a short shelf life. One page is the common length, two is acceptable with a decade or more of directly relevant experience. It is rewritten for each application and ordered by relevance, so the first third answers the posting before the reader has to hunt.
What belongs on it: name, email, phone, city and one link; a short summary only if it earns its space; experience in reverse chronological order, with outcomes rather than duties; education, skills and anything else the posting asks for.
What does not: a photo, your date of birth, your marital status, your nationality, your full street address, or a list of references. Harvard's careers guide puts a picture, age and gender on its do-not list, and asks for headings in order of importance, most recent first, with a format that survives conversion to PDF. (Harvard FAS Mignone Center)
The academic CV is a different genre: a complete record of research, teaching, publications, presentations, funding and service, ordered by what the field values. Length grows with the career; there is no two-page target. Applying to a PhD programme, a postdoc or a faculty post means writing the long document — and a US employer asking for a CV expects exactly that.
The UK and Ireland
In the UK and Ireland, "CV" is the normal word for the short document, and "resume" is understood but reads as American. The shape is close to the US version: one to two pages, reverse chronological, tailored to the advert.
The UK's public careers service describes a CV as "a summary of your skills, achievements and experience that you use to apply for jobs", and its checklist is a useful baseline: contact details including a link to a professional profile, a short introduction, education, work history, and references. It also says what to leave out: "You should not include your age, your date of birth, whether you're married or your nationality." (National Careers Service)
Two British habits are worth knowing:
- A personal statement at the top, three or four lines, saying what you are and what you are applying for. Not a place for adjectives about yourself: a place to name the role and your strongest relevant fact.
- "References available on request" is optional and increasingly left off. Never put another person's contact details on your CV without their agreement.
Irish practice follows the UK closely.
Germany, France, Spain, the Nordics
Continental Europe is where "CV" is both universal and locally shaped, and English-language CVs from these countries differ in small, consequential ways. Treat what follows as common expectations, not rules: they vary by sector, company size and generation, and they change. The EU's Europass offers a free builder with a standard European structure — one option, not a requirement.
Germany
The German Lebenslauf has traditionally been tabular and chronological, and the public employment agency still describes it that way: at most two pages, structured in a table, most recent first, with start and end dates for every station. It also says the photo is no longer a requirement ("Dies ist kein Muss mehr"), that details about family and nationality are voluntary, and that religion only needs to appear if the employer asks. (Bundesagentur für Arbeit)
Two things follow for an English-language application. First, keep the German rigour — dates, employers, titles, and a few concrete bullets per role — but put it in a clean single-column layout rather than a table. Second, do not carry over details just because a German template has a slot for them. Germany's General Equal Treatment Act bars discrimination on grounds including age, sex, ethnic origin, religion and disability (AGG §1), and the employment agency itself calls family and nationality details voluntary; an English-language application can leave birth date and marital status off.
France
The French CV is commonly one page, sometimes two for a long career, and tends to be more compact than its German counterpart. A photo is optional rather than expected in most sectors, and a short "profil" paragraph at the top is common. French employers often care about the formation — the degree and the institution — so keep education visible even mid-career, and name the qualification exactly rather than translating it into something approximate.
Spain
Spanish CVs have historically included a photo, an ID number and a date of birth. English-language applications to international companies increasingly leave all three off, and a Spanish recruiter reading an English CV will not be surprised. Applying in Spanish to a small, traditional firm is where the local template still wins.
The Nordics
Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland expect a short, plain CV, usually one to two pages, with no photo and no personal identity number. The tone is factual and understated; a page of adjectives reads as noise.
What to leave off
Across these markets, a handful of items cause more harm than good: they invite bias, expose you to identity fraud, or waste the reader's attention.
| Item | Send it? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | Usually no; follow an explicit request | Optional in Germany, increasingly absent elsewhere |
| Date of birth | No | Not asked for by UK or US employers; not legally required in Germany, though still common there |
| Marital status, children | No | Personal, and a bias risk in every market |
| Nationality | No, unless work authorisation is asked about | Answer the authorisation question directly instead |
| Full home address | No | City and country are enough |
| ID or social security number | Never | Identity theft risk, no first-round use |
| Religion | No | Only where an employer explicitly asks |
| References with contact details | No | Say they are available on request |
There is a better way to answer the question these fields are circling. If you need a work permit, say so in one line near your contact details: "EU citizen" or "Work authorisation: requires sponsorship". That answers the recruiter's real question without disclosing anything you did not choose to disclose.
One base CV, many versions
The practical consequence of all of this: the document is mostly the same everywhere, with four local adjustments — length, whether a photo appears, how much education detail to keep, and whether to include a personal statement.
That argues for keeping one base CV with your full, true history, and cutting a version from it per application. The base is the archive: every role, every tool, every number you can defend. The version you send is a selection from it, in the order and vocabulary the posting uses. In the US, that selection is one page; in Germany, it can run to two; in the UK, it often opens with a four-line statement naming the role.
An example of that translation step, with a fictional candidate moving from a German employer to an English-language posting:
Lebenslauf_2026.pdf
Verantwortlich für die Betreuung von 3 Microservices im Zahlungsbereich; Einführung von OpenTelemetry.
cv['backend engineer, applying in english']
Owned three payment microservices for 18 months and introduced OpenTelemetry tracing after two incidents took over an hour to diagnose.
The German line was not wrong; it was written for a reader who expects "verantwortlich für" as a standard opening. The English line keeps every fact and adds the one thing an English-language reader wants: why the tracing mattered. Nothing was invented: the duration and the two incidents come from her file, and the count of services and the tool are as they were.
Tailoring for a market is a change of shape, not of substance. You choose what to lead with, translate register, and cut what the reader does not need. You do not add a certification because a German template has a line for one, or a photo because a Spanish example had one.
Once the shape is right, the work that moves an application is the same everywhere: each line answers something the posting asked for. That is tailoring a resume to a job description, and it matters more than the word at the top of the page.
If you are applying in English from a non-English market, two more guides help: resume keywords for software engineers if you are in tech, and what makes a resume ATS-friendly before you export the PDF.
To keep one true base and cut a version per application, start with your CV at cv[0]: upload a PDF or DOCX, or begin from a blank page, and cut each tailored version from that one base. If you want to see what the paid tier adds before you decide, the pricing is on the same page.