CV vs Resume: What Is the Difference?

The same word means opposite things on different continents.

Ask for a “CV” in Boston and you’ll get a ten-page academic record. Ask for one in London and you’ll get exactly what an American calls a resume. This isn’t pedantry. Send the wrong document to the wrong market and you signal that you don’t understand local hiring, before anyone reads a word of your experience.

In the US and Canada, they’re two different documents

A resume is a short, focused pitch for a specific job: one page early in your career, up to two later. It covers recent, relevant experience and skips anything that doesn’t support the role. This is what you send for business, tech, finance, marketing, and most government work.

A CV (curriculum vitae) in North America is a different animal. It’s a complete academic and professional record: publications, research, grants, teaching, conference talks. It starts at two or three pages for a PhD student and grows for the rest of a career. You use it for academic, research, and medical roles, or grant applications, and you almost never trim it, because the point is to be comprehensive.

Almost everywhere else, “CV” just means “resume”

In the UK, Ireland, most of Europe, Australia, and much of Asia, “CV” is simply the word for the document you send when applying for a job. It’s one to two pages, adapted to the role, and functionally identical to the American resume. When a London employer asks for your CV, they want a concise career summary, not your publication list.

So if you’re applying for a UK job, send a CV, even if the advert says “resume,” and even if the company is American. Use A4 paper and British spelling. Matching the local convention matters more than the label.

Length, photos, and personal details vary by country

This is where home-country habits cause real damage. A few norms worth knowing:

• US / Canada: one to two pages, no photo, no date of birth or marital status. US federal roles have enforced a strict two-page limit since September 2025.
• UK / Ireland: two pages, no photo (the Equality Act discourages personal details that invite bias), and a short personal statement up top.
• Germany: the Lebenslauf is more detailed, two to three pages, and a professional photo is still expected.
• France: one page is the norm for most roles, with a photo optional but common.

The instinct to apply your own market’s rules abroad is the most common mistake here. A four-page CV lands as excessive at a New York startup; a bare two-page US resume reads as thin to a German or South African employer. Match the destination, not your habit.

Turning a CV into a resume

If you have a long academic CV and need a resume, the work is subtractive. Cut publications, presentations, and teaching unless one is directly relevant to the job. Condense each role to two or three result-focused bullets, keep the last 10 to 15 years, and drop anything that doesn’t argue for this specific position. You’re not trimming the same document; you’re rebuilding it around a single role.

A word on Europass and length myths

The EU’s standardized Europass template exists and works across borders, but it’s declining in popularity and often looks generic next to a well-structured CV in competitive private-sector hiring. Use it when an employer asks; otherwise a clean, role-focused document usually does better.

And ignore the one-page dogma if you have real experience to show. Around 90% of recruiters are fine with a two-page document (Reed); one page is a rule for early-career candidates, not a universal law.

If you work across markets, keep one detailed master record and cut from it to build the right document for each country. The fastest way to stay consistent while you adapt length, photo, and detail is a resume builder that lets you spin up versions without rebuilding from scratch. The label on top should always match the country you’re applying to, never the one you came from.