Resume vs CV: what is the difference?

Two words, one purpose

CV is short for curriculum vitae, a Latin phrase that means roughly “the course of your life”. Resume comes from a French word for a summary. In everyday use, both describe a written overview of your education, experience and skills that an employer reads before deciding whether to meet you.

What changes from one country to another is which word people use, and whether the two words point to different documents. In some places they are simply synonyms; in others, one is short and the other is long and detailed.

In the United States and Canada

In North America, a resume is the standard document for most job applications. It is short and selective: it keeps only what supports the role you are applying for, and early-career candidates usually fit it on a single page. In American English the word is also often written with accents, as in French.

A CV in the American sense is a different document. It is used for academic, research and some medical posts, and lists a whole career in detail: degrees, research, publications, teaching, conferences and awards. It grows over the years and has no fixed length.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland

In the UK and Ireland, CV is the everyday word for the document you send with almost any application, from a graduate scheme to a senior role. Resume is rarely used. A British CV is closer in length and spirit to an American resume than to an American academic CV: it stays focused and concise.

A typical British CV runs to one or two pages. Graduates and school leavers often manage with one, while people with longer careers use the second page for earlier roles. Universities, as in the United States, may ask for a longer academic CV.

In Africa

In French-speaking African countries, as in France, the document is called a CV, and there is no separate word for a shorter version. In many English-speaking African countries, such as Nigeria and Ghana, CV is also the usual word, following British usage, although resume also appears and the two words are often used interchangeably.

Whatever the word, the expectations are those of a focused CV: a clear page or two that a recruiter can read quickly. Our pages on writing a CV in Nigeria and a CV in Ghana cover the local details that matter there.

Which one should you send?

Follow the advert. If an American employer asks for a resume, send a short, targeted document; if a university or research body asks for a CV, send the full academic version with your publications and teaching. If a British or African employer asks for a CV, they mean the focused one or two pages described above.

Paper size is the other difference to know about. The United States and Canada use the Letter format, while the United Kingdom, Europe and Africa use A4, which is slightly narrower and taller.

• Short, targeted, for a job outside academia in North America: a resume.
• Full record of research, publications and teaching, anywhere: an academic CV.
• Focused overview for an application in the UK, Ireland or Africa: a CV.

Why PixeCV says CV

PixeCV is used in French, where CV is the only word, and in British English, where CV is the everyday word too. Using one word in both languages keeps the editor, the templates and the help pages consistent.

The documents you build in PixeCV are focused CVs laid out on A4 pages, the kind described above for the UK, Ireland and Africa. The same document works as a resume for an American application: keep it short, often to a single page, leave the photo off, and match its wording to the advert. For a student application, our guide to writing a CV for an internship shows what to put first.