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CV vs resume: what's the difference?
A resume is a one or two page summary of your work, rewritten for each job you apply to. A CV (curriculum vitae) is a complete record of an academic or professional career, including publications, grants, teaching and presentations, and it grows longer over time instead of being cut to fit. That is the American distinction. In the UK and much of Europe, CV is simply the everyday name for the short job document Americans call a resume.
So the right document depends on two things: the country you are applying in, and whether the job is academic, research or medical. The tables below sort that out, the previews show one person's resume and CV side by side, and the steps after them turn one into the other.
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Difference between a resume and a CV at a glance
| Resume (US) | CV (US academic and medical) | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Make the case for one specific job | Record everything you have done in research, teaching, clinical work and service |
| Length | One page early in a career, two for most experienced candidates | No page limit; it grows with every paper, grant and course |
| Tailoring | Rewritten for each application | Mostly the same for every application; you reorder sections rather than cut them |
| Opens with | A short summary, then experience | Education, with dissertation title and advisor |
| Bullets | Achievements with results and numbers | Brief; most of the CV is lists of citations, grants, courses and talks |
| Publications | Only if relevant, often summarized in a line | Every one, in a consistent citation style |
| Used for | Almost every US job outside academia and medicine | Faculty, postdoc and research jobs, physicians, PhD programs, fellowships |
What CV means in the US, UK, Europe, India and Australia
| Where you apply | Word employers use | What they usually expect |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Resume for most jobs; CV for academic, research and medical jobs | A one or two page resume, or a full CV with no page limit |
| United Kingdom | CV | A short job document; UCAS and many university careers services give two sides of A4 as the limit. Academic CVs run longer. |
| Continental Europe | CV | Conventions vary by country. The EU's Europass portal offers a standard CV format some employers recognize. |
| India | CV and resume, often interchangeably | A short resume for most private-sector jobs and a fuller CV for academic and research posts. Biodata is an older format that adds personal details. |
| Australia | Resume and CV, usually for the same document | Australian university careers services, such as the University of Queensland's, note that both words are used for one document. |
Personal details are where countries differ most. The UK's National Careers Service advises leaving your age, date of birth, marital status and nationality off a CV, and US resumes leave them off too. Some other countries expect more personal information, so check local guidance for the country you are applying to.
When US employers ask for a CV
- Faculty, lecturer and postdoctoral positions at colleges and universities.
- Research scientist jobs at universities, research institutes and hospitals.
- Physicians and other clinicians applying for academic or hospital positions, and applicants to fellowships.
- PhD and other research graduate programs that request a CV with the application.
- Fellowships, awards and some grant applications. Some funders use their own short format instead; the NIH, for example, asks for a biographical sketch.
- Jobs abroad, where CV means the short version.
If a US company outside these areas asks for a CV, it nearly always wants a resume, and sending a ten-page research record would work against you. When in doubt, send the one or two page version, or ask the recruiter which they mean.
CV vs resume example: one person, both documents
Marisol is a fictional biostatistician applying to two jobs in the same week: a senior statistician role at a drug company and a research faculty post at a university. Her experience is identical in both. What changes is order, emphasis and how much she includes.
Biostatistician with 5 years of clinical trial analysis. Wrote the statistical analysis plans for 3 phase II studies and cut table and listing turnaround from 10 days to 4 with reusable R and SAS macros.
Dissertation: Pattern-mixture models for dropout in longitudinal trials. Advisor: Prof. Helen Nakashima.
The resume opens with a summary that names the result a hiring manager cares about (faster tables and listings) and gives numbers in each bullet. The CV drops the summary, leads with the PhD and dissertation, keeps her graduate assistantship because research training counts in academia, and lists every paper. The CV bullets are shorter because the publication list carries the evidence. All numbers in both versions are placeholders.
How to convert a resume to a CV, step by step
- 1Move Education to the top and expand it. Put the dissertation or thesis title and your advisor on the details line under each graduate degree.
- 2Rename Experience to match academic usage, such as Research Appointments or Academic Appointments, and add back positions a resume would drop: research and teaching assistantships, lab posts, visiting appointments.
- 3Replace the summary. Most academic CVs have none; if you keep one, turn it into two lines of research interests.
- 4Add a Publications section and list every item in one citation style, newest first, split into peer-reviewed articles and other work once the list grows.
- 5Add Grants and Fellowships with your role, the funder, the project title, the amount if your field lists it, and the years.
- 6Add Teaching, Presentations and Service (peer review, committees, outreach), each as its own section.
- 7Shorten appointment bullets. A CV states scope and responsibilities; you no longer need a quantified result in every line.
- 8Let it run long, then add page numbers and your name in a header on later pages once you move it into Word or Google Docs.
In ResumeFinch each of those extra sections is a custom section: a title and a list of items, dragged into place. Two builder prompts are written with resumes in mind and can be ignored on a CV: the Fit to one page suggestion and the strength score's length check, which flags anything over two pages.
Turning a CV back into a resume
Academics moving into industry, and physicians applying for administrative or industry roles, need the reverse, and most of the work is cutting.
- 1Write a three line summary aimed at the target job, naming the skills that transfer.
- 2Move Experience above Education unless you finished your degree in the last year or two.
- 3Turn each appointment into results bullets: what you built, ran, analyzed or improved, with a number where you have one.
- 4Compress publications into one line, for example the count of peer-reviewed papers and the topic, or list only the two or three closest to the job.
- 5Drop teaching, service and presentations unless the job involves training, public speaking or the same research area.
- 6Stop at two pages, and fewer if you can.
What does CV stand for?
CV stands for curriculum vitae, Latin for "course of (one's) life." Merriam-Webster dates its use in English to 1902. The plural is curricula vitae, and in US academia the document is sometimes called a vita.
Resume comes from the French résumé, meaning a summary. Both spellings, resume and résumé, are standard in American English.
Letter or A4 paper for a CV
US documents use Letter paper (8.5 x 11 in). The UK, Europe, India and Australia use A4 (210 x 297 mm), which is slightly narrower and taller. ResumeFinch exports US Letter pages only. For an application abroad, download the .docx and switch the page size before you send it: in Microsoft Word use Layout, then Size; in Google Docs use File, then Page setup, then Paper size. Then check the page breaks, since lines rewrap on the new width.
ResumeFinch also has no photo field. If a country's convention calls for a photo, add it to the Word file after downloading.
Building either one in ResumeFinch
The builder handles both: the same sections, renamed and reordered, with a live preview of every page. My resumes keeps several documents, so a resume and a CV can live side by side, and switching templates never makes you retype anything. Harbor and other one-column templates are the safest choice for online application portals. Ledger, which sets dates in a margin column, suits long CVs read as PDFs.
Frequently asked questions
Is a CV the same as a resume in the UK?
Yes, in everyday use. A UK employer asking for a CV wants a short, tailored job document, usually no more than two pages. Only academic and some medical jobs in the UK expect the longer, complete record that Americans call a CV.
Can I send a resume when a US job asks for a CV?
Outside academia, research and medicine, usually yes: many US employers use CV loosely to mean a resume. For a faculty, postdoc, research or physician job, send a full CV, because a two page resume leaves out the publications and grants the committee is looking for.
What is the plural of curriculum vitae?
Curricula vitae. In everyday writing most people simply say CVs.
Does a CV need a summary or objective?
An academic CV usually does not. If you want an opening line, use a short Research Interests section instead. A CV for a job outside the US, which is really a resume, often opens with a brief profile.
Is a CV longer than a resume?
In the US sense, yes: a CV lists your full academic record and has no page limit, while a resume is one or two pages. In the UK and most of Europe, a CV is the short document, so the two are about the same length.
Put it into practice
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