CV vs Resume: What Is the Difference?

The two words mean different things depending on who is asking, and the difference only matters in one of those cases. Here is which is which.

In most of the world, they are the same document

In Pakistan, India, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and most of Europe, "CV" is simply the word for the one to two page summary of your career. An employer asking for a CV wants exactly what an American employer means by a resume. There is nothing to decide.

In North America, they are different documents

In the United States and Canada, a resume is the one to two page career summary. A CV means an academic curriculum vitae: a long, complete record of publications, research, teaching, funding and conference papers, running to many pages and growing over a career.

So if a US or Canadian employer asks for a CV and you are not applying for an academic or research post, they almost certainly still mean a resume - but if a university asks, they mean the long version.

How to tell which one is wanted

• The country the job is in. Outside North America, CV means resume.
• The sector. Universities, research institutes and some medical roles use the academic sense of CV everywhere.
• The length hint in the advert. "No more than two pages" tells you they mean a resume regardless of the word they used.

Which should you send?

Send the one to two page document unless you are applying for an academic post. If you genuinely cannot tell and the role is in North America, the short version is the safer choice: no employer has ever rejected a resume for being too readable. What goes inside it does not change with the word used - the same five sections apply either way.

A note on file names

Whatever the document is called, name the file after yourself rather than the document type - "Amara Sheikh CV.pdf" rather than "cv-final-v3.pdf". It is the name a recruiter sees in a folder of two hundred attachments.