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CreateCVOnline

US market

A resume builder that follows US conventions

Most builders hand you the same document whichever country you are applying in. A US resume is a different artefact from a European CV: shorter, printed on different paper, and stripped of personal details that are normal elsewhere. Here is the distinction in full, and how to set the builder up for it.

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Terminology

Resume, CV, academic CV: three different documents

The words are used interchangeably in casual conversation and precisely by the people who screen applications. Getting this wrong is the fastest way to look like you did not check.
US resume compared with a European CV and an academic CV
DimensionUS resumeUK / EU CVAcademic CV
Where the word is usedUnited States and Canada, for almost every commercial roleUK, Ireland, most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the GulfEverywhere, for research, teaching, medicine and grant applications
Typical lengthOne page under ten years’ experience; two pages beyond thatTwo pages is the working standard; one page for graduatesNo limit — four to twenty pages is normal
PhotoNeverNo in the UK and Ireland; still common in parts of continental EuropeNo
Date of birth, marital status, nationalityNever — US employers actively avoid protected characteristicsOmit in the UK; occasionally still expected in parts of Europe and the GulfOmit; citizenship only where a grant or visa requires it
Paper sizeUS Letter, 8.5 × 11 inA4, 210 × 297 mmWhichever the institution’s country uses
What leads the documentA three-line summary, then experience, achievements firstA personal profile, then experience; slightly more duty-descriptiveResearch interests, publications, funding, teaching

Paper

Set Letter before you lay the page out

Paper size is not a printing detail. It changes the line length and therefore where every page break falls.
US Letter
8.5 × 11 in — 215.9 × 279.4 mm
Wider and shorter. The North American default in every office printer.
A4
210 × 297 mm — 8.27 × 11.69 in
Narrower and 17.6 mm taller. The default everywhere else.
The practical difference
67 px of vertical room at 96 dpi
Roughly four to six lines of body text — enough to push your last bullet onto page two.

Paper size is one of the few layout controls available on every plan, precisely because getting it wrong ruins a document that is otherwise correct.

A4

210 × 297 mm

US Letter

8.5 × 11 in

The same resume, the same template, rendered at the same scale on both paper sizes. Letter is visibly wider and shorter — the reason a page-perfect A4 document spills when it is printed in Chicago.

Length

One page early, two pages later, never three

The one-page rule is real, but it is a rule about relevance rather than about typography.

Under 10 years: one page

If you are shrinking the type below about 10pt or the margins below 12 mm to make it fit, you are not fitting a page — you are hiding text. Cut a role instead, or compress the oldest one to a single line.

10 years and beyond: two pages

Two full pages read as senior. Two pages with four lines on the second read as careless, so either expand the second page to at least half full or cut back to one. Repeat your name in the header area of page two.

Three pages: change document

Past two pages you are writing a CV. That is correct for academia, medicine and some federal roles — and wrong for a commercial application, where the third page is rarely reached.

Block by block

What a US recruiter expects to find, and where

Screening is fast and pattern-based. Meeting the pattern is not conformity for its own sake — it is what lets a reader find your evidence in fifteen seconds.

The header

  • Name, then the title of the job you are applying for — not your current internal title if it is company jargon.
  • City and state. A street address is unnecessary and, for a document you email to strangers, unwise.
  • One phone number with an area code, one email address you check daily, and a customised LinkedIn URL. Drop the rest.
  • No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. A US recruiter is trained to avoid these, and some systems flag documents that contain them.

The summary

  • Three lines maximum, written last. Role, years, the scale you work at, and one number.
  • Mirror the vocabulary of the posting where it is honest to do so: if they say “demand planning”, do not write “stock forecasting”.
  • Delete any objective statement that describes what you want from them. That belongs in the cover letter.

Experience

  • Reverse chronological. Company, title, location, then Month Year – Month Year dates.
  • Three to five achievement bullets for recent roles. Start with a verb, end with a result.
  • Ten to fifteen years of history is enough for most applications. Older roles become a single “Earlier career” line.
  • Contract or agency work: name the client and put the agency in brackets, so the reader can follow the timeline.

Education

  • One line per degree once you have work experience: degree, institution, graduation year.
  • Include a GPA only if it is roughly 3.5 or above and you graduated within the last two years.
  • US employers rarely need your high school once you hold a degree.
  • International qualifications: add a short equivalence in brackets, for example “First Class Honours (≈ 3.7 GPA)”.

Skills

  • Eight to fourteen concrete, checkable skills. Software, languages, methods, certifications.
  • No rating bars. A bar claiming 80% Python means nothing to a reader and nothing to a parser.
  • Put the skills the posting names first — most screeners scan this block for exact matches before reading anything else.

Templates

Layouts built for the US convention

Single column, no photo frame, contact details in the body rather than a page header — the combination that survives both a recruiter’s glance and a parser.

ATS Resume

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Entry-Level Resume

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Modern Professional

modern · one column

Free

Modern Minimal

modern · one column

Free

Business Professional

corporate · one column

Free

Software Engineer

technology · one column

Free

Tech Minimal

technology · one column

Free

ATS CV

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Applying through large career portals? See how each layout is scored for parser safety before you choose.

US resume questions

The conventions that differ from the rest of the world, answered directly.

In the US and Canada, call it a resume for any commercial role. Call it a CV if you are applying to academia, research, medicine or a fellowship anywhere in the world, or to almost any employer in the UK, Ireland, Europe, Australia or New Zealand. The file name matters too: recruiters search their downloads folder for the word they expect.

Set Letter, drop the photo, write the summary last

Start from a US-convention template with the paper already correct, and spend your evening on the bullets instead of the margins.

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