CV vs Resume: What's the Difference and Which Should You Send?

The short answer

A resume is a short, targeted summary of your experience, skills and results, written to win one particular job. It usually runs to one or two pages, and you rewrite parts of it for every application.

A CV (short for curriculum vitae, Latin for "course of life") has two meanings, and which one applies depends on where you are:

• In the US and Canada, a CV is a complete record of your academic and professional life — degrees, research, publications, teaching, grants, awards — with no page limit. It is used for academic, research and medical roles.
• In the UK, Ireland, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and much of the world, "CV" is simply the everyday word for the job-application document Americans call a resume.

So the real question is rarely "CV or resume?" It is "short and targeted, or long and complete?" The type of job decides that, not the word in the ad. A software role in Manchester and a software role in Seattle want the same kind of document, even though one calls it a CV and the other a resume. A lecturer post in Manchester and a faculty post in Seattle both want the long academic version.

What each word means, country by country

• United States: a resume for almost every job in business, technology, government and non-profits. A CV for faculty posts, postdocs, research roles, graduate school, fellowships and grants, and in medicine and many scientific fields.
• Canada: the same split as the US in English-language hiring. French-language employers in Quebec say "CV" for an ordinary job application, because that is the French term.
• UK and Ireland: "CV" is the standard word for any job application, and it means a targeted document, usually no more than two pages. "Resume" is rarely used. Universities still ask for a full academic CV for lecturer and research posts.
• India: "CV" and "resume" are used interchangeably, and private-sector recruiters mean a one- or two-page document either way. "Biodata" is an older term for a version heavy on personal details, still seen in some government and traditional settings. Academic hiring, such as assistant professor posts and research fellowships, asks for a full academic CV.
• Australia and New Zealand: both words are common and mean the same job-application document. Some public-sector roles also ask for a separate written response to selection criteria.
• South Africa: "CV" is the usual word. CVs often list languages spoken and, where the job needs one, a driver's licence.
• Mainland Europe: in English-language applications, "CV" is the norm. The EU's Europass CV is a standard format made with the official Europass online editor. Some EU institutions, public bodies and study or exchange programmes ask for it, while many private employers are happy with a well-structured CV of your own. Customs on photos and date of birth vary from country to country.
• The Gulf and much of Asia: "CV" is the common word, and personal details such as nationality and a photo appear more often than in the US or UK.

The rule that works everywhere: use the word the job ad uses, and decide the length and content by the type of job.

What goes in an academic CV, and how long it runs

An academic CV is a record, not a sales pitch. You list everything relevant to a scholarly career and keep adding to it. Typical sections, roughly in this order:

1. Contact details and your current position or department.
2. Education: degrees in reverse order, with institution, year, thesis or dissertation title and supervisor.
3. Research interests: two or three lines, not a paragraph.
4. Publications: full citations in one consistent style, split into peer-reviewed articles, books and chapters, and work under review or in preparation (always labelled as such).
5. Conference presentations and invited talks.
6. Grants, funding and fellowships, with the funder and year.
7. Awards and honours.
8. Teaching experience: courses, your role (lecturer, tutor, teaching assistant) and the level.
9. Research experience: labs, projects, methods and instruments.
10. Service: peer review, committees, conference organising, outreach.
11. Memberships, languages and technical skills.
12. Referees: academic CVs commonly name referees with full contact details.

Length: there is no page limit. A PhD student or early-career researcher might have a few pages; an established professor's CV can run far longer. The length comes from the record itself, never from padding.

Medical CVs follow the same idea with different sections: medical school, postgraduate training (residency in the US, foundation and specialty training in the UK), licences and registration, specialist qualifications, clinical experience, research and audits, and publications.

You tailor an academic CV by order, not by deleting. For a teaching-focused college, move teaching above research.

What goes in a resume (or a UK or Indian CV)

A resume, or a CV in the British and Indian sense, is built to answer one question quickly: can this person do this job? It usually holds:

• Contact details: name, phone, email, city, LinkedIn or portfolio.
• A short summary: two to four lines on who you are and what you offer.
• Experience: reverse-chronological roles with achievement bullets, ideally with numbers.
• Skills: the tools and abilities the job ad asks for, in the ad's own words.
• Education, plus certifications, projects or languages where they help.

It is selective. A researcher moving into industry might list "Selected publications" with two or three titles instead of thirty. Older or unrelated roles shrink to one line or disappear. Most people keep it to one or two pages; our guide to one-page vs two-page resumes covers how to decide.

Personal details are where the country matters most. In the US, UK, Canada and Australia, date of birth, marital status and a photo are usually left off. In India they still appear on some CVs, particularly for campus placements and traditional employers — our resume format for freshers explains when to include them. For a full walkthrough of each section, read how to write a resume.

CV vs resume: a side-by-side comparison

Here is how a resume (or a UK or Indian CV) compares with a full academic CV:

• Purpose: resume — persuade one employer you fit one role. Academic CV — give a complete record of your scholarly work.
• Length: resume — usually one or two pages. Academic CV — no limit; it grows with your career.
• Tailoring: resume — rewritten for each application. Academic CV — mostly the same each time, re-ordered for emphasis.
• Opening sections: resume — a summary, then experience (education comes first only for students and new graduates). Academic CV — education first, then research and publications.
• Only on a CV: the full publication list, presentations, grants, teaching record, service and referees.
• Only on a resume: a summary, achievement bullets with results, and a skills section matched to the job description.
• Writing style: resume — short bullets that start with verbs. Academic CV — mostly list entries and citations, with little prose.
• Where it is used: resume — non-academic jobs everywhere (called a CV outside North America). Academic CV — universities, research institutes, funders and medicine worldwide.
• Hiring software: both are often uploaded to an applicant tracking system, so both benefit from plain section headings and real, selectable text.

When to send which: six common situations

1. A company job in the US or Canada asks for a resume. Send a tailored resume of one or two pages.
2. A company job in the UK, Ireland, India, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa asks for a CV. Send the same kind of targeted document, and call it a CV in the file name and your email.
3. A faculty post, postdoc, PhD admission, research fellowship or grant, anywhere. Send a full academic CV, unless the call sets its own page limit or template — then follow that exactly.
4. A US company job asks for a "CV". In industry this usually still means a resume. Send a targeted document; if the role is research-heavy, add a short "Selected publications" section.
5. You are moving from academia to industry. Convert your CV into a resume (see the next section). A twelve-page CV sent to a company rarely helps you.
6. You are applying from India to the US, UK or Australia. Use the local format: remove date of birth, marital status, photo and the declaration, and keep it to one or two pages.

If an ad is still unclear, look at what it asks you to show. Requests for publications, a teaching philosophy or a research statement point to an academic CV. Requests for "relevant experience" and "key skills" point to a resume. When a European institution or programme names Europass, use the Europass format.

How to turn a CV into a resume (and back again)

From academic CV to resume:

1. Pick one target job and underline the skills its ad repeats.
2. Write a three-line summary that names your field, your strongest methods and the role you want.
3. Recast research and teaching as experience with results. Weak: "Conducted research on soil microbes." Stronger: "Ran a 14-month field study across 30 farm sites; built the R pipeline that cut sample analysis from two weeks to three days."
4. Keep two or three relevant publications under "Selected publications" and drop the rest.
5. Add a skills section that names tools: Python, R, SQL, lab techniques, project management.
6. Move education below experience once you have relevant work history, and trim to one or two pages.

From resume to academic CV: move education to the top, add your full publication list, presentations, teaching, grants, service and referees, and stop deleting older entries. The easiest habit is to keep one master CV with everything in it, then cut tailored resumes from it.

Making a CV or resume with ResumeInk

If you already have a CV or resume, upload it as a PDF, Word file or photo (up to 20 MB). The AI reads it and rebuilds it in a designed template, which you can then shape either way:

• For an academic CV, choose the Academic layout, which puts Education first. The academic CV template page shows it in different themes.
• For a UK, Irish, Indian or Australian CV, start from the CV template page or the CV maker.
• Reorder, hide or add sections in the editor, so one master document can become an academic CV or a short resume. Switch to any of the 260 designs in one tap; your words stay.
• Where a photo is expected, the Sidebar, Portrait, Compact header and Timeline layouts can show one (see resume templates with a photo); elsewhere, leave it out.
• Check the ATS score to see how cleanly hiring software can read it, then download a clean PDF.