CV format in United States (2026)

The American resume at a glance

• PhotoNever — many employers discard photo resumes outright
• Length1 page is the norm; 2 pages for 10+ years' experience
• Personal dataNo age, marital status, or nationality — EEOC territory
• TerminologyIt's a 'resume'; a 'CV' means an academic document
• Paper sizeUS Letter, not A4

One page, and why the rule persists

The one-page norm survives because of volume: US recruiters average seconds per resume, and the discipline of one page forces prioritisation that benefits the candidate. Two pages is accepted once you genuinely have ten or more years of relevant experience — but a second page of filler hurts more than tight editing ever will. Font size below 10pt to cram content in is a known trick and reads as one.

Terminology matters: in the US a 'CV' (curriculum vitae) is the long academic document used for faculty, research, and medical positions. For everything else, the word and the document are 'resume'. Use US Letter page size (8.5×11in) rather than A4 — mismatched page size is a small but real tell of an unadapted foreign application, and can shift margins in printing.

What to leave off — the legal logic

No photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no nationality, no religion. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act make these characteristics protected, and US employers train recruiters to avoid documents exposing them. Some candidates go further and strip graduation years from degrees earned decades ago — a common, accepted tactic against age filtering.

What to include instead: work-authorisation status if you're not a citizen or permanent resident ('authorized to work in the US', or the visa sponsorship you'd need — H-1B transfer, TN, OPT). Ignoring the question doesn't defer it; most online applications ask it as a knockout question anyway.

The achievement-bullet culture

US resumes are written in an implicit first person with strong verbs and numbers: 'Reduced onboarding time 40% by rebuilding the training program' — no 'I', no 'responsible for', no duties-copied-from-the-job-description. Recruiters read the absence of numbers as absence of impact. A short summary line has replaced the old 'Objective' statement; skills sections are scanned by ATS keyword matchers, so mirror the posting's exact terms.

ATS discipline was invented for this market: the overwhelming majority of mid-size and large US employers screen automatically (Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS). Single column, standard headings ('Experience', 'Education', 'Skills'), no text boxes, no graphics. The beautiful Canva template that impresses in a coffee-chat gets parsed into noise at the application portal.

Applying from abroad

For international candidates the visa question dominates: US sponsorship is expensive and lottery-constrained (H-1B), so resumes that don't address authorization status get filtered fast. Convert everything to American conventions — resume not CV, Letter not A4, US spelling (organize, program), phone in +1-ready format — and translate qualifications into US-recognisable equivalents. Degrees like 'magister' should be stated as their US equivalent ('MSc equivalent') rather than left to guesswork.