Resumes & CVs! British VS American 

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If you put “Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award” instead of “Eagle Scout” it would mean basically the same thing and British employers would recognise it and respect you, and definitely wouldn’t ask you to justify it 😂

British CV's are also meant to be one paged. However we mean by that "can print on one piece of paper". So that's two pages on word or pdf. America seems to have taken one page to mean one side of the paper.

“Don’t you mean a resumé? 😳 Resume.” Good play on words there, Evan! I caught it 🤓 💜

I think it's time for Evan to cover the biggest British vs American issue: what the hell are all the baked goods called: - Cookies, biscuits, chips, rolls, crackers, crisps?

The main diffrence i see is that people have a diffrent view of the attitude to working, the US hires to fill a role, the UK hires to fit in with the team to work together in the position

This reminds me, I need to update my resume with all the internships I havnt gotten since graduating college

As a typical Canadian, my CV is like half American half British lol

“Hello everybody and welcome to a guy who is a harbinger of chaos.”

I don't even remember the last time I needed a CV for a job application. All the jobs I applied for had long forms which covered all the education and experience things and then had boxes for you to fill in covering the skills and character stuff relevant to the job

Also: let's not ignore the fact that most job applications are done digitally these days and 50% of the time is spent reformatting the f#@ker because someone in HR lied about being proficient on MS and doesn't know how to create digital .doc forms.

I reached the point where I'm old and had 20yrs of experience that no matter what I did took up loads of space. So I paid a CV writer to help me streamline and get the headlines to show. It's working wonders I get twice as many calls now than I did before. It really is all in how the experience is written.

I feel like the British equivalent to putting "boy scout" on your resume is putting "DofE" (Duke of Edinburgh award) on your CV, we were told so much that that is basically a guaranteed hire

I’m from the UK and I was told the same thing about only having one page because companies won’t look at a really long CV. But I was also told the CV should be interesting looking and include all your experience and quals, and then you should write a targeted cover letter to the company explaining exactly why you’d be good for the job and how the experience outlined in the CV will help you in that job. And then I went to apply to jobs and every single job application process is completely different to the next 😂

Wow. How long has it been since a British Vs American video? Too long! That's the answer! I love it, please carry on making fantastic videos.

One HUGE gripe of mine is when I've applied for jobs and they ask for your CV but then proceed to ask you pages and pages of questions in which all the answers are on said CV. 😭

The only thing he missed is the Cover Letter. This is kinda like the best bits, but targeted on the job skills they are looking. So the US does have 2 pages, but kinda separates the personality part as the cover letter and the facts in the resume.

In the UK we have CVs and Resumes, they're different. CVs have no length limit but still are only a few pages long, where as resumes are typically one to two pages long. A CV details the whole course of the candidate's academic career (Secondary onwards, but secondary school and even Alevels can be left out if you have good work experience or those qualifications were a long time ago); a resume summarizes skills and work experience.

"Did you just correct me?" "No, resume." I love it!!!

Hello everyone welcome back to the American English mesh that we love

Europeans (aside from UK) also put pictures right at the top of the CV

British here, I was always told that you need to make it stand out, but keep it as short as possible (max 2 sides of A4). However, most jobs I've applied for want you take all the information out of your CV and put it into their online application form instead, so they never even see your actual CV.

I think the 1 page vs the 2 page is really what kills the character potential for US resumes. I try to sprinkle in character wherever I can in my US resume and mention my volunteer experience but there just isn’t enough room in one page so you have to just list your skills and experience for the job because you don’t want to waste any space. Also I’ve definitely noticed in the US there is a big difference between technology/math resumes vs social science/art ones - the latter has a bit more creative freedom which allows them to stand out.

Interestingly, I was encouraged to submit a CV when applying for Psychology graduate programs in the U.S.! I believe this is because CVs allow more space to include research that you’ve conducted!!

In NHS for most roles you would have to fill in an online application which is build like a CV and most Trusts no longer accept paper or attached CVs.

If you're in film or TV production, particularly freelancers, we have a separate CV for pretty much just production credits. Production managers are busy people, so this is often enough for them to get an idea of your background.

In my current industry (a mixture of Heritage and public engagement) my CV has never been important, there is always a cover letter instead, and usually an online application. In fact, I recently had to update my CV, and it took hours because I've had 3 different jobs and got a Master's degree since the last time I needed one. Each application will genuinely take 5-6 hours because each cover letter/application has to be written to each different job description, often up to 2000 words a time. It's painful, especially when most places don't get back to you unless you've been sucessful, and most will not offer any feedback, so you can't improve your application for the next one.

They look so much more pampered than German CVs :0 (also you write why you want that job and your strengths on an extra application letter as the first page and then add copies of you certificates after your CV page)

Dang, I was taught in the US that CVs were meant to be extra material with your resume. You go in detail about yourself and then write why you want to work for that company. If you don’t have a cv, you include a brief paragraph about yourself as a professional at the top. Really nice topic, especially as more people are looking at more global jobs.

Hello everyone and welcome to a man traumatised by his past jobs.

Being a Queens Scout in the U.K. got me a job once. All we talked about in the GROUP interview was my service in the Scouts. Very uncomfortable 😅

I’m American and I have both a CV and a resumé. My CV is basically all of the education, work, leadership, and research stuff I have ever done. Mine is 4 pages long, but I know one of my professors has a 45 page long CV. My resume is basically the same as Evan’s American resume (one page long, tailored to the job, no character). In my experience, a CV is used more in academic settings whereas a resumé is is used more in business/industry settings

Volunteering is mentioned because that's experience too, even if you weren't paid. For instance, it's common for junior developers to show their Github accounts or if they contributed to any open source project to list it.

Resume or CVs are called "Lebenslauf" in Germany - the run of life, or how my life ran so far :D

From the US here: I’m in medical school and we call it a CV. Also, I’ve been told by several directors and doctors that the page limit thing is crap as long as everything is relevant to the job or shows experience and work ethic. And we write descriptions of the different roles. Ours looks pretty similar to the UK example. We start with the “best bits” too (we call it in the summary and should let the company know what they’re getting into).

i can never get over how nice your videos are in terms of lighting sound and editing. the way you make your face the focus, but at the same time have the background interesting, but not in a way that is distracting - it's amazing

In academia we use the term both resume and CV, resume is typically 1-2 pages with relevant information, but an academic CV outlines every single thing you've done in academic (conferences, papers, books, etc) with no page limits!

Question: Why do we have to have a resume and cover letter if we are just going to have to fil out all of that information for each individual employer through their hiring database system? I spend countless hours every week entering the same information and uploading files upon files (education industry also requires transcripts, letters of recommendations and certifications).

I'm from the UK and the UK CVs look completely different to how everyone has told me to write one I'm convinced they purposely sabotaged me lmao

I'm from the UK and i hate doing CVs because i was always told contradictory information about how many pages, what information to include what order ect

Most definately the biggest difference to Finnish CV:s is that these dont have the languages section of what languages you can speak and how well

One other interesting note though, I am an American but in my scientific field, we actually use CVs rather than resumes because we are then able to list and go into depth with personal publications, conferences, etc. along with the general things you would put on a resume. I havent seen any nearly as beautiful as those though! Major props!

I'm a Brit living in the US, and my CV/resumé is a meld of the two. Single page, two columns,. The left column has a bit of personal info, such as extra-curricular activities, influences, and additional info such as work eligibility... and then the right side is very much like a US resumé, with each company/experience, and bulleted lists.

Here in the Netherlands employers also ask for a motivation letter. This serves as the basis as to why the employer should hire you. This is where you put in things like: * Why the company should hire you * Why you want to work for that company * How skills from your CV are relevant to the job you're applying for. Some employers don't even care about the CV and only want to see the motivation letter. As for the way our CVs look, they're similar to the UK ones but we also add in a photo of what we look like.

That ending was *chefs kiss*

In australia you may be asked to provide a resume and a CV. A resume is to show previous employment, education etc and a CV (cover letter) is a few paragraphs about you and why the job is suitable to you. So you change it based on the job you are applying for

1. CV and resume are used interchangeably in the UK. In other words they mean the same thing. 2. The American example would be fine in the UK, but adults are not expected to include childhood achievements because it's not relevant. 3. 2 column CVs are seen as messy in the UK and most places prefer the standard 1 column layout. Especially since its usually 'read' by a machine first. 4. The general rule in the UK is that a CV should get straight to the point as you can go into detail about your experience in your cover letter and in the interview. - 1 page CV if you have less than five years experience or when applying to entry level jobs - 2 page CV if you are in a senior position with years of experience. You can have more pages if it cannot fit, but as previously mentioned it should be as succinct as possible.

i've interviewed in the US and the UK multiple times, and UK interviews just seem to always end up being a friendly chat and not as stifling whereas in the US it feels like an interrogation

Just to note we actually get told CVs shouldn’t be more than one page especially if you’re just a new graduate

CV is used in the U.S. in academia mostly. I've noticed though that the two are now aligned than before as I've lived and worked in both countries.

A few bits of info from the Czech Republic: (1) education is typically listed in reverse order with years (from/to), including secondary schools, so it is fairly easy to guess age, even if the applicants do not post a photo or give their DOB (which is totally normal btw); (2) there are no EC activities at our universities, let alone secondary schools (with minor exceptions); (3) in many cases applicants are expected to only list things directly related to the job; (4) the worst thing for an applicant is.... frequent changes; so if one has held five jobs over a year, it is a huge issue.

I believe someone else said it, but at least a few years ago, in the US a Resume and a CV were different documents used for different professions. When I was applying in academia they wanted a CV with not only relevant work and schooling, but also professional accomplishments and any publishing that I had done. However all of my resumes were basically like the ones you showed. I believe now a days, depending on the profession, you can have a multi page resume, but the general rule is to fill all pages included in your resume.

Could you do more of these videos. I feel like there's so much that's different from Britain to America.

You can have a bit of character on your resume in america. My resume is two column like the CV shown and has a bit of color. I get tons of compliments on it when interviewing and they often say it made me stand out from the pack. A resume can be 2 pages but 1 page is ideal. Anything beyond 2 pages they won't read. I work in HR and I like seeing the resumes with character.

It’s really obvious that your US ones are from people that haven’t been in the workforce too long. And the industry matters. I have 10 years experience and have a bit of color on mine, 2 columns very similar to the setup of the last UK one you looked at, and then bullets are somewhere between the US ones you showed and the UK ones. Also, my gov employee resume is 3 pages long with tons of information and sentences.

Interesting video 👍. I’m currently applying for jobs in Norway and have had to learn their CV format. It’s quite hard trying to get it right for another country

I think the one page thing is just formatting. The British ones would probably fit on a page with all the features that make readable removed and a smaller font. It would be interesting to check the word count on all those CVs and Resumes.

In Canada we have both, CVs are mainly used for academia whereas resumes are for everyday job positions

I was using my American-style resume about 2 years ago, and it wasn’t working... I googled “British CV examples” just for some inspiration, and liked the two-column format with some character so much better! I tried to merge the two styles- one page, but more than just jobs/education. It actually worked really well! I think (hope...) Americans are slowly moving away from boring robot resumes.

I'm from the UK and in school I was taught that CV's should be 1 page, 2 pages if you have lots to write about but should try to be as short as possible. I was also told that you shouldn't use any colour as your CV will be thrown away straight away. I was also told that you should never put video games on your CV, but putting things like "love going to the cinema" was okay because... who knows. I've ended up with a CV which is between both styles you showed, where it's all listed out, in black and white but formatted to look nicer than just a list. Great video Evan

I'm in the UK, and maybe it is just the industry I'm in (Libraries and Museums). I am a manager that has seen over 50 CV's this past year. Most of them (including my own) were more like the US resume. The few that were formatted in the way you had demonstrated as normal for the UK, I found harder to go through. I also have to note that 2 pages is the ideal number of pages for a CV. I once had one sent to me that was 6 pages long dating back to the 80's and included irrelevant experience to the role they'd applied for. The biggest thing that is recommended is to always include a cover letter. In the cover letter (which ideally would be no more than 400 words) you can highlight relevant experience to the role applied for and to show more personality. A lot of times your CV won't even be looked at if the cover letter doesn't do this

Academics in the US use CVs, but these are typically structured differently than a resume.

CV is indeed used in the USA. But mainly in an academic context. When I was in grad school it was always CV for scholarly jobs--never resume.

I am from the UK and my CV is different. I have to alter mine depending on what job I am applying for.

I'm just taking some notes on these CVs considering I have not had to update mine in years!

Apparently, according to a Communication Studies professor I took a course with, Americans use the term CV for academic resumes. We Brits don't make that distinction.

Not me trying to re make my Curriculum Vitae/ Resume using this extremely helpful video for applying to jobs in UK and America lol😂😂 Thanks for making this video! Its very helpful!!

If you are unemployed in the UK the Jobcentre may send you on a job seeking course. This typically looks at writing a CV, adopting better interviewing techniques and expanding your job search in jobs outside your immediate experience. Many either never had a job (other than a Saturday job) or had not needed to apply for a job for decades - so good enough reasons to look at the task. Everything you suggest is the American way of presenting your resume are covered by these British run courses including having your CV on one page and at most two. This gets hard if you have worked on a lot of projects for different companies either from your employer or as a contractor/freelance employee. The standard method of reducing this is to condense all work more than five years ago to a paragraph. But there is always that possibility that something you did might become the focus for discussion so that they can get to know you better or might be important to the vacancy. e.g. I included that I had spoken German - having worked in German on my college holidays. At on interview I was given a hand written letter from a German customer. The German was not difficult but the hand writing was hard for me to read. It is also suggested that you rewrite your CV for a particular job and put in the buzz words for that job. Although correct I have usually found that there is no time to do that as some ad hoc opportunities just turn up and you have to supply your CV there and then either directly or via an agency. With little knowledge about the company, not even the name or what they do only that some of your skill set might apply and possibly the location (nearest city).

Australian resumes are suprisingly similar to the USA's we only have one page but also add a cover letter. Also something I noticed is that you can tell the difference between how each country's education differs from each other as it seems in the UK there more educated just given the way they fully utilise the pages they have. On the note it's really hard to write a resume with no job experience at 21 (I've never had a job).

The coloured one is a word doc template. I found it so useful for when I was creating my cv and cover letter

I'm English and I have a one page CV. Maybe thats because I'm 30, worked at the same place for years and not had it looked at in ages...

a very big thing to note here in the UK is that we are more forgiving of typography and colour. using segmentation in the CV to distinguish the difference between whats personal and what is not. Resumes appear to be strictly business. and although you can use some degree of typography to control where they look on the page, most of the time it's more or less just a list with headlines. and its always lines of text. whereas in the UK you can get away with verticality.

British lass here, if I had my cv in any of these formats I would have been told it was wrong. Been told many times that the right way is a double sided page in a standard top to bottom layout with: Name, phone number, email, section about yourself, jobs/volunteer/work experience, education, interests and then you put references on demand at the bottom

Here in the UK, I was always taught 1-2 sides so it fits on a single sheet of A4. My early CVs were all single sided.

The hurdle these days is getting through the HR filters. A while back I had a spate of HR sending me CVs for people they thought I would want to interview for roles I had open...none matched what I'd asked for. After a couple of weeks of this I asked for the CVs of those they didn't want to send me...those people had everything I needed and after interviews (which they might not have got otherwise) they were all hired.

In Canada well in Ontario we normally add a cover letter then the resume with it. And in the resume it is structured similar to the US one. The resume can be 1 to 2 pages.

In Sweden it's cv as well. Interesting to see how diffrent cv are in diffrent countries, here it's more personality based as well. :)

Hi! Brand new, so just thought I would say something.

I use a one page cv/resume for basically everything. British and have worked in U.K.,USA and China. I just put jobs, and education (Degree and masters level only). I don’t put Duke of Edinburgh awards Or all the other things I did in my TEENS that apparently help you get jobs. (Trinity arts awards, UK Youth parliament etc , it’s funny other things that apparently are guaranteed to get you hired in the U.K. are being in Girl Guides, Boy Scouts, international and national citizen service.. and so on)

I'm a high school student in America. I go to a school where I take design courses and they're teaching us to make our resumes more interesting nowadays. The way I was taught is that you can have more a little more color and character than all of the examples shown here. I thought that was interesting. Loved the video! Have a wonderful day!

Instead of CVs I thought it said CVS and I thought he was going to be talking about an American drug store 😂

In my experience, in my field of study (I’m American) people use CVs, and they’re typically more than one page unless you’re right at the beginning of your career. They don’t look like the British ones though, since there’s not much personality allowed and much of the space is for publications

I think Cvs also depend on job roles. As leaving university this year and learning Cvs for graphic design. It's vital for 1 page and to be very visual with the CV. However, when I applied for a job in fast food. My other CV is 2 pages and almost the same as the uk ones

You’ll never know what I wrote...HAHAHAHA you fools! ;3; Edit: I used a stylus to write this ;3; that’s why this actually has likes, its magic! Edit: how is my comment still at the top?....I have no idea

I’m in US. I was told one page for high school graduate, two pages for 4 year college degree, and CV for “professional” degrees and positions. ( i.e. professors, lawyers, doctors, etc)

The formatting is really easy. Just use an online cv builder. It normally costs 99p once you have written it to be able to download them

I have been told by a Human Resources whizz that CV is the term when you have a University Degree. People without Degrees have Resumes. However, many use the term CV regardless of their education. Thank you for the video.

hi evan so my dad work as a head hunter- companies employ him to fill jobs like CFO- and he has always told me that as long as people have the qualifications what he then looks for is hobbies so that he can chat to them about that in an interview. however he always loves obscure ones like windsurfing. i just thought it might be cool because this is his job and i thought it was some good advice

I remember teaching a high level ESOL/EFL class and one lesson was supposed to be about writing covering letters for a job application. Personally I don’t like them, the CV should say everything that needs to be said, but I went ahead and started preparing a plan. Literally every single US one I saw would, if I had been hiring, have gone straight in the bin along with the unread CV. They always had two features that damned them in the UK. First they would always sing the praises of the company in a way that comes over to us as obsequiously fawning. Second the utter lack of modesty about their own abilities instantly cast doubt on how true anything could be. I did find some more restrained UK ones so I used those.

I had a CV that was formatted like the 2nd British CV (I'm a Brit and also love the sentences). I got told by a recruitment guy that it wasn't favourable as they run CVs through a system and by having 2 columns you won't pass the software they use to verify. So something to bear in mind.

this is super useful as im currently applying to placements abroad. ty!

I remember one time I had to write my mum’s CV (she had it all written on paper but didn’t have an online one so I had to make her one) and it took about 2 hrs. A lot of it was writing about where she’s worked & how long she worked there and why she’d be a good fit so I had to write proper sentences, instead of bullet points.

CV is used (in U.S. at least) primarily in academia

Australian 🇦🇺 here. I haven’t updated my resume in 4 years but it starts with my educational history, then my work experience at school (probably can remove that since it’s ten years since I finished school), my skills (programs I can use), special interests then my employment history then my referees.

Academic Resumes in the US are called CVs. They're like regular resumes but include a list of all your published writing and conference appearances.

Only applied once to a UK based company, and they demanded a one page CV. They actively discouraged us from using more than one page. And for me as a german, who didn't write a CV/Resume whatever you wanna call it in 20 years it was actually quite an experience. Since it was a fast track hiring process it was kinda rushed anyway, 15 minute interview, 1 hour 20 in a simulator and i was hired.

I've found that here in England if you're fresh out of uni or only have had a few jobs, there's a rule to only have one page. As you have more experience you write about that through to another page. pretty much everyone has a 'personal statement' at the top, summarising them as a person and 'grabbing attention' to quickly see if they're the right match if so, they keep reading and see what you're interested in and what you get up to in your free time I guess.

Evan can you do job interviews next? Seeing as you have experience in both it would be interesting to hear about the differences/ faux pas

My CV goes: Address and contact information Qualifications - what grade im gonna get with my degree, and what grades i got in school and 6th form Education - where i went to school, 6th form and university Expierence: Name of company, time that i did it- sentences about the roles I then have a personal statement saying what kind of person I am A list of skills (singular words) and then a reference list mines a uk cv btw

I never knew what CV meant until now. Thank you. I like how character of a person means something before hired. Shows a little insight to who might fill the roll they are in need to fill.