CV vs Resume: how the same career looks different in France, the UK and the US

Applying internationally with the same CV in three markets is one of the fastest ways to get auto-rejected. The reason isn't your career — it's that the document a French recruiter expects is structurally different from what an American hiring manager wants, which is different again from what a British recruiter scans for. Here's a precise, market-by-market guide to what changes when you cross a border.

TL;DR — the table that explains 90% of the differences

France 🇫🇷 — the European context, with FR specifics

A French CV is the most "personal" of the three: it's expected to include some context about who you are, beyond pure professional facts.

Where French CVs differ from international norms:

• Photo remains common — 30% of recruiters consider it a plus, 50% neutral, 20% slightly negative (Apec 2024). Recommended for client-facing or traditional industries (banking, hospitality, retail), avoided for tech or international roles.
• Nominal writing style is preferred: "Pilotage de la stratégie marketing" rather than "Led marketing strategy". No personal pronouns at all.
• Language levels use CEFR (A2, B2, C1, C2). "Notions" or "courant" are accepted but increasingly considered imprecise.
• A separate "Centres d'intérêt" section is valued if the interests are concrete (competitive sport, association involvement, not "reading, cinema").
• "Permis B" is mentioned when mobility is relevant to the role (sales, regional positions).
• For French civil service competitions, candidates include their competition rank, grade, and corps/échelon.

What you can drop without losing credibility:

• Marital status, number of children, nationality (unless the role legally requires it).
• Date of birth (the trend post-2020 is to remove it).
• Full home address (city + postal code is enough).

United States 🇺🇸 — Resume conventions, EEOC anti-discrimination baked in

The American resume is shaped by anti-discrimination law (EEOC, ADEA, ADA) more than any other market. Recruiters and ATS are trained to discard resumes containing protected information to protect themselves from bias claims.

The non-negotiables:

• No photo. Ever. Auto-reject in many large companies.
• No date of birth, age, gender, marital status, religion, nationality. All protected categories.
• Address: city + state only. "Brooklyn, NY" is enough. Never include your street.
• Work authorisation: only mention if it's an asset ("Authorised to work in the US for any employer") or a clear requirement ("Requires H-1B sponsorship"). Never include your SSN or visa paperwork.

Style is aggressive:

• Every bullet starts with a strong action verb: Led, Architected, Drove, Reduced, Shipped, Spearheaded, Built.
• Quantification is mandatory and aggressive. Every bullet should have a number, percentage, dollar figure, or scale: "Reduced churn 18%", "Managed $2.4M budget", "Scaled platform to 12M MAU".
• Implicit "I" — never write the pronoun. "Managed team of 8" — not "I managed a team of 8".
• US English spelling everywhere: organize, optimize, color, behavior.

Structure:

1. Header (name + contact, no street address)
2. Summary (optional, 3-4 punchy lines)
3. Core Skills / Technical Skills (often near the top for tech roles)
4. Professional Experience (reverse-chronological, achievement-led)
5. Education (after experience unless <3 years XP, or fresh grad from top school)
6. Certifications / Projects / Publications

What to omit:

• "References available upon request" — obsolete, wastes space.
• Hobbies — only include if extraordinary (Olympic athlete, published author).
• GPA — only if >3.5/4.0 AND <3 years since graduation.

United Kingdom 🇬🇧 — CV conventions, formal but human

The British CV sits between the French and American extremes. More formal than a US resume, less personal than a French CV.

Where it lands:

• No photo — Equality Act 2010 creates a similar bias-prevention norm to the US. Some sectors tolerate it; safest to omit.
• No date of birth, marital status. Same logic as US.
• Address: city + postcode is the standard ("London, EC1A 4HD"). Street is optional.
• Right to work: optional but useful to mention if it's an advantage ("Right to work in the UK — British citizen" or "EU Settled Status"). Helpful post-Brexit.

Style:

• Implicit "I", action verbs. Quantification appreciated but less aggressive than US.
• British English spelling: organise, optimise, colour, behaviour, programme.
• Dates: DD/MM/YYYY or "Mar 2022 – Present".

Length:

• 1-2 pages for junior is fine (US would push for 1).
• 2 pages standard for senior — 1 page reads as "thin" for experienced profiles in the UK, the opposite of US norms.

Structure:

1. Header (name + mobile + email + city + postcode + LinkedIn)
2. Personal Statement / Professional Profile (3-5 lines, expected near the top)
3. Key Skills
4. Work Experience (reverse-chronological)
5. Education (can move above experience for recent graduates; Oxbridge/Russell Group remains valuable throughout the career)
6. Certifications / Professional Memberships (Chartered status is highly valued: MICE, MBCS, ACCA, MRICS, GMC depending on field)
7. Hobbies / Interests (optional but more tolerated than in the US — Duke of Edinburgh Award, regional sport, mentoring)

Vocabulary specifics:

• "CV", never "Resume".
• "Mobile" rather than "cell".
• GCSEs and A-Levels are expected for early-career CVs (<5 years experience). Remove them for senior profiles.
• Convert grades: French Mention Bien → 2:1, Très Bien → First.

The three classic pitfalls when crossing borders

These are the most common mistakes when a French candidate exports their CV abroad — and they almost always lead to an auto-reject:

1. Keeping the photo, age, and marital status. This is the single biggest filter in the UK and US. Even if your CV is otherwise excellent, including these in an English-speaking market signals "doesn't understand the local recruitment culture" and triggers anti-discrimination caution.

2. The "Permis B" line. Incomprehensible to a US or UK recruiter. Either remove it entirely, or — if driving is required for the role — rewrite as "Full UK driving licence" or "Valid US driver's licence". Don't leave it as "Permis B".

3. CEFR language levels. "Anglais C1" means nothing to a US recruiter and is borderline confusing in the UK outside of EU-facing roles. Convert systematically:

• CEFR C2 / native → "Native"
• CEFR C1 → "Fluent"
• CEFR B2 → "Professional working" (US) / "Fluent" (UK)
• CEFR B1 → "Conversational" (US) / "Intermediate" (UK)
• CEFR A2 → "Basic"

A bonus pitfall: French academic grades on a /20 scale. Convert to local equivalents or omit. "16/20 in Mathematics" is incomprehensible to a US/UK recruiter who has no reference point.

The hidden cost of "just translating" your CV

A good translation tool gives you a literal CV that passes Google Translate's QA but completely misses the cultural codes. The result is a document that reads as professionally competent but culturally tone-deaf — which is often worse than a slightly less polished but culturally-aware CV.

The work that needs to happen alongside translation:

• Removing fields that don't exist abroad (photo, DOB, marital status, full address).
• Converting verbs from nominal to active ("Pilotage de" → "Led").
• Adding quantification for the US market, even at the cost of slightly longer bullets.
• Adjusting length (cutting for US, expanding for UK senior).
• Swapping vocabulary (CV ↔ Resume, mobile ↔ cell, CEFR ↔ native/fluent/etc.).
• Matching local ATS expectations (single column, standard section names in target language, MM/YYYY dates).

How ShotCV handles this automatically

When you paste a French CV and a US or UK job posting into ShotCV's refit, the AI:

1. Detects the target market from the job posting (currency, location, English variant, HR vocabulary).
2. Applies the right CV conventions for that market: strips photo / DOB / nationality if present, converts CEFR levels, adjusts length expectations, picks the right English spelling.
3. Rewrites in the local style: implicit "I" with action verbs for English markets, nominal style for France, quantified achievements where the source CV has the data.
4. Keeps the same career: zero invention. If your source CV has no numbers in a bullet, the refit keeps it qualitative rather than fabricating figures.

Three markets, one CV file, one source of truth.

Conclusion

A successful international application starts with accepting that "CV" isn't a universal format. The French, British and American versions share a structure on the surface — name, experience, education — but diverge sharply on what's expected, what's tolerated, and what triggers an auto-reject. Get the conventions right for the target market and a strong career speaks for itself. Get them wrong, and even an excellent profile is filtered before a human sees it.