How to write a CV: complete history, still in a parseable layout

US advice — one page, no photo, no date of birth, tight bullets — is correct for many US Workday pipelines. It is incomplete for a UK two-page CV and wrong for a German Lebenslauf that still often includes a photo. The document name itself is the first fork: Americans say resume; Brits and many EU employers say CV (curriculum vitae) for the job file too, not only for academia. If you are applying from the US to London, write a CV. If you are applying from Berlin to a US HQ requisition, write a resume and follow that country’s photo rules. The comparison lives in resume vs CV. This page stays on how to write the CV.

A UK job CV is usually two pages for anyone past the first role. Page one is not a teaser. It is contact, personal statement, and the most relevant jobs with proof. Page two continues older roles, education, skills, and optional extras (languages, professional memberships). Padding with hobbies and “references available on request” is still a waste. Completeness means the jobs and degrees that explain this vacancy, not every Saturday you worked at 17 unless it teaches a tool in the ad.

Layout still has to parse. Fancy UK templates from Canva with a coloured sidebar fail Workday and several NHS or university e-recruitment tools the same way they fail US Greenhouse. One column, left-aligned, month–year dates beside each employer. Contact in the body, not only in a header band. File: selectable PDF or .docx depending on the portal. Resume format rules apply even when the document is called a CV. Two-column resume ATS if you inherited a designed file.

Country habits that change the page, not the honesty

• UK: two pages, personal statement, no photo, no age, no NI number. Reverse chronology.
• Ireland: close to UK. Some public posts still like Europass; many private firms do not.
• France/Belgium: often a one-page CV for juniors, photo still common in some sectors — and still risky for ATS text.
• Germany/Austria/Switzerland: Lebenslauf may be tabular in look; build it as paragraphs, not a Word table. Photo and DOB remain in play in some processes; duplicate name and contact as text.

Europass is a public-sector and cross-border convenience, not a private-sector flex. Many UK hiring managers skip it. If a university or EU agency requires the XML/PDF Europass, submit that plus a cleaner two-page CV when the form allows a second file. Do not use Europass as your only document for a Greenhouse-stage startup in Amsterdam.

An academic CV is allowed to be long: education, appointments, teaching, supervision, grants, publications (often reverse-chronological by type), talks, service, languages. Dates still matter. A parser at a university using Workday or a local e-recruitment tool will still try to hang employers and degrees on fields. Put those in standard headings as text. Put the publication list in a Publications heading as plain lines (Author, year, title, venue) — not in a two-column journal-logo collage.

A job CV for industry, NGOs, or most public operations roles should not carry the full bibliography. “Selected publications (3 of 22)” or a link to a Google Scholar or ORCID in the contact line is enough. Teaching can collapse to “module lead, 120 undergraduates, 2023–2025” instead of every guest lecture. Grants: name, funder, year, your role (PI/Co-I), amount if public. The hiring manager in a product org will not finish page nine of conference abstracts.

Workday is still in use at some EU employers: large manufacturers, life-science groups, university professional-services hiring, and shared-services centres that rolled out HCM for the whole region. Greenhouse is the usual ATS at EU tech and many scale-ups. NHS jobs and some UK public boards use other portals (including TRAC) — those still punish scanned PDFs and text boxes. The practical rule does not change: selectable text, mapped headings, then complete the form fields the parser missed. Workday resume format and how to upload to Workday apply to a CV attachment the same way they apply to a US resume.

What to keep on a job CV that came from academia

• The appointment that maps to this vacancy, with dates and a deliverable (course, grant, dataset, clinic).
• Methods and tools the posting names (Stata, NVivo, Python, SPSS, lab platforms) under Skills and in a bullet.
• One proof of writing or teaching if the job needs communication — not the full teaching dossier.
• ORCID or Scholar URL as text. Workday will not crawl your profile for you.

Internships and placements belong with dates like any job. Unpaid research assistantships are still experience if you name the lab, the supervisor’s group, and the output. Student resume patterns work on a UK CV; they just sit in a two-page frame. How to list education for degree order when the degree is the main qualification.

Three rewrites we use when a US resume is stretched into a CV, or when an academic CV is cut for industry. Steal the structure. Keep your appointments.

Personal statement is not a US objective and not a LinkedIn About paste. Five lines: who you are in job nouns, years, domain, one proof, why this vacancy. Full patterns: CV personal statement. Line-level proof: resume achievements and resume bullet points still apply on a CV.

Do not “translate” every heading into poetry (“My journey”). Workday and many EU e-recruitment tools map Experience, Education, Skills. German “Berufserfahrung” is fine for a German vacancy. Mixing three languages in headings because the tools have English names only confuses the mapper.

Two hours. Vacancy, last CV, list of jobs with months. Type in the Enhance CV builder if you want a column the checker already understands.

1. Save the vacancy. Circle the job title as they wrote it, required tools, and whether they said CV, résumé, or Europass.
2. New file. Name, city/region, phone, email, LinkedIn (and ORCID if academic) in the body. No header-only contact.
3. Write the personal statement last. First assemble the job blocks.
4. List roles reverse-chronological. Employer, title, city, month–year. UK month names or 03/2022 — be consistent.
5. Most relevant role: three to six bullets with proof. Older roles: two bullets or a one-line scope.
6. Education: degree, institution, year (and classification if it helps and is true). Licences as text.
7. Skills: nouns from the vacancy you can defend. Languages with a real level (CEFR if you use one).
8. Academic extras only if the vacancy is academic or research-adjacent: selected publications, grants, teaching.
9. Drop photo for UK; follow local rules elsewhere but duplicate contact as text. Drop NI, marital status, and “references on request.”
10. Keep to two pages for a job CV unless the employer asked for an academic CV. Cut hobbies that do not prove a skill in the ad. Hobbies on a resume.
11. Export selectable PDF or the .docx the portal named. Open on a phone. Dates readable, email tappable.
12. Paste CV and vacancy into the ATS checker. Then upload to Workday, Greenhouse, or the local board and read every autofilled field.

Step 3 last is the same inversion as a US resume. A poetic statement about being a “dedicated professional” with a thin page two is an American one-pager in a wig. Proof first. The statement should sound like a hiring panel repeating you: title, years, domain, one proof, this vacancy.

If the employer is in the EU and the form is Workday, treat it as harshly as a US HQ. Siemens-scale HCM, university professional services, and some shared-services centres still parse first and ask you to fix the form second. Greenhouse in Berlin or Amsterdam will keep the PDF for the hiring manager and still index a parse for search. Do not send the academic poster.

Desk filter. If the choice is not in the table: will a UK two-page convention and a Workday field mapper both survive this decision?

References: UK forms sometimes ask later. Do not burn page two on names unless the vacancy demanded a reference list. References on a resume. LinkedIn can stay broader; the CV you upload must still match titles and dates — LinkedIn vs resume.

Workday in the EU. Some regional HQs and universities still run Workday apply. The CV can be two pages. The parse still fails on headers, columns, and images. Complete the form after upload. Do not assume “European CV” means the ATS is gentle.

Internships and sandwich years. Date them like jobs. A placement at a lab or a trust is experience. “Intern” can stay in the title if it was the badge; add the output in a bullet.

Publications. Faculty: full list, consistent citation style, reverse chronology. Industry: selected plus ORCID. Preprints: label them. Do not mix posters and Q1 papers in one undifferentiated dump without years.

First job. Two pages is allowed if page two is education, projects, and a placement — not white space and hobbies. Resume with no experience still applies; the frame is a CV.

US HQ role from the EU. Switch to resume conventions (shorter, no photo) if the posting is clearly US-process. Keep the same true dates. Do not keep a German photo header in a California Workday tenant.

What to do today: pick one vacancy, assemble two honest pages, flatten, score, upload, read fields. Enhance CV returns you to builder and checker. For the US-shaped cousin of this process, how to write a resume.