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CV templates

CV templates for international applications

A CV is not a résumé with a different name. It runs longer, it prints on A4, and what belongs in the header changes depending on whether you are applying in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Casablanca. Start with the conventions of the market you are applying in, then pick a design from the 56 templates below.

What a CV means outside the United States

The same person applying for the same job in two countries sends two noticeably different documents. The career is identical; the conventions are not. Four things change: how long it runs, what paper it is laid out for, which personal details belong in the header, and whether a photograph appears at all.

Two pages is normal, and one page is not always better

A two-page CV is unremarkable in the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands and most of the EU. The convention is roughly this: page one carries your summary, your current role and the one or two before it; page two carries earlier roles in less detail, education, certifications and languages. Compressing fifteen years of work into one page is not a sign of discipline in these markets — it usually reads as a document that has had its evidence removed. Students and recent graduates are the exception and should stay on one page. Academic CVs are a separate genre altogether and can run to many pages once publications, grants, supervision and conference talks are listed.

A4 is the default almost everywhere

A4 measures 210 × 297 mm; US Letter measures 8.5 × 11 in, or 215.9 × 279.4 mm. A4 is about 6 mm narrower and 18 mm taller. That sounds trivial and is not: a layout built for Letter and printed on A4 leaves a wide band of empty paper at the foot of every page, and a layout built for A4 printed on Letter either scales the type down or pushes your last two lines onto a page of their own. Set the paper size before you start writing, because the line breaks you tune at the end depend on it.

The header is where the regional differences live

Every CV in every market opens with the same core: your name, one phone number with a country code, one professional email address, and the city and country you are in. A full street address is no longer expected and hands over more than it needs to. A LinkedIn URL earns its line if the profile is current; a personal site earns its line if there is work on it. Beyond that core, the extras — date of birth, nationality, marital status, a driving licence, a photograph — are regional, and adding them where they are not expected makes a CV look imported.

Say something about your right to work

If you are applying across a border, one short line saves the recruiter a guess and saves you a rejection based on one. Something as plain as EU citizen, no work permit required or UK Skilled Worker visa held to 2027 belongs near your contact details. Recruiters who cannot tell whether you are employable in their country frequently assume you are not.

Country conventions at a glance

A starting point, not a rulebook. Use it to decide what goes in the header and how long to let the document run.
Country or regionTypical lengthPhotoPersonal detailsPaper
United Kingdom & IrelandTwo pages is the working norm; one page for students and graduates.Not expected. Leave it off.Contact details only. No age, date of birth, nationality or marital status. A city is enough — no street address.A4
FranceOne page early in a career, two once you have a decade behind you.Common but entirely optional, and less universal than it once was.Some candidates still list age and a driving licence. A compétences block and language levels carry real weight.A4
Germany, Austria & SwitzerlandTwo pages for the Lebenslauf itself, often sent with a cover letter and scanned certificates.Still widely included, though it cannot be required of you and some large employers now ask you to omit it.Date and place of birth are still common. Some candidates date and sign the final page; nobody will reject you for skipping that.A4
Netherlands & NordicsOne to two pages, written tightly. Padding is noticed.Optional and increasingly left off.Date of birth appears sometimes. Nationality or work-permit status is useful if you are applying from outside the EU.A4
Morocco & the wider MENA regionOne to two pages.Usually included.Date of birth, nationality and a driving licence are commonly listed. A languages section — Arabic, French, English — is often the first thing read.A4
United States & CanadaOne page under roughly ten years of experience, two beyond it. Called a résumé, not a CV.No.Contact details only. No photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no nationality.US Letter

Conventions vary by employer, sector and even by office. A multinational hiring in Paris may screen exactly the way its London team does, a Berlin start-up may want the same stripped-back document a San Francisco one would, and public-sector employers everywhere tend to be more formal than private ones. Where a posting or an application form states what it wants — a length limit, a file format, whether to attach a photograph — follow the posting rather than the convention.

Photo or no photo

The single decision that most often marks a CV as written for the wrong market.

Where a photo is normal

Germany, Austria and Switzerland; much of southern and eastern Europe; Morocco and the wider MENA region; and parts of Asia and Latin America. If you include one, treat it as part of the document rather than a snapshot: head and shoulders, plain background, even lighting, and the clothes you would wear to the interview. Use the same image on your LinkedIn profile so the two match. A cropped holiday photograph does more damage than no photograph at all.

Where to leave it off

The UK, Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia. Employers in these markets often ask candidates not to send one, and it is widely reported that some recruitment teams remove photographs before a hiring manager sees a file so that shortlisting cannot be influenced by them. Including one anyway does not usually get you rejected, but it does signal that the CV was written for somewhere else.

20 templates with a photo block

These layouts reserve space for a portrait in the header or the sidebar. The remaining 36 are designed without one, so nothing collapses awkwardly when there is no image to place.

Modern Clean

modern · one column

Free

Modern Corporate

modern · two columns

Pro

Modern Creative

modern · one column

Pro

Modern Elegant

modern · one column

Pro

Modern Executive

modern · two columns

Pro

Modern Professional

modern · one column

Free

Human Resources CV

corporate · one column

Pro

Management CV

corporate · two columns

Pro

Browse CV templates by category

Six families of design. Every one of them exports to A4 or Letter, and you can switch template at any point without retyping anything.

Modern CV templates10 designs

Contemporary layouts with generous whitespace and a single accent colour. The safest place to start if you are not sure what your industry expects.

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Modern ATS

modern · one column

Free

Modern Clean

modern · one column

Free

Modern Compact

modern · two columns

Pro

Modern Corporate

modern · two columns

Pro

Modern Creative

modern · one column

Pro

Corporate CV templates10 designs

Structured, restrained designs built for finance, consulting, management and other environments where a CV is judged on rigour before personality.

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Banking CV

corporate · two columns

Pro

Business Professional

corporate · one column

Free

Consultant CV

corporate · one column

Pro

Corporate Executive

corporate · one column

Pro

Finance CV

corporate · one column

Pro

Creative CV templates10 designs

Expressive layouts for design, art direction, photography and content roles — where the document itself is a work sample.

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Art Director

creative · one column

Pro

Content Creator

creative · two columns

Pro

Creative Designer

creative · two columns

Pro

Creative Professional

creative · one column

Free

Editorial

creative · two columns

Pro

Technology CV templates10 designs

Engineering-oriented templates with room for a stack, projects and open-source work, without turning your CV into a keyword dump.

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AI Engineer

technology · two columns

Pro

Cybersecurity CV

technology · two columns

Pro

Data Scientist

technology · one column

Pro

Developer

technology · two columns

Pro

DevOps Engineer

technology · one column

Pro

Classic CV templates10 designs

Traditional, serif-friendly formats for academia, law, government and any employer that still expects a conventional document.

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Academic CV

classic · one column

Pro

Classic Professional

classic · one column

Free

Elegant Serif

classic · one column

Pro

Executive Classic

classic · one column

Pro

Formal CV

classic · two columns

Pro

ATS-friendly CV templates6 designs

Stripped-back, single-column layouts engineered to be parsed correctly by applicant tracking systems. No columns, no graphics, no surprises.

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Accountant CV

ATS-friendly · one column

Pro

ATS CV

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Entry-Level Resume

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

ATS Resume

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

ATS Simple

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Frequently asked questions

Length, photos, paper size and the details that change from one country to the next.

Outside the United States, two pages is the normal length for anyone with a few years of experience, and nobody will hold it against you. One page is right if you are a student, a recent graduate or changing career with little relevant history. What causes problems is not a second page — it is a second page that repeats the first. If page two only carries a hobbies list and a line about references, cut it and keep one strong page.