Free CV Builder

A CV builder produces the document you apply with — and the first thing to settle is which document that is. In the US and Canada a CV is a full academic record with no length limit; in the UK, Ireland, Australia and most of Europe it simply means a resume by another name.

This builder handles both, and exports to PDF and Word so you can send whichever format the employer asked for.

It is free in the same way the rest of the site is: no account, no login, no watermark, no download limit.

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PDF and Word export
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100 ATS-friendly templates

The distinction

CV or resume — which do you need?

This is the most common source of confusion, and it is entirely geographic. There is no single correct answer, only the convention of the country you are applying in.

Resume versus CV conventions by market
Market	What to send	Conventions to check
United States, Canada	Resume for industry roles; CV only for academic, medical, scientific and research posts.	One to two pages. No photo, no date of birth, no marital status.
United Kingdom, Ireland	CV — the same document a US applicant calls a resume.	Two pages standard. No photo. Personal statement rather than summary.
Australia, New Zealand	CV, but closer to the US resume in length.	Two to three pages. No photo. Referees listed only on request.
Germany, France, much of the EU	CV (Lebenslauf / CV).	A professional photo is common. Date and place of birth are often expected. Sign and date the CV in Germany.
UAE, Saudi Arabia, wider Gulf	CV, usually longer than a US resume.	A photo and nationality are frequently expected. Visa status is often asked for directly.
Academic and research, any country	Full academic CV.	No page limit. Publications, teaching, grants and conference history all belong in.

Section order

What goes in a CV, and in what order

The order below is the standard industry CV. Academic CVs move education to the top and add publications, teaching and grants.

Personal details. Name, contact details, location. Add date of birth or nationality only where the market expects it.
Personal statement. Two or three sentences. The UK convention calls this a personal statement rather than a summary, but the content is the same.
Work experience. Reverse-chronological, three to five bullets per role, each ending in a result.
Education. Qualifications with institution and dates. UK CVs typically place this above experience for recent graduates.
Skills. Grouped by type and written in the literal terms a recruiter searches for.
Certifications. Professional qualifications with the awarding body and year — often a hard filter in finance, health and project roles.
References. "Available on request" is now redundant; omit the section entirely unless the employer asks for names.

The CV builder at a glance

What the free CV builder includes and how it works
Fact	Detail
Cost	Free, with no paid tier and no watermark on the exported file.
Account	None required — no email, password or card.
Best for	UK, Irish, European, Gulf and international applications; academic and medical CVs at their longer conventions.
Paper size and dates	The layout is A4 by default; dates are written most-recent-first and in a consistent format.
Export formats	PDF, Microsoft Word (.docx) and plain text (.txt).
Where your draft is stored	In your browser. There is no account and nothing to sign back in to.
Limits	No builder controls how an employer's software processes a file; the layout avoids the formatting that stops text being read.

Who should use the CV builder?

It is the right tool if you are applying outside the United States, or to an academic, medical, research or public-sector role where a longer document is expected. You supply the content; the template sets the section order and the typography.

Applying in the UK, Ireland, Europe or the Gulf. In those markets the word CV covers both the one-page industry document and the longer academic one, and this builder is written around that convention.
Applying for an academic or research post. You need the longer form — publications, teaching, grants and conferences — which is what the academic section below covers.
Applying in medicine or a regulated profession. Registration, training posts and continuous-practice entries are expected, and the CV format carries them without a rewrite.
Changing field. A CV can carry a short profile and a skills section that make transferable experience visible before the reader reaches the job history.

The technical part

Making a CV that an ATS can read

Applicant tracking systems are used across Europe and the Gulf as widely as in North America, and the formatting rules are the same everywhere: the parser has to be able to find the fields.

One reading column. Text in a side column can be extracted out of order or left out of the main flow, so the work history is the part most easily lost.
Standard headings. "Work Experience", "Education" and "Skills" map to fields. "Career History" usually does not.
No photos unless the market requires one. An image where the parser expects text can displace everything below it.
Consistent date formats. MM/YYYY, most recent first. Parsers build a timeline and inconsistency shows up as an unexplained gap.
Real text, not graphics. Skill bars, icon fonts and certificate images are unreadable to the parser.

Test a finished CV with the free ATS resume checker, or read how to pass ATS screening.

Longer documents

Academic, medical and research CVs

An academic CV is a complete record rather than a summary, and it has no length limit. The sections below are the ones hiring committees expect to find, in roughly this order.

Education. Doctorate first, then master's, then undergraduate, each with institution, year and thesis title.
Research interests. Two or three lines. Specific enough that a reader can tell whether you fit the department.
Publications. Peer-reviewed first, then chapters, then conference papers, in a consistent citation style throughout.
Teaching experience. Courses taught, level, and any supervision of dissertations or doctoral candidates.
Grants and funding. Awarding body, amount, period and your role — principal investigator or co-investigator.
Conferences and talks. Invited talks and presented papers, with venue and year.
Professional service. Journal reviewing, editorial boards, society membership, examining.

Use a serif or clean sans template such as Scholar Academic or Oxford Classic — dense, conventional and easy to scan at length.

Included

Tools that help with the writing

Questions

CV builder FAQ

What is the difference between a CV and a resume?

In the United States and Canada they are different documents: a resume is a one-to-two-page summary for industry roles, while a CV is a full-length record of academic and research history with no page limit. In the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe the word "CV" simply means the document you apply with, whatever the role — it is the same thing Americans call a resume.

How long should a CV be?

For an industry application in the UK, Australia or Ireland, two pages is the norm and three is the practical maximum. An academic or research CV has no limit and runs as long as the publication, teaching and grant record requires. The mistake to avoid is a long CV made long by padding rather than by content.

Should I include a photo on my CV?

It depends on the market. In the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Ireland, no — including one can trigger anti-discrimination filtering and some employers will discard the application. In Germany, France, much of continental Europe and the Middle East, a professional headshot is common and sometimes expected. Match the convention of the country you are applying in.

Do I need a different CV for every country?

Usually a light adaptation rather than a rewrite. Check three things: whether a photo is expected, whether personal details like date of birth or nationality are customary, and whether the length convention differs. The substance of your experience does not change.

What file format should I submit a CV in?

PDF unless the application asks for Word. PDF preserves your layout exactly as you designed it. Some older applicant tracking systems parse DOCX more reliably, so where an employer explicitly requests a Word document, send one.

Is the CV builder free?

Yes. There is no subscription, no trial, no download limit and no watermark on the exported file, and you do not create an account. Your CV is stored in your own browser rather than in an account database.

Build your CV now

Pick a template, fill in seven steps, and export to PDF or Word. Nothing is uploaded to an account — the document lives in your own browser.

Open the free CV builder See resume builders by profession

About this page

This CV builder guide is written and maintained by the people who build the tools it describes, and it is reviewed whenever the product changes.

No external reviewer has approved this page. It carries no named expert, no certification and no reviewer credentials, because the site does not hold any. There is also no sponsored content and no paid placement in a list or comparison.

Because the tools need no account, the site has no ratings, testimonials or user counts to publish. Everything here is either a statement about how the software behaves, which you can test, or a convention you can check with the employer.

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