A US resume is one or two pages on US Letter paper, with no photo, no birth date and no marital status. It lists your jobs newest first, as short bullets that show results. And it uses a plain one-column layout that software reads in the right order, because nearly all of the largest US employers use an applicant tracking system (ATS): Jobscan’s 2026 count detected one at 487 of the Fortune 500.
If your resume was written for another country, several of those rules will be new. Below are the main rules, most with the source behind them: US career centers, the federal agency that enforces hiring discrimination law, and recruiters at companies like Amazon. Use it as a checklist before you apply.
Resume or CV: what Americans mean
In the UK, much of Europe and India, “CV” is the everyday word for a job application document. In the US, a CV is something else: a long academic record of publications, teaching and grants, used for research and university jobs. Everyone else sends a resume.
The difference is not just the name. A US resume is short and targeted. Yale’s Office of Career Strategy says a resume “prioritizes only relevant experiences”, while a CV aims to be complete. Outside academia and research, a US company that asks for a CV usually means a resume. For the full comparison, see our guide to resume vs CV.
The US resume rules at a glance
| Rule | US standard | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Length | One page early in your career, two at most for most people | MIT, Yale |
| Paper size | US Letter, 8.5 × 11 inches. “The U.S. does not use A4 paper size.” | Fordham Law |
| Margins | At least 0.5 inch, ideally 0.75–1 inch | MIT, Fordham Law |
| Photo | None | Harvard, Pomona |
| Personal details | No age or birth date, gender, marital status, religion, height or weight | Harvard, Pomona, Fordham Law |
| Order | Reverse chronological: the most recent job first, sorted by end date | MIT, Harvard |
| Bullets | Action verbs and measurable results, in plain round bullets | Harvard, MIT, Fordham Law |
| References | Leave them off, and skip lines like “References available upon request” | Harvard, Fordham Law |
| Signature and date | None. Unlike a German CV, a US resume is not signed or dated | Fordham Law: “Resumes are not signed.” |
| File | A text-based PDF or Word file, unless the posting says otherwise | Greenhouse |
Why there’s no photo, age or marital status
US employers avoid this information because asking for it is a legal risk. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which enforces federal anti-discrimination law, says in its guidance on hiring practices that “employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant”. A photo can be collected after a job offer is made and accepted.
The same page explains why. Information about race, sex, national origin, age and religion is “irrelevant” to whether you can do the job. Asking for it “may be used as evidence of an employer’s intent to discriminate”. The EEOC says the same about marital status and children.
Putting a photo on your resume is not against the law. But the US career centers above all tell you to leave it off, and a photo uses space your experience could fill. The same goes for your birth date, family status and nationality.
One page or two?
The US career centers we checked say one page, or two at most, with a little more room for PhDs. MIT tells students to “aim for one page or two pages maximum if you have substantial relevant information”. Yale breaks it down by level:
- Undergraduates: usually one page.
- Master’s students: one or two pages.
- PhDs and postdocs: two or three pages at most.
Yale adds a warning: “Some employers will accept only a 1-page resume, so be sure to check.” At Amazon, Danielle Deshields, who recruits for student programs, recommends one page and says even people with longer careers can fit their most recent, relevant experience on it. A safe rule: one page if you have under a few years of experience, two pages only if every line is relevant to the job. Our article on resume length goes deeper.
Sections and order
A US resume uses a few standard headings, so both people and software can find things fast:
- Header: your name, city and state (or city and country), phone, email and LinkedIn profile. Not a full home address.
- Summary (optional): two or three lines on who you are and what you bring to this role.
- Experience: job title, company, city, start and end month. The newest job comes first.
- Education: degree, school, year.
- Skills: tools, languages and certifications the job asks for.
Keep the headings plain: “Experience”, not “My Journey”. Our resume format checklist covers each section in detail.
Bullets the way big US companies read them
The Google XYZ formula
Laszlo Bock, Google’s former head of people operations, gave a widely quoted formula for a resume bullet in a 2014 New York Times interview: “I accomplished X, relative to Y, by doing Z.” In other words, the result, how you measured it, and what you did (reported by Quartz).
| Duty-style bullet | XYZ bullet |
|---|---|
| Responsible for customer support tickets | Cut average ticket response time from 9 to 4 hours by building a triage queue and 30 reply templates |
| Worked on the company website | Raised newsletter sign-ups 35% in one quarter by redesigning the landing page and testing 6 headline variants |
These are made-up examples: use your own numbers, and don’t invent any.
Amazon: simple, quantified, matched to the qualifications
Amazon’s recruiters publish their advice. “While there are no hard rules, it’s best to keep a resume text-forward, black and white, and simple,” says Anna Duong, a tech talent acquisition manager at Amazon. Amazon calls itself “a data-driven company”, so the more you quantify, the better. Read the job’s Basic and Preferred Qualifications, and use their words wherever they truthfully describe your experience.
ATS at Fortune 500 companies: facts and myths
Almost all of them use one. Jobscan’s 2026 report found an ATS at 97.4% of the Fortune 500 (487 of 500 companies). Workday alone runs at over 40% of them.
Layout problems are mostly about reading order. Text extraction usually gets every word out of a two-column resume, but it can mix up which line belongs to which job. Two tests by resume-tool companies point the same way (neither tested a named ATS):
- In Enhancv’s test of 357 runs, two-column layouts kept almost all the words. Under the worst text extraction, though, the sections stayed intact 35% of the time, against 60% for one column.
- In ATS Verification’s benchmark, the one-column layout scored 100 out of 100. The two-column layout with a sidebar scored 85, because sidebar text got mixed into the work history.
MIT’s advice matches: “ATS may struggle with reading tables, columns, graphics, and images.” One column is the safe choice.
Automatic rejections come from application questions, not from layout. In Greenhouse, a widely used ATS, an employer can set a rule that rejects candidates automatically based on their answer to a yes/no or multiple-choice application question, such as one about a required license. Recruiters can also search resumes by keyword: job titles, skills, locations. Words that sit inside an image or an icon usually aren’t read as text, so that search may not find them.
Myth: “75% of resumes are rejected by ATS.” You’ll see this number often. We couldn’t find a study behind it, so don’t plan around it. Plan around two filters you can check: the questions you answer and the keywords a recruiter searches for.
Your first US job, or applying as an international student
- Visa status: Pomona says leave it off the resume. Many US application forms ask about work authorization, so answer that question honestly there. If you are a US citizen or permanent resident, listing it might help, according to a 2012 Stanford career handbook.
- Paper: switch from A4 to US Letter before you export the PDF.
- Degrees and titles: write them out in plain English, and add a short note if the name won’t mean much to a US recruiter.
- Dates: use month and year (“Mar 2024 – Present”), not day-month-year.
- Phone: include the country code if you’re outside the US.
Coming from a CV in another country’s format? Our step-by-step guide shows how to convert a CV to a US resume, country by country. Applying to remote US jobs from abroad? See how to write a resume for remote jobs from abroad.
Final checklist before you apply
- One page, or two if every line is relevant
- US Letter, margins of 0.5–1 inch
- No photo, birth date, marital status or nationality
- No signature, date line or references
- One column, standard headings, round bullets
- Newest job first, month and year for every date
- Bullets that show results, with real numbers
- The job’s keywords where they truthfully apply
- A text-based PDF, unless the posting asks for Word
Tailor it to each posting with Dovira
Getting the format right is half the job. The other half is making each resume match the posting, and doing that by hand for every application is slow. Dovira does it for you:
- Upload the resume you have, as a PDF, DOC, DOCX or TXT file, in whatever country’s format it’s in now. It needs selectable text: a scanned image won’t upload.
- Paste the US job posting. Dovira writes a new resume for it: one column, no photo, a header with your name, title, email, phone, city and LinkedIn, then your summary, skills, experience and education.
- The employer’s keywords: Dovira is told to use them only where they truthfully apply and to rewrite your bullets as results. Check the result before you send it.
- Edit by chatting (“make it one page”, “more focus on Python”), then download a PDF. Dovira exports A4 for now, so if the employer asks for US Letter, paste the text into a Letter-size document before you send it.
Your first 3 tailored resumes are free, no credit card needed. Try it on the next US job you want to apply for.
FAQ
Should I put a photo on a US resume?
No. The EEOC advises US employers not to ask for one, and Harvard, Pomona and other US career centers tell applicants to leave it off. A photo takes space and can work against you.
Can a US resume be two pages?
Yes, if you have enough relevant experience. MIT says two pages maximum, and Yale allows two or three for PhDs. Early in your career, one page is safer, and some employers accept only one.
PDF or Word?
A text-based PDF is usually fine. Greenhouse, for example, accepts .pdf, .doc, .docx, .rtf and .txt. If a posting asks for Word, send Word.
Should I write “References available upon request”?
No. US career centers say to leave references and that line off. Employers ask for references later, when they need them.
Should I list my citizenship or visa status?
Usually not. Many application forms ask about work authorization, so answer it honestly there. If you’re a US citizen or green card holder, listing it may help.
Convert your resume to US format
We’re building a one-click converter. Until then, upload the resume you have and paste a US job posting: Dovira writes a one-column resume for it, with no photo, the employer’s keywords and results-first bullets. Your first 3 tailored resumes are free, no credit card needed.
