How are American CVs and British CVs different?

Post your CV. Let's contrast and compare.

I don't have a CV, coz I never bother looking for a new job.

Of which I have little.

I think my next one will be a bit more basic.

US resumes are almost always 1 page, UK CVs are 1-2 pages

UK CVs seem to have much information-- like A-level/GCSE exam results, in the US, you would likely only include post-high school education (if you had it). Also UK CVs seem to include every job held, including the Saturday job at a local shop held at age 16, US resumes tend to include only the relevant experience for the job

Major difference I have found is that in the UK, people include much more personal information -- in particular age, nationality and marital status. In the US, this just isn't done, with the exception of some older people. It would be illegal to ask questions about such things in the US, due to discrimination laws (I suspect this may also the case in the UK, but if it is there is less awareness of it)

I also thought there was little difference in American resumès and British CVs. My "best friend in the entire world" showed me his CV and it looked similar to the resumè I typed up for myself. Certainly in America you would not see as detailed a list of schools or accomplishments, but the rest was almost identical.

Also, it would be of little use (to me, anyway) to restate the personal information I'd put on my job/career application on my resumè. Just a thought.

Gadammit! That's what I was going to say.

No, just the ones who learned French and use the Frenchy word. Most Americans don't even see them.

I was fired yesterday.

Argh. Well I'm sorry, Sean. Hopefully unemployment (a.k.a. US Gov't Arts Grant) is in your future.

You don't give your age on your resumé? Wow. That's pretty cool.

You lot do? That strikes me as shocking. You have to even make sure that you don't scribble notes on the resumes of the folks you are thinking about hiring in this country that look like you're trying to figure out their ages...

I'll send you mine if you have Word.

Sean, sympathies. Hope you get a job quicker than it's taking me...

A company I worked for once made the active decision that instead of bright, ambitious young graduates working on reception, they'd rather have someone 40-50 years old with secretary experience who had no ambitions to be promoted and wouldn't get bored of the role. They quickly discovered that it was the verve and hunger of the younger ones that made them good at the job; the older people with very different outlooks didn't really care and, by and large, were much less intelligent. But most of all they simply didn't fit into the youthful office mentality.

You lot do? That strikes me as shocking.

Do you have to wear masks in inerviews too?

Obviously, simply judging this on age is discriminatory, but I would take it into account along with all the other personal characteristics of the candidate.

So - what do, say, Hooters do when they interview? Could Martin Skidmore get a job there simply because they're not allowed to pick, yuong, pretty femals and no-one else?

I'm sorry Mark but that is exactly what anti-discrimination law is here for. No legislation means the status quo preserving itself by carrying on just hiring 'people like them'. That's not, ultimately the way to get the best people for the job, and more importantly, it fucks over people outside of the 'good boys' social strata.

I found the "this is a young company" attitude exactly equivalent (not legally) to "this is a very male company" oe "this is a very white company" as a reason to exclude women or non-white people. It was not a reaction to my talking about nights in with the pipe and slippers muttering about how it were all fields round here when I were a lad and they don't write proper tunes like in my day, or anything like that, it was a reaction to some numbers on a form.

and it's much shorter, only put jobs and experiences that are relevant to what you're applying for. i never had a resume/cv that was longer than one side of one page until i moved to london...

good luck with the job hunt!