Resume vs. CV in English: Conversion Guide, Formatting Rules, and Action Verb Formulas

September 26, 2026

If you are applying for an international role or a remote job abroad, the very first decision before opening your text editor is understanding the terminology of your target market.

For the vast majority of corporate positions—especially in the United States and Canada—the required document is a resume: an executive summary of one or at most two pages, strictly objective, and structured around measurable accomplishments. The term CV (Curriculum Vitae), in the North American market, is reserved almost exclusively for academic, scientific, research, or medical tracks, where it can span many pages documenting publications, dissertations, and conference presentations. However, if you are applying in the United Kingdom, Ireland, or continental Europe, the term CV is commonly used as a catch-all for any professional job application.

Many candidates simply look for downloadable Word templates or automated PDF generators, but the primary obstacle in international hiring is rarely visual layout: it is language. Recruiters and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) evaluate precision, semantic impact, and clear action verbs.

In this guide, you will see exactly what to remove from a traditional Brazilian resume, the recommended structure for each section, curated lists of action verb expressions, and how to write your achievements without falling into the trap of literal, machine-translated phrasing.

Resume vs. CV: Understand Where You Are Applying

Before drafting your document, clarify the geographic region of the opening and the nature of the role:

If you are applying to a US-based tech company or a global remote team hiring software engineers, designers, or analysts, you need to write a resume.

The Conversion Checklist: What to Cut from a Brazilian Resume

Standard resume conventions in Brazil include details that international markets—particularly the United States and Canada—consider inappropriate or redundant.

In the North American and broader international hiring markets, established recruitment practices actively minimize unconscious bias and the risk of discrimination claims (aligned with guidelines from agencies like the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC). Including photos, age, gender, or marital status is seen as unnecessary by hiring teams and frequently creates legal liability for employers, making omission the industry standard.

Clean up your draft using this checklist:

1. Remove your photo immediately: Unless you work in acting, modeling, or public performance where an appearance headshot is explicitly requested, standard market practice in the US and UK is never to include a photo on a resume.
2. Eliminate sensitive personal data: Do not list your date of birth, age, nationality, marital status (single/married), number of children, or national ID numbers (such as CPF or RG).
3. Omit your full residential address: Do not write out your street name, building number, or neighborhood. Limit location details to city, state, and country (for instance: São Paulo, SP, Brazil), adding your availability if you are targeting remote work (Open to remote roles or Willing to relocate).
4. Cut generic "Objective" statements: Sentences like "Seeking a challenging opportunity where I can apply my skills" add zero signal. Replace an empty objective with a high-impact Professional Summary focused on value and background.
5. Replace passive job duties with active achievements: Swap passive descriptions like "Responsible for managing" for simple past-tense action verbs (such as "Led," "Optimized," or "Streamlined"), followed by business context and measurable outcomes.
6. Do not write "References available upon request": This phrase is redundant and takes up valuable page real estate.

Standard Layout of an International Resume

An effective resume follows a clean, scannable hierarchy with legible typography suitable for human reviewers and ATS parsers:

1. Contact Information

• Full name (prominently at the top)
• Professional title or field (e.g., Senior Product Designer or Full-Stack Software Engineer)
• City, State, and Country
• Professional email address and phone number with international country code (e.g., +55 11 9xxxx-xxxx)
• LinkedIn profile URL and portfolio/GitHub links (where relevant)

To make sure your online presence matches your application document, see our practical guide on optimizing your LinkedIn profile in English.

2. Professional Summary

A concise paragraph of 3 to 4 lines summarizing your years of experience, core technical domain, and key business impact:

• Example for a software engineer:

"Results-driven Full-Stack Engineer with 6+ years of experience designing scalable web applications and microservices in Python and TypeScript. Proven track record of reducing system latency by 35% and mentoring junior developers in Agile environments."

• Example for a marketing/growth specialist:

"Growth Marketing Specialist with 5+ years of experience managing B2B inbound demand generation and paid campaigns across international markets. Scaled pipeline revenue by 40% year-over-year while cutting acquisition costs by 18%."

3. Work Experience

The core section of the document. List positions in reverse chronological order:

• Job title in English (e.g., Software Engineer, Lead Financial Analyst)
• Company name, location, and arrangement (e.g., Remote / São Paulo, Brazil)
• Employment dates (start and end month/year)
• 3 to 5 achievement-oriented bullet points, each starting with a strong action verb.

4. Skills

Group your capabilities into clear categories so recruiters and ATS tools can quickly identify role-specific keywords:

• Technical Skills / Tools: Programming languages, frameworks, infrastructure, and specialized tools (e.g., Python, React, AWS, Docker, Figma, SQL, Tableau).
• Industry Methodologies: Working practices and frameworks (e.g., Agile/Scrum, CI/CD, Product Discovery, Data-driven Decision Making).
• Languages: Standardized language proficiencies (e.g., Portuguese (Native), English (Full Professional Proficiency)).

Bullet Point Formulas: How to Describe Achievements with Action Verbs

A common misstep when translating a Portuguese resume is using weak descriptive phrases like "Responsável por cuidar da equipe" or "Atuava na melhoria dos processos". In international corporate English, standard bullet points follow an explicit structure:

Past-Tense Action Verb + Task or Scope Led + Measurable Outcome / Business Impact

Verbs for Leadership and Coordination

• Led: "Led a cross-functional team of 8 engineers to deliver an enterprise billing platform two weeks ahead of schedule."
• Spearheaded: "Spearheaded the company-wide transition to automated testing, reducing post-release bugs by 45%."
• Coordinated: "Coordinated weekly sprint planning and stakeholder reviews across 3 international time zones."
• Mentored: "Mentored 4 junior analysts in financial modeling and automated dashboard creation."

Verbs for Optimization, Processes, and Efficiency

• Streamlined: "Streamlined customer onboarding workflows, cutting average ticket resolution time from 48 to 18 hours."
• Optimized: "Optimized database queries and indexing strategies, improving application response time by 30%."
• Automated: "Automated monthly financial reporting pipelines using Python, saving 20 team hours per month."
• Restructured: "Restructured inventory tracking procedures, minimizing supply discrepancies by 22%."

Verbs for Engineering, Product, and Design

• Architected: "Architected a fault-tolerant payment integration supporting over 50,000 daily transactions."
• Developed: "Developed dynamic client dashboards that increased daily active platform engagement by 15%."
• Designed: "Designed user flows and high-fidelity wireframes that improved checkout conversion rates by 12%."
• Implemented: "Implemented continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines across 6 production repositories."

Verbs for Sales, Revenue, and Commercial Growth

• Accelerated: "Accelerated outbound sales pipeline growth, generating $1.2M in qualified enterprise opportunities."
• Negotiated: "Negotiated vendor contracts with SaaS providers, reducing annual infrastructure expenses by $85,000."
• Expanded: "Expanded key account relationships in Latin America, achieving a 125% net retention rate."
• Surpassed: "Surpassed quarterly sales targets for 4 consecutive quarters by an average of 18%."

When putting together your full application, keep in mind that a resume is frequently accompanied by a targeted letter to the hiring team. Learn the structure and messaging required in our guide to writing an English cover letter.

5 Common Translation Pitfalls When Converting Local Resumes

1. Job Titles and Seniority Levels

• Estagiário: Use Intern (e.g., Engineering Intern, Marketing Intern), never "Trainee" for regular undergraduate internships (Trainee in international organizations typically refers to competitive post-graduate leadership development tracks).
• Coordenador: Use Coordinator or Lead, depending on your actual scope and reporting structure.
• Analista Júnior / Pleno / Sênior: In English-speaking markets, there is no direct equivalent for the Brazilian intermediate title "Pleno". A mid-level professional is simply an Analyst (or Software Engineer with no prefix). Early-career talent uses Junior (or Associate), while experienced professionals use Senior.

2. Academic Degrees (Education)

• Graduação / Bacharelado: Use Bachelor of Science (B.S.) for STEM and technical fields; Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) for humanities, arts, and communication; or Bachelor's Degree in [Field].
• Pós-graduação lato sensu: Avoid translating this literally as "Post-graduation". In international markets, use Postgraduate Specialization in [Field] or specify an MBA if applicable.
• Mestrado: Use Master of Science (M.S.) or Master of Arts (M.A.).

3. Language Proficiency Levels

Avoid vague expressions such as "Instrumental English" or subjective percentages ("English 80%"). Stick to standard professional categories:

• Native / Bilingual Proficiency: Native or fully bilingual mastery.
• Full Professional Proficiency: Fluent business communication capable of leading complex meetings and drafting technical documentation without difficulty.
• Professional Working Proficiency: Solid working capability to handle daily work tasks and team discussions.
• Limited Working Proficiency: Functional intermediate communication.

If you have completed recognized standardized exams like TOEFL, IELTS, or Cambridge certifications, list your official score alongside the test year.

4. False Cognates and Corporate Terms

• Do not use pretension for expected compensation (use salary expectations).
• Do not use actual to mean current (use current or present). In English, actual means "real" or "in fact."
• Do not use experience in followed by a passive list when you can use an active accomplishment verb.

5. Employment Types and Date Formatting

• CLT vs. PJ: Never attempt to translate local Brazilian employment legislation codes onto an international resume. For permanent employment, list Full-time; for contract or advisory work, write Contractor or Freelance.
• Date formatting: On North American and international resumes, use the abbreviated English month followed by the year (e.g., Jan 2023 – Present or Mar 2021 – Nov 2024). Avoid purely numerical formats (such as 03/04/2022) to prevent confusion caused by differing month-first and day-first date standards across countries.

Write Your Own Achievements Instead of Copy-Pasting Translations

The single biggest mistake when preparing an English resume is pasting entire Portuguese bullet points into a machine translator and dropping the raw output onto the page without internalizing the sentence structure. In subsequent interview rounds, hiring managers will ask detailed follow-ups anchored in the exact vocabulary written on your resume. If you cannot explain your own accomplishments naturally using those terms, the disconnect becomes apparent very quickly.

To turn your project drafts into authentic English that you actually remember and can speak to throughout interviews, use the Aha Translator extension. The tool lets you draft your thoughts in your native language inside your browser and practice writing out your bullet points in English from memory, segment by segment, while the extension checks every word you enter. That way, you actively master the language of your professional journey and show up ready to discuss your work with confidence.