American Resumés vs German CVs
If you’ve ever tried to apply to a German company in Germany, you might have noticed significant differences to the traditional American resumé style. As in, your typical one page, ultra-concise, no nonsense resume isn't sufficient, and you need to make a new "CV" instead. What's the actual difference?
Much like the US, German has equal opportunity employment laws which make it illegal to discriminate in hiring decisions because of race, sex, age, gender, political affiliation or sexual orientation. That doesn’t stop Germans from adding a large, professional headshot of themselves smack bang to the top of their CV. In fact besides the picture, it is standard to begin a German CV with a „personal data“ section. Here it is common to list name (including maiden name), place of birth, date of birth, nationality, marital status, number of kids, and even (although slightly outdated practice) the occupation of your parents. Yes. That’s right. We don’t discriminate here, we’re just going to let you know all the information you need to do it.
Following the format of a German CV, next you must list your education and grades, in reverse chronological order. That means ANY educational institutions you’ve ever attended, right down to your primary school, or at the very least your high school, including your final GPA. If you’ve already got a degree or two and don’t want to include your primary school that’s fine, but I’ve definitely seen Germans do it that way. And don’t even think about ‘rounding up’ your high school GPA. You’ll definitely be asked to provide a transcript of any diploma you’ve received as an attachment to your CV.
In Germany it is also common to not just list your career history, but specifically what you did/achieved in that job position. German HR managers will also be looking for a „gap-free“ history, meaning starting from when you graduate university, every year should be accounted for. If you’ve been unemployed to take care or elderly relatives or kids, you should state as much.
In order to include all of this extra information, German CVs are almost always at least two pages long.