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AI has changed recruitment more in the last few years than almost anything before it. Employers can now source candidates from anywhere in the world, and a role that once might have attracted a handful of local applicants can attract hundreds from across the globe. A recent report from HireVue found that 77% of HR teams are already using AI regularly as part of their hiring process.
AI has sped up the search for candidates enormously, but the actual decision of who makes the shortlist still rests with a human, reading a CV and comparing it, often unconsciously, to whatever format they’re most familiar with. That’s where things can go wrong. A hiring manager who’s only ever reviewed CVs written one particular way might unconsciously mark down a perfectly strong candidate simply because their CV doesn’t follow the same script, a problem a new guide from global Employer of Record specialist Agility EOR sets out to tackle.
The Same CV, Read Very Differently Depending on Where You Are
Agility EOR has published a guide, called How CVs Differ Around the World, which walks through how CV conventions change from country to country, and how those differences can get misread as something they’re not.
Photographs are a good example. In the UK and the US, most guidance tells candidates to leave a photo off their CV, largely because of discrimination concerns. In Germany, Brazil and much of the Middle East, though, a photo is normal, and its absence can look a bit strange. A UK hiring manager who isn’t aware of that could easily see a photo on a CV and assume the candidate hasn’t followed etiquette, when really they’ve just followed their own local norms.
Length works the same way. A CV three pages long would raise an eyebrow in a lot of UK hiring processes, but that’s a perfectly typical length in Australia. In the US, meanwhile, a one-page resume is often what’s expected for early-career roles, which would look a little sparse by other countries’ standards.
There are plenty of other examples in the guide too. For instance, jobseekers in Japan often use a fixed, standardized CV template. German CVs tend to include far more academic detail than a UK employer would typically expect to see. And in countries like India and the Philippines, it’s fairly common to see personal details on a CV, things like marital status or date of birth.
Why It Actually Matters
None of this has anything to do with how good a candidate is, though; it’s simply a reflection of how CVs are written in different parts of the world. The problem is that if a hiring manager doesn’t know this, an unusual CV can work against a good candidate before anyone’s even properly checked whether their experience matches the job description.
Scott Winter, Chief HR Officer at Agility EOR, explains: “Artificial intelligence is removing geographical barriers to recruit faster than before, but hiring decisions still rely on human judgment, with people bringing their own judgment to the process. A CV that looks unusual to a UK hiring manager may simply be following a normal process in another country. Unfortunately, those differences can sometimes be mistaken for a lack of professionalism, when they’re actually the opposite.”
He added: “If businesses want to benefit from global talent pools, they need to recognize that there isn’t a single international standard for what makes a good CV. Focusing on a candidate’s skills, experience and achievements, rather than whether their CV looks familiar, can help employers make fairer and more informed hiring decisions.”
A Fairly Simple Fix, Once You Know About It
This isn’t a small issue either. As more companies hire internationally, whether that’s directly or through a global Employer of Record, more CVs will land on desks that don’t quite match what a hiring manager is used to. A good candidate in Manila, Munich or Mumbai could get overlooked simply because their CV wasn’t written the way another county would be.
The fix doesn’t need to be complicated. It starts with hiring managers asking a different question when a CV looks unfamiliar: not “why is this different?” but “what can this person actually do?” When skills and experience are what actually get measured, rather than how closely a CV resembles a familiar layout, businesses stop losing good people over something as minor as formatting.
To read Agility EOR’s guide, visit the Resources section of its website, under Blogs and News.