Imagining a hiring manager going through a pile of CVs for a mid-level marketing role. A job applicant from France has listed their date of birth and marital status near the top of the page. Another, applying from Germany, has attached a photo and included two pages of academic transcripts. A third applicant, who comes from Australia, has submitted a three-page CV for what would normally be a one-page job in the UK.
None of these candidates has done anything wrong, but there’s a good chance at least one of them gets quietly passed over, not because their experience falls short, but because their CV doesn’t look the way a hiring manager expects a good CV to look.
A problem hiding behind a bigger success story
This scenario is becoming more common as AI reshapes how businesses recruit. According to a 2026 report from HireVue, 77 per cent of HR teams now use AI regularly somewhere in their hiring process, and one of the most obvious effects has been access to a much wider pool of candidates. A vacancy that once drew a dozen local applicants can now pull in hundreds from around the world.
Widening the pool, though, doesn’t automatically mean widening the mindset. That’s the catch highlighted in a new guide from Agility EOR, a global Employer of Record provider offering professional EOR services across Europe and beyond. AI can attract candidates from anywhere, but it is still a hiring manager who decides which applicant makes the shortlist, usually by comparing a CV, consciously or not, against the format they were taught to consider correct.
What ‘normal’ looks like elsewhere, and how it differs from the UK
Agility EOR’s guide, How CVs Differ Around the World, sets out to explain what counts as normal in different parts of the world, including:
• Germany: Longer CVs with detailed academic history, plus a photo
• Australia: CVs running to three pages or more
• United States: A single-page resume, especially for early-career roles
• India / Philippines: Personal details such as marital status or date of birth
• Japan: A standardised national CV template
Seen this way, the pattern is obvious: there isn’t a single ‘correct’ length, format or level of detail, only what the local hiring manager happens to have been trained to expect.
When unusual becomes a red flag
The trouble is that none of these register as a formatting quirk in the moment. To someone used to their local conventions, it reads as a warning sign. An unfamiliar CV can quietly plant doubts about professionalism or attention to detail, doubts that have nothing to do with whether the person can actually do the job.
Scott Winter, Chief HR Officer at Agility EOR, sums up the core issue: “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 one country’s hiring manager may simply be following a normal process of their home country. Unfortunately, those differences can sometimes be mistaken for a lack of professionalism, when they’re actually the opposite.”
His advice for fixing it is refreshingly simple: “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.”
Back to the stack of CVs
Go back to that hiring manager working through the CVs coming from across Europe and beyond. Nothing about any of those three CVs suggests a weaker candidate, but demonstrates that three people from different parts of the world are each following the standard CV format where they’re from.
As more businesses look beyond their borders to recruit, whether directly or through Employer of Record support, the range of CVs landing on their desks is going to widen. The hiring managers who learn to read past the format, straight to the substance underneath, are the ones who’ll end up with the strongest shortlist. The ones who don’t may never realise what they turned away and lost.
Photo: Dreamstime.