Resume Builder

The North American convention, with the one part of it that changes at the Quebec border.

Your résumé
Exactly as you want it read. No photograph, no date of birth and no marital status anywhere on this form — that is deliberate.
One line. A parser often reads this as your most recent job title.
A city is enough. A full street address is no longer expected and gives away more than it needs to.
Quebec employers advertising in French expect the application in French. The headings change; what you type stays as you typed it.
Three or four lines. Optional, but it is what a recruiter reads before deciding whether to read the rest.
Most recent first. Reverse chronological is the expected order in all five markets.
One achievement per line. Leading dashes are stripped. A number in the line is worth more than an adjective.
Commas or one per line. Plain text on purpose — a skills bar chart contains no text and parses as nothing at all.

How this is worked out

Outside Quebec, a Canadian résumé is essentially an American one: one or two pages, reverse chronological, no photograph, no date of birth, no marital status. If you have a résumé that works in the United States, it works here with the phone number changed.

No Social Insurance Number. This is the Canada-specific one, and it matters. A SIN is not needed to apply for a job — only after you are hired, for payroll. Putting it on a résumé exposes you to identity theft for no benefit whatsoever, and a legitimate employer will not have asked for it at the application stage. There is no field for it here.

Quebec is genuinely different. For a role advertised in French, or at a workplace operating in French, the application is expected in French — and a Quebec CV can run longer than the one-or-two-page convention elsewhere in the country. The headings selector on this form switches the section titles to Profil, Expérience professionnelle, Formation and Compétences. What you type stays exactly as you typed it; only the headings change.

And the machine-readability part, which is the same everywhere: one column, no tables used for layout, no text inside images, standard headings, and real selectable text rather than a rasterised page.

A worked example

Sample entered
three roles, two qualifications, twelve skills
Bullets per role
4, 3, 2
Sections produced (English)
Professional Summary, Experience, Education, Skills
Sections produced (Français)
Profil, Expérience professionnelle, Formation, Compétences
Estimated length
1 page
Convention here
1–2 pages outside Quebec
Format checks clear
10 of 10
Columns
1
Fields for photo, SIN or date of birth
none — there is no way to add one
Accented characters in the PDF
kept — é, è, ç and à are all in the encoding used

The Quebec difference, in practice

The rest of Canada follows the American résumé convention closely enough that the two are interchangeable. Quebec is the exception, and the exception is not only about language. A Quebec CV can carry more detail and run longer, closer to a European CV than to an American résumé.

The language expectation is the part people underestimate. For a position advertised in French, or at an employer whose working language is French, an English-only application is a signal about fit before anyone reads a word of the content. Translating the headings is the minimum; if you can write the bullets in French, write them in French.

The headings selector on this form does the mechanical half — the section titles become Profil, Expérience professionnelle, Formation and Compétences. It deliberately does not translate your text, because a machine translation of your own career history is worse than an honest English paragraph.

Never put your SIN on a résumé

A Social Insurance Number is required by an employer only once you are hired, for payroll and for reporting to the Canada Revenue Agency. It is not part of a job application, and no legitimate employer asks for one before an offer.

A résumé travels: it is emailed, forwarded, uploaded to job boards, stored in applicant systems of very variable security, and printed and left on desks. A SIN on it is a permanent identifier attached to your full name, address and employment history — the complete set needed to open credit in your name.

This tool has no field for one, and none for a date of birth, a marital status, a photograph or a nationality. The prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act cover most of that list, which is why a careful employer would rather not receive the information at all.

Bilingual, and how to say so without overclaiming

Language ability is a real, checkable skill in the Canadian market, and it is worth stating precisely rather than vaguely. "Bilingual" on its own is ambiguous: it can mean anything from a conversational second language to full professional fluency in both.

Better to say what you can actually do — "English (native), French (professional working proficiency)" — because the claim will be tested. Federal public service roles use formal levels, and many private employers simply switch language in the interview to find out.

If your French is good enough to work in but not good enough to write a CV in without help, say so in the skills line and submit in English. That is a more credible position than a French CV that reads as translated.

What happens to what you type

Nothing is transmitted. Your résumé is held in your browser, the PDF is composed in your browser by a library served from this site, and this page makes no external request at all. No account, no email gate, no watermark on the file.

Given that a résumé is a full employment history attached to a name, a phone number and a city, that promise is worth checking rather than trusting. Open your browser's network tab, fill this form in, export a PDF, and watch: every request goes to this origin and none of them carries your data.

The cost is that nothing survives closing the tab. Use the copy-link button to keep your entries in the URL, or export the PDF and keep the file.

Assumptions and sources

Prohibited grounds of discrimination
The Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on grounds including race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics and disability. Government of Canada, "Rights in the workplace". https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-workplace.html checked 2026-08
Social Insurance Number
A SIN is required for employment and for reporting income to the CRA — after hiring, not as part of an application. Government of Canada, Social Insurance Number. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/sin.html checked 2026-08
Quebec language expectations
A convention, stated as one, not a rule this tool can cite a section number for. The Charter of the French language governs the language of work and of commerce in Quebec; how it bears on any particular application is a question for advice, not for a calculator.
ATS behaviour
Not sourced to a standard, because there is no standard. Applicant tracking systems are commercial products, they differ, and most publish no parsing specification.
Not covered
Cover letters, federal public service applications and their formal language levels, academic CVs, and anything about what to write rather than how to format it.
Rates current as of August 2026 — verify before relying on this. This is a document builder and a format checker, not career advice and not legal advice. The human rights references describe why a convention exists; they are not a statement about your own circumstances.
Questions

What people ask about Canadian résumés

Is a Canadian résumé different from an American one?

Outside Quebec, barely — one or two pages, reverse chronological, no photo, no date of birth. The Canada-specific rule is that a Social Insurance Number never belongs on a résumé. Inside Quebec, French-language expectations apply and a CV can run longer.

Should I put my SIN on my résumé?

Never. A SIN is needed after you are hired, for payroll and CRA reporting, not to apply. A résumé is emailed, forwarded and stored in systems of very variable security, and a SIN on it is a permanent identifier sitting beside your full name and employment history. This tool has no field for one.

Do I need to apply in French in Quebec?

For a role advertised in French or at an employer whose working language is French, yes — an English-only application is a signal about fit before the content is read. The headings selector here switches the section titles to French; it deliberately does not machine-translate your own text, which would read worse than honest English.

How do I describe being bilingual?

Precisely. "Bilingual" alone can mean anything from conversational to fully professional. "English (native), French (professional working proficiency)" is checkable, and it will be checked — federal roles use formal levels and private employers often just switch language in the interview.

Will this get me past the ATS?

Nobody can promise that, and anyone who does is selling something. Applicant tracking systems differ, most are not documented, and many are configured per employer — so no format guarantees passing any particular one. What this does is remove the format failures that are known to break parsing: multiple columns, tables used for layout, text inside images, non-standard section headings and rasterised pages. The rest is the writing.

Where does my employment history go?

Nowhere. Everything is held in your browser, the PDF is written in your browser, and this site makes no external request of any kind — you can confirm that in your browser's network tab. There is no account, no email gate and no watermark on the file. Your employment history is exactly the sort of thing that should not be uploaded to a free web service.

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