How to Spell Resume (and How to Say It)

All three are correct. Merriam-Webster's entry uses résumé as the headword and lists resume and, less commonly, resumé as variants, all meaning a short account of one's career and qualifications. Britannica's dictionary lists the same three forms.

In American job searching, plain resume is the everyday form on job boards and application forms, and it is the spelling OPM and USAJOBS use in their federal hiring guidance. Choosing it is never wrong, and it avoids typing and encoding problems.

The word comes from French: résumé is the past participle of résumer, to summarize. English borrowed it with the accents, and many writers now drop them, the same way café is often written cafe.

The accents do two jobs. In French, the acute accent (é) marks the vowel sound "ay". In English, the accents mainly signal that you mean the noun, the job document, and not the verb resume, meaning to start again.

Context usually settles the meaning, since "attached is my resume" cannot be misread. That is why the unaccented form works in most writing. Writers who want to remove any doubt, or who follow a house style that keeps accents on borrowed words, use résumé.

The one-accent resumé is a middle path that marks only the final "ay" sound. Merriam-Webster lists it as less common. It is not wrong, but if you want accents, the two-accent résumé is the dictionary's first form.

The job document is pronounced REZ-uh-may in American English, stressed on the first syllable. Cambridge gives the US pronunciation as /ˈrez.ə.meɪ/ and Britannica gives /ˈrɛzəˌmeɪ/.

British speakers often say REZ-yoo-may (/ˈrezjuːmeɪ/), and Oxford Learner's Dictionaries lists both the "yoo" and "uh" versions. Either is understood everywhere.

The verb resume is a different word with a different sound: rih-ZOOM (/rɪˈzuːm/ in American English), stressed on the second syllable. "Please resume your resume" is spelled the same twice but said two ways.

Use one spelling and stick to it across your resume, cover letter, emails, LinkedIn profile and portfolio. Writing résumé in the cover letter and resume in the email subject line looks careless, even though each spelling is correct on its own.

• File names: plain letters only, such as Jordan-Alvarez-Resume.pdf. Accented characters can turn into odd symbols in some upload systems and email clients.
• Online forms and email subject lines: plain resume, for the same reason.
• Cover letters and formal letters: either spelling; résumé reads slightly more formal.
• Academic, publishing and editorial roles: follow the employer's house style if you know it, or mirror the spelling used in the job posting.
• The document itself: you do not need the word at all. Start with your name; a heading that says "Resume" wastes the top line.

The é character takes one shortcut once you know the one for your device (see the table below). If you use the accented spelling often, set up AutoCorrect in Word or a text replacement on your phone so that typing resume becomes résumé automatically. In Word, the setting is under File, Options, Proofing, AutoCorrect Options.

One catch: an automatic replacement also changes the verb, so "I can resume work in May" turns into an error. Either proofread for it or set the shortcut on a code that is not a real word, such as resx, instead of on resume itself.

Check the result before you send. Some fonts and older systems show a box or a question mark in place of é, which is another reason plain resume is the safer choice in forms and file names.

In the US and Canada, a resume is a one- or two-page summary of your experience, and a CV (curriculum vitae) is a longer academic or medical record of degrees, research, publications and teaching. Elsewhere the words swap roles: Oxford Learner's Dictionaries labels résumé as North American English with curriculum vitae as the British equivalent, and Merriam-Webster notes that CV is chiefly British usage.

So if an employer in the UK or Ireland asks for a CV, they usually mean what Americans call a resume. Check the length and personal-detail norms for that country before you send it.

Spell-checkers catch most of these in a document but often miss them in email subject lines, form fields and file names, so check those by eye.

• Misspellings such as resumee, resumay or rezume.
• An apostrophe in the plural: write resumes or résumés, never resume's.
• Mixing forms in one document, such as résumé in one paragraph and resume in the next.
• Accents on the wrong letters or the wrong way round, such as resúmé or rèsumè. Both accents are acute (é) and sit on the first and last e.
• Capitalizing it mid-sentence, as in "my Resume shows". It is a common noun.

An application email from a fictional candidate, written two ways.

• What is a resume?
• How to write a resume
• UK CV and resume guide
• Resume Header: What to Include, Address, Photo and Headline Examples
• What Is a Cover Letter? Definition, Parts and Example
• How to Write a Resume in Spanish: Words, Headings and an Example

We opened every page below on that date. Pay, rules and requirements change, so check the source before you rely on a detail.

1. Merriam-Webster: Résumé (noun) (résumé headword, variants resume and less commonly resumé, French origin)
2. Merriam-Webster: Curriculum vitae (noun) (CV is chiefly British usage for a résumé)
3. Cambridge Dictionary: How to pronounce resume (US noun /ˈrez.ə.meɪ/ and verb /rɪˈzuːm/)
4. Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: résumé noun (North American English label, curriculum vitae in British English, two pronunciations)
5. Britannica Dictionary: Résumé definition and meaning (résumé or resume also resumé; US and British pronunciations)
6. U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Agency Guidance on the Two-Page Limit on Resume Length (federal hiring guidance spells it resume, without accents)