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Send Your CV as a PDF: File Rules Recruiters Expect

Published 2026-09-02 · How-to

Most recruiters and applicant tracking systems ask for your CV as a PDF, and for good reason: it keeps your layout intact on any computer. But a PDF only helps if it opens quickly, looks clean and contains no surprises. Here is how to build and send a CV as a PDF that a recruiter will actually open, read and keep.

Why recruiters ask for a PDF resume

A PDF locks your design so it looks the same on a Mac, a PC or a phone, unlike a Word file that can reflow and break. Hiring teams also paste your CV into applicant tracking software, which reads the text layer, so a clean PDF with real text is far easier for them to handle than a scanned image that software cannot search. Sending a proper PDF is the simplest way to look organised from the first email.

Keep the file size small enough

Email systems and application portals cap attachments, often around 10 MB, and anything heavy looks sloppy to a recruiter hunting for files. A CV is two pages of mostly text, so it should be a few hundred kilobytes at most. If your PDF is unexpectedly large, the culprits are usually embedded photos or scans, and you can fix that quickly with compress a PDF. A light, fast-opening CV reads as professional.

Build it from clean text, not a scan

The ideal CV PDF has a selectable text layer, which is what makes it searchable by recruiting software and by recruiters using their browser search. Create it directly from your text with Text to PDF so the words stay crisp and selectable, rather than flattening a scan into an image with no text inside. Clean text also means typos can be fixed and the file re-exported in seconds when your details change.

Add page numbers and check the layout

A two-page CV benefits from small page numbers so a recruiter can reference parts of your background precisely in a phone screen. Use add page numbers to a PDF to place them discreetly at the bottom, then open the finished file to confirm nothing overflows or clips. The few seconds it takes to verify the layout avoids sending a document with text cut off at the edge.

Lock the file so it cannot be edited accidentally

A CV should be sent as you wrote it, not as a file someone can silently change and forward. Password protection stops accidental edits and keeps your contact details and employment dates intact, while still letting anyone with the password open and print it. For a confidential resume before a job change, protect a PDF gives you peace of mind that only the version you approved is the one circulating.

Name the file and send it simply

Name your PDF clearly, for example firstname-lastname-cv.pdf, instead of a generic string of numbers, so the recruiter recognises what it is from the inbox. Keep the email short, attach the PDF and say you are happy to send a print-friendly version if needed. You can reuse the same polished file for every application by regenerating from your source text whenever your details change. For tips on keeping the file under email limits, see the guide to sending a smaller PDF.