Norwegian CV Format: A Guide for Foreigners
If you moved to Norway with a four-page international CV, an employer may struggle to find the most relevant experience quickly. Start by tailoring the content to the role and making the layout easy to scan.
This guide covers what a Norwegian CV looks like, section by section, and the mistakes foreigners make most often.
The basics: short, factual, reverse-chronological
- Length: One to two pages suits many applications, but this varies with experience and field. Follow the posting and keep evidence relevant to the role. Karriereveiledning.no gives the same guideline with room for variation.
- Order: reverse-chronological — most recent job first — makes your work history easy to follow. Highlight relevant skills in the profile without hiding job titles or dates.
- Tone: factual and modest. Describe what you did and what it led to, without US-style self-promotion. "Responsible for onboarding 12 new employees" lands better than "Dynamic people-person with a passion for talent".
- Tailoring: the CV is adjusted for each posting. Norwegian employers expect to see the connection between your experience and their announcement.
What sections to include
| Section | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Personal details | Name, phone, email, city. Birth date is common but optional. |
| Key qualifications | 3–4 lines summarising why you fit this particular job. |
| Work experience | Reverse-chronological, with 1–3 bullet points per role. |
| Education | Degrees and relevant certifications. |
| Languages | Be honest about your Norwegian level — recruiters will check. |
| References | "References available on request" is standard. |
Photo, age, personal details
No Norwegian rule requires a photo on your CV — and none forbids it. Some applicants include one, many leave it out. The rule of thumb: on an open posting with many applicants, a photo gives them one more thing to sort on before they have read your qualifications, so you lose nothing by dropping it. For a role with a lot of customer contact, or when you send your CV directly to a named person, a sober photo can help. Either way, the photo will not rescue a weak CV. The same goes for birth date and marital status: not required.
One thing research has documented clearly: discrimination based on names exists in the Norwegian labour market. A field experiment by Midtbøen and Rogstad (2012) found that applicants with foreign-sounding names had about a 25% lower probability of being called to an interview, with otherwise identical applications. You cannot control your name — but it is one more reason to make everything else in the application unambiguous, local-format and easy to say yes to.
Download a free template
If you would rather not start from a blank page, you can download a free Word CV template with these sections: Profile (a short version of your key qualifications), Work experience, Education, Courses and certificates, Languages (spoken and written listed separately, with CEFR levels) and References. Applying in Norwegian? There is also a version with Norwegian headings.
It is deliberately plain — one column, no tables, no photos, no text boxes — to make the content easier to read in digital application systems as well. Treat it as a starting point, not a design: replace everything in [brackets] with your own details, delete what doesn't apply, and save as PDF before sending.
The mistakes foreigners make most
- Sending the same CV to every posting instead of tailoring it.
- Keeping the international length and format ("but 4 pages shows more experience").
- Translating job titles literally so no one recognises them — use the Norwegian market's terms where they exist.
- Overselling. Norwegian working culture values people who can back up every line in an interview.
- Ignoring formatting that automated systems cannot read — see the guide on ATS-friendly CVs in Norway.
CV and søknad are a pair
In Norway your application is normally two documents: the CV and the søknad — a one-page letter written for that specific posting. A strong CV with a generic søknad still loses. Read how to write a søknad next.