A résumé (резюме́) is an important part of applying for a job anywhere, and Russia is no exception. However, some conventions used for Russian résumés are different from other countries. While recommendations and preferences vary depending on the applicant, company, and time period, this post will go over some common themes.

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Ли́чные да́нные — Personal Information

Depending on the format of your resume, this section will probably appear closer to the top. You may also come across such labels as “Конта́ктная информа́ция” (“Contact information”). This section will often include some of the following parts, whose order may vary.

• ФИО (фами́лия, и́мя, о́тчество; literally “Surname, Given Name, Patronymic,” meaning your full legal name) — this can also appear as the header of your résumé instead of the word резюме.
• Да́та рожде́ния (birth date). Wait, doesn’t this lead to age-based discrimination? Well, firing or not hiring someone based on their age is technically illegal, but yes, in practice, many Russians feel like it’s hard to find a new job once you’re past age 45.
• Гражда́нство (citizenship)
• Ме́сто жи́тельства (place of residence) — note that it is uncommon to list your full street address on a Russian resume, possibly for privacy and safety reasons. People usually include the city (город) and possibly neighborhood (район).
• Семе́йное положе́ние (marital status). Luckily, this, along with the applicant’s photo, is becoming optional, but it is often still included in résumés. “Single” is нежена́т (for men) or не за́мужем (for women); married is жена́т or за́мужем, respectively. These terms only apply to hetero marriages (see more on how to talk about same-sex marriage here).
• Телефо́н (phone number) — usually both your home (дома́шний) and cell/mobile (моби́льный) number. You’ll want to include your area code (код го́рода) because large cities have more than one, and cell phone numbers have their own “area” — really, carrier — codes.
• Электро́нный а́дрес (email). Sometimes you will see it written in English — E-mail.

Образова́ние — Education

If you have a university degree (вы́сшее образова́ние), you don’t need to list your secondary education (сре́днее образова́ние). Most résumés will include the name of the university (вы́сшее уче́бное заведе́ние), your degree (специа́льность), and your graduation year (год оконча́ния).

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О́пыт рабо́ты — Work Experience

Here, again, most résumés will list your places of work in reverse chronological order, although some may go old-school and use a chronological order. Usually your start and end dates are included (да́та нача́ла рабо́ты, да́та оконча́ния рабо́ты). “По настоя́щее вре́мя” (“present”) indicates your current job. Other things you would include are:

• Назва́ние организа́ции (organization name)
• До́лжность (your position)
• Обя́занности (your duties)

Дополни́тельные све́дения — Additional Information

There may be a variety of sections towards the bottom of the résumé that give your prospective employer other potentially useful information.

Профессиона́льные на́выки — Professional Skills

Here, some people list their computer skills (компью́терные на́выки), driver’s license (води́тельские права́), or foreign language proficiency (владе́ние иностра́нными языка́ми).

Ли́чные ка́чества — Personal Qualities

This section may sound odd to applicants from other cultures. Basically, it is meant to show your potential employer why you have the right personality for the job. Ironically, this section features a lot of the same qualities on different people’s résumés: коммуника́бельность (outgoing personality), внима́тельность (attention to detail), or стрессоусто́йчивость (resilience) are common.

You can see some examples of résumés in Russian on these websites: 1, 2, and 3. Have you ever had to put one together? What conventions surprised you?