The fastest way to get rejected by a US startup is to send them a Latin American CV. The photo, the date of birth, the national ID number, the three pages of courses. A US hiring manager sees that and moves to the next applicant in about ten seconds. The skills might be great. The format tells them you've never worked with a US team.
The good news: this is the easiest part of the whole search to fix. One evening of work.
Key Takeaways
- Remove the photo, age, birth date, marital status, and ID number. US employers don't want them.
- One page under about 7 years of experience, two pages max after that.
- Every bullet should show what you built and what changed, ideally with a number.
- Write it in English, save it as a PDF, and keep the layout simple so parsing software can read it.
Why US resumes look different
In much of Latin America a CV with a photo and personal data is normal. In the US it works against you. US employers are careful about anything that could suggest discrimination. The EEOC, the US agency that enforces anti-discrimination law, says that pre-employment information should be limited to what's essential for judging whether someone is qualified, and that a photograph may be obtained after an offer is made and accepted. Many US recruiters know this rule well. In my experience, some would rather skip a resume with a photo than deal with it.
So the personal section shrinks to four lines: name, city and country, email, LinkedIn and GitHub links. Add your timezone. "Medellin, Colombia (UTC-5)" tells a US manager something useful in one glance.
| Keep | Remove |
|---|---|
| Name, city, country, timezone | Photo |
| Email, LinkedIn, GitHub | Date of birth, age |
| Work history, most recent first | National ID, marital status, nationality |
| Degree (one line) | High school, every certificate you ever earned |
| A short skills line | A skills grid with percentage bars |
Write bullets that prove impact
Most LATAM CVs list responsibilities: "Responsible for developing microservices." That tells the reader nothing about you. Anyone on the team was responsible for that.
A US-style bullet has three parts: what you did, how, and what changed.
- Weak: "Worked on the payments module."
- Strong: "Rebuilt the payments retry logic in Node.js, cutting failed charges from 4% to 1.1% across 60k monthly transactions."
You won't always have a clean number. Use scale instead: users, requests per second, team size, data volume, money moved. "Led the migration of 14 services from Heroku to AWS ECS with zero downtime" works fine without a percentage.
Keep it to three to five bullets per role. Put the best one first. Older jobs get one or two lines.
Format rules that matter
Length. One page if you have under about seven years. Two pages at most after that. Nobody reads page three.
Order. Summary (two lines, optional), experience, skills, education. Experience goes first because it's what they're hiring.
Summary. If you write one, make it specific: "Senior backend engineer, 8 years in Python and Go, fintech and logistics, B2B SaaS at 1M+ users. Remote from Lima, UTC-5." Skip "passionate, proactive team player."
Parsing software. Many companies run resumes through an applicant tracking system (ATS). Keep the layout plain: one column, standard headings ("Experience", "Education"), no text inside images, no tables for your job history. Export to PDF from Google Docs or Word. Fancy Canva templates look nice and often come out scrambled.
Keywords. Mirror the job post honestly. If the post says "PostgreSQL" and you've used it, write "PostgreSQL," not "SQL databases." Don't add tools you haven't used. The technical round will find out.
English. Have a native-level speaker or a good tool check it, then read it aloud. Watch the common slips: "I have 5 years working in" instead of "I've worked 5 years in," or "actually" used to mean "currently."
A Concrete Version
A composite example. Andres, full-stack developer in Guadalajara, 6 years of experience. His original CV: 3 pages, a photo in the corner, birth date, CURP number, a section listing 31 technologies with star ratings, and bullets like "Participation in the development of the company platform."
The rewrite:
- Header: Andres M. | Guadalajara, Mexico (UTC-6) | email | linkedin.com/in/... | github.com/...
- Summary: Full-stack engineer, 6 years in React and Node.js, 3 of them on a US e-commerce product.
- Top bullet: "Built the order tracking page in React and Next.js used by 200k monthly customers; cut support tickets about delivery status by about a third."
- Skills line: TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS (ECS, S3), Docker.
One page. Twelve bullets total. The 31-technology grid became one line of 7. He applied to the same kind of roles as before and started getting replies in the first week, because now the reader could see in ten seconds what he'd shipped.
The Honest Counterpoint
A great resume gets you a call. It doesn't get you the job. I've seen engineers spend three weeks polishing a resume while their English and interview skills stay where they were. If your resume is already clean and you're getting first calls but no offers, the resume isn't the problem. Work on the technical interview in English instead.
Also, some European and LATAM-based companies still expect the local format. If you're applying to a Mexican or Brazilian company, a photo may be normal there. Keep two versions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should my resume be in English even if the recruiter speaks Spanish?
Yes, for US roles. The recruiter might speak Spanish, but the hiring manager who decides usually doesn't. An English resume is also your first English writing sample.
Do I need a cover letter?
Usually not for startups. A short, specific note (three sentences on why this role and what you'd bring) helps more than a formal letter, when the form allows it.
Should I include my salary expectations on the resume?
No. Salary comes up in the first call. Here's how to answer salary expectations when it does.
The Bottom Line
Strip the personal data, show impact with numbers, keep it to one or two plain pages, and write it in English. That alone puts you ahead of most LATAM applicants a US manager sees. Then put it to work: pick a role at /jobs, for example frontend React and Next.js or Node.js backend, and upload it. For the rest of the search, see how to get a remote job with a US company from LATAM.
Roberto Espinoza is CEO of Ruzora, which places senior LATAM engineers with US startups. Browse open roles.
