A recruiter opens your application and sees the attachment before reading a single word you wrote. The filename sits there in the email client, in the upload confirmation, in the folder where fifty other applications just landed. It is the first part of your application that a human being processes, and it takes about ten seconds to get right.
Most candidates never think about it. That is exactly why it is worth thinking about.
The pattern that works
Put your name first, then say what the document is:
FirstName-LastName-CV.pdf
So Sarah-Okonkwo-CV.pdf. That is the whole idea. Anyone who receives it knows immediately whose CV it is and what they are opening, without renaming anything.
A few acceptable variants, depending on habit and region:
Sarah-Okonkwo-Resume.pdf(use "Resume" for the US and Canada, "CV" for the UK, Europe, Ireland, Australia, and most of the rest of the world)Okonkwo-Sarah-CV.pdf(surname first, useful if you know the team sorts alphabetically by last name)Sarah-Okonkwo-CV-Product-Manager.pdf(name plus target role)
Any of those work. What matters is that your name is in there and the document type is obvious.
Why "cv.pdf" quietly costs you
Here is what happens on the recruiter's side. They download eight applications in a row for the same opening. Four of those files are called cv.pdf. The operating system does not overwrite them, it renames them: cv.pdf, cv(1).pdf, cv(2).pdf, cv(3).pdf.
Now the recruiter has a folder of anonymous files. To find yours again after a meeting, they have to open each one. Sometimes they just work from whichever one they can identify. That is a small, stupid, entirely avoidable way to fall out of a process.
The same applies to these:
cv_final_v3.pdftells the reader you sent a draft. It also tells them there were two worse versions.Untitled.docxorDocument1.docxlooks like you did not check what you attached.CV Sarah dernier vraiment final.pdfis funny once, to you.mon_cv_2019.pdfannounces that the document is old before anyone opens it.SarahCVmarketingASSISTANTapplicationFINAL.pdfis unreadable and gets truncated in most upload widgets.
None of these get you rejected on their own. They just add friction at the exact moment you want none.
Should you add the role or the company
If you are applying to many jobs, adding the role helps you more than it helps the recruiter. It keeps your own folder sane and stops you attaching the wrong tailored version.
Sarah-Okonkwo-CV-Data-Analyst.pdf is a good cv filename example when you maintain several variants of your CV.
Adding the company name is optional and slightly risky. Sarah-Okonkwo-CV-Spotify.pdf reads as thoughtful when it is correct. It reads as careless when you send the Spotify-named file to Deezer, which happens more often than anyone admits. If you use company names, check the attachment before you hit send, every time.
Dates and version numbers: usually no
Skip them. v2, v3, final, FINAL2 and 2026-08 all belong to your working files, not to the one you send out.
There is one exception. If a recruiter or an agency has explicitly asked you to resend an updated CV, a date can prevent confusion in a long email thread: Sarah-Okonkwo-CV-August-2026.pdf. Otherwise a date only makes your document look stale three months later, when the same recruiter digs it out of an old folder for a different role.
Hyphens, underscores, or spaces
Hyphens. Sarah-Okonkwo-CV.pdf is readable, safe everywhere, and survives being turned into a URL.
Underscores are fine too and still common in engineering circles: Sarah_Okonkwo_CV.pdf. The only real drawback is that underscores disappear under the link underline when a filename becomes a clickable path.
Spaces mostly work these days, but they are the one option that still breaks things. Some older applicant tracking systems and some upload scripts convert Sarah Okonkwo CV.pdf into Sarah%20Okonkwo%20CV.pdf or simply cut the name at the first space. It is not worth the small risk.
Never use characters like / \ : * ? " < > | or accented letters. Strip accents from your own name in the filename if you have them: Jose-Martinez-CV.pdf rather than the accented spelling. Your CV content keeps the accents. The filename does not need them.
Capitalisation and length
Capitalise the first letter of each word. Sarah-Okonkwo-CV.pdf scans faster than sarah-okonkwo-cv.pdf and looks deliberate. Keep "CV" in capitals, since that is how the abbreviation is written.
Aim for under about 40 characters. Upload fields, email previews, and ATS list views all truncate long names, and the part they cut is usually the end, which is where people put the useful detail.
The extension
Keep the real extension visible and correct. If you exported a PDF, the file ends in .pdf. Do not rename a .docx to .pdf by hand, because it does not convert the file, it just produces something that will not open. Which format to send is a separate question with its own answer, so pick your format first, then name the resulting file properly.
What actually happens inside an ATS
Applicant tracking systems parse the content of your CV, not the filename, so a bad name will not fail a parse. But the filename is often kept and displayed. In several systems the recruiter's candidate list shows the original document name next to your profile, and internal search sometimes indexes it.
That means a file called Sarah-Okonkwo-CV.pdf is findable by typing "Okonkwo" into the system. A file called cv.pdf is not findable by anything.
There is also the human folder. Recruiters forward CVs to hiring managers as email attachments constantly. Your filename travels with the document, into inboxes you will never see, and it is the label your candidacy carries in those conversations.
Name your cover letter the same way
Use the same structure so the two files sit together and sort together:
Sarah-Okonkwo-CV.pdfSarah-Okonkwo-Cover-Letter.pdf
If you attach a portfolio or references, keep going: Sarah-Okonkwo-Portfolio.pdf. Consistency here does something small but real. It signals that you handle documents carefully, which is a reasonable thing for an employer to want to know.
Good and bad examples
Good:
Sarah-Okonkwo-CV.pdfSarah-Okonkwo-CV-Product-Manager.pdfOkonkwo-Sarah-Resume.pdfSarah_Okonkwo_CV.pdfSarah-Okonkwo-Cover-Letter.pdf
Bad:
cv.pdfCV final.docxcv_final_v3.pdfUntitled.docxresume 2021 (2) copy.pdfSARAHOKONKWOCVFORTHEMARKETINGROLEATSPOTIFYFINAL.pdf
The checklist
- Your full name is in the filename.
- The word CV or Resume is in it.
- No "final", no "v2", no date unless someone asked for one.
- Hyphens or underscores, no spaces, no accents, no special characters.
- Under roughly 40 characters.
- Correct extension, produced by an actual export.
- Cover letter named with the same pattern.
That is all there is to how to name your CV file. It will not get you hired. It removes one small reason to lose track of you, and those add up across fifty applications.