How do I save a managed_file to a user profile in a hook_submit
I'm not sure how your collecting this CV (apart of registration process, on your own custom page, apart of the user profile page... whatever).

I would add a field to User Accounts at /admin/config/people/accounts/fields, or maybe install the Profile2 module for D7 if you have alot of types of Users.

After you call file_save($file) if you use the Devel module you'll see that $file should have a new value fid so you can then load a user account (or Profile2 profile) and give the CV $file-&gt;fid as the File field value.