That's not just a nitpick. It's important. CVs grow to many pages of publications and when you apply for a job people will refer to your publication by number when discussing your CV with one another.

I do publication numbering like this:

    \usepackage{bibentry}


    %% cventry facility.  Use \begin{cventries} and \end{cventries},
    %% and in between you do \cventry[note]{bibkey}.
    %% Numbering will go across cventry values
    \newcommand\cventry[2][]{\item\bibentry{#2}.  {\bf #1}}
    \newcounter{cventryg}
    \setcounter{cventryg}{0}
    \newenvironment{cventries}{%
            \begin{enumerate}%
            \setcounter{enumi}{\the\value{cventryg}}}{%
            \setcounter{cventryg}{\the\value{enumi}}%
            \end{enumerate}}