If you apply for a job offline or online, some employers will ask for your resume and a CV also known as a Curriculum Vitae. Many people are focused on resume writing, but they always forget that they might need to write a CV for potential employers. Resume writing might be easy for some people, but writing a CV is a whole different ball game. What is a CV? A CV is an overview of your life's achievements, but it usually relates to achievements in the academic field. If you are looking for an academic job, you have to have a CV. How Do I Write a Curriculum Vitae?
"What's the difference between a resume and a CV?" When writing a CV, the only difference between this and a resume is the length. Resumes are typically one page, sometimes two pages. CV's are three to four pages long. Do not be afraid of the length of the CV, the most important part about this document is adding all the relevant information relating to your qualifications. Resumes are used to present a professional identity, the CV is used to present a scholar identity. Your CV should reflect all of your academic abilities as a researcher, professor, etc.
"What information do I need to include in my curriculum vitae?" Your name, address, email address, phone number, and other contact information. Your academic background and your experience (i.e. administrative, teaching, editorial), community service, research projects such as conference papers, and professional references. Professional references should be on a separate page or part of your CV. How your information is listed on your curriculum vitae depends on the job you are applying for and your background. Typically, if you just graduated from grad school, your education will be listed in reverse chronological order. If you are applying for a teacher's position at a junior college, you have to emphasize your qualifications. These institutions (i.e. colleges, universities), want you to emphasize on your teaching abilities. Employers need to know all of your qualifications in great detail.
"Resumes have a standard format, what about CV's?" Unlike resumes, CV's do not have a standard format that they go by. When you are writing your CV, concentrate on the most important information first and presenting that information in the most effective way. Your CV will be different from someone else's, you both have different backgrounds, qualifications, and experiences. I would not write a CV in a particular format. Your curriculum vitae should be distinguishable and distinctive.
"What about work description? How do I present this?" CV's use the same concepts as resumes, parallelism and gapping. Parallelism has to do with consistency of your sentences in your entire document. If you use certain sentences structures and phrases to describe your job duties, the structure has to be consistent throughout your curriculum vitae document. The sentence and/or phrase structure has to be parallel for the person reading your CV. Your reader has to clearly understand what you are trying to communicate while they read your document. When you include information on a resume, people usually use bullet points. Bullet points are used less frequently in CV's, but if you have to use them to list your qualifications, they have to be easy to read. Gapping is when you use incomplete sentences in order to present your information concisely.
Example of what not to do: I taught political science for fifteen years, during this time period I planned extracurricular activities, graded term papers, and essays. I also interacted with my students via conferences. You would instead write: Taught political science. Planned extracurricular activities. Graded assignments. Interacted with students via conferences. Using incomplete sentences is very important, it allows the reader to read through your CV quickly to see what you have accomplished.
If you are still having trouble writing your curriculum vitae, many universities have writing centers to guide you through the CV writing process. You could also go to your local public library to find useful resources such as books that contain sample CV's, resumes, and cover letters.