What Makes a Curriculum Vita Stand Out?
You'll generate a better response with your curriculum vitae if it is well organized and is packed with relevant information to match and support your professional, academic or research objective.
I applied several unique strategies when writing each curriculum vita. The first was to prioritize and list the most relevant academic, research, volunteer or work history experience first within the curriculum vitae. The second was to include an Objective and Summary of Qualifications section at the top of each C.V. The third was to incorporate many of the strategies and resume writing techniques.
These strategies proved to be extremely effective and boosted the acceptance rate of students applying for highly competitive graduate programs - many of which accepted only one to twelve students out of 300 to 600 applicants.
Preparing effective C.V.'s presents a unique challenge due to length, which can make them boring and result in important data being buried or lost in such a long document. As a result, prioritizing your top skills and experience to be presented in the first or uppermost section of your C.V. makes sense. Then detail additional educational, employment or academic experience.
In this way you will maximize important criteria which you do not want to be overlooked by academic or hiring committees.
Who Needs A Curriculum Vita?
A curriculum vitae is often required for those applying to graduate or professional programs, employment with international firms, or when promoting oneself within professional and academic fields.
How Does a Curriculum Vita Differ From A Regular Resume?
A curriculum vita is longer than the average 1-2 page resume because it provides a greater range of information which can include:
- Professional, Vocational or Research Objective.
- Summary of Qualifications.
- Professional Licenses or Certifications.
- Education including Post Graduate, Graduate and Undergraduate Degrees and Studies.
- Listing of Relevant Course work to Match Career or Academic Objective.
- Educational or Professional Honors or Awards.
- Scientific or Academic Research, Laboratory Experience and Related Skills.
- Description of Thesis or Dissertation, Papers Written, Publications.
- Academic or Professional Presentations.
- Related Extracurricular Activities, Professional and Association Memberships.
- Community Involvement.
- Work Experience - Paid or Volunteer.
- Technical and Specialized Skills such as Computer Programming or Laboratory Instrumentation.
- Interests - Future Academic or Professional Goals.
- Travel / Exposure to Cultural Experiences.
- Foreign Language Skills.
- Additional Information that May Support Objective or Qualifications
How Do I Get Started?
Writing a curriculum vitae can seem overwhelming but can be made easier by organizing your background. To begin, put each of the headings listed above--and any others that are relevant--at the top of several sheets of paper (using a computer makes this even easier). Once you've done that then begin filling in your information for topics such as those listed above.
Remember To Be Descriptive
When describing your background be descriptive, use numbers and paint a broad range of your experience. For example, compare the following section from Madhuchanda's before curriculum vitae. It is representative of what the rest of her C.V. looked like.
Professional Goal: Nurse Practitioner in rural setting.
Education: June 2006 -- Bachelor of Science in Nursing, University of XXXXX
Employment: August 1982 - Present
Staff Nurse - Duties include primary care of patients.
YYYYYYY Medical Center
June 1998 - August 2000
Staff Nurse - Member of the IV Team.
YYYYYYY Medical Center
Now compare the after curriculum vita, shown below, that I created while my friend Sofia working with Madhuchanda. Which one does a better job of pulling together the best of Madhuchanda's qualifications for acceptance into a Nurse Practitioner program? This program specialized in training of Nurse Practitioners for rural community service.
Objective and Summary of Qualifications
Seeking acceptance into a Nurse Practitioner Program with
goal of providing rural community service utilizing my extensive primary care background.
Over 18 years Registered Nursing experience includes:
° Providing full-range of nursing care to patients and families of all ages from economically and culturally diverse populations.
° Management in a department serving over 30,000 patients annually.
° Training and supervising over 40 R.N.'s; assuming direct responsibility for total patient care; narcotics control, assessment and risk management.
° Bachelor of Science in Nursing with Honors, University of XXXXX 1982
As you can see, Madhuchanda's after C.V. starts off much stronger and summarizes her top skills at a glance. You may be thinking, "But, I don't have any valuable work experience." If that's true, then follow a similar strategy but instead list whatever academic, volunteer or co curricular activities that form a foundation of skills or knowledge that relate to and support your objective. The section from Madhuchanda's C.V. shown above was then followed by many of the topics listed earlier on this page.
$9,000 Salary Increase
Writing Your Student / Graduate CV
This section will teach you how to prepare student / graduate CVs. Generally you will find the layout described here will work for you. But, you might also want to try the targeted or functional CV layouts. Please feel free to add other sections as required or change the ordering of later sections to suit your skills and abilities.
Profile/Summary
This should be a short summary of your experience, skills and abilities, and be contained in four to six lines of text. Only list the attributes that will be of interest to an employer; do not include irrelevancies.
Achievements
A lot of students/graduates won't have an achievements section, because you won't have anything to write here. If you can think of some achievements please list 3 to 6 achievements which you feel will be in line with your next position. Do not list achievements which are not in line with what you want to do next. Bullet points your achievements to make them stand out. Start with the strongest point in your favour and then work backwards from there.
Education/Qualifications
Only list the most important qualifications. If you are a graduate you do not have to list all your 'O' Levels/GCSEs, you can just indicate the number of 'O' levels gained.
Experience
This should be in reverse chronological order starting with your most recent job and working backwards. You only need to include the year you started and the year you finished each job. You do not need to include the month or day, e.g. put 2002 - 2004 rather than 1.8.2002 - 4.6.2004. If you have had a lot of jobs you may need to group some of the earlier jobs together, e.g. '1999 - 2000 various engineering positions'.
If your job title does not reflect what you actually did, or it sounds a bit obscure, consider changing it. For example, if you worked as a Sales Representative and your job title (given to you by your company) was Customer Home Representative, you would be well advised to change your title to that of Sales Representative.
When you are describing your experience for each position you should start with the strongest point in your favour and then work backwards. If you have a lot of points to put under one specific job you may want to break this description into two or more sections. You could break up this section into responsibilities and achievements or you could break it up into specific functions, e.g. management, sales & marketing; the choice is yours.
If you have had a number of positions for a particular employer you may not want to include every individual job (in which case leave out the year designations for all jobs titles and just include the start and finish years for this employer), or you may be able to combine one or more of the jobs. If the jobs are completely unrelated you may be better off using a Functional or Targeted CV.
Make sure you stress your responsibilities and achievements under each job which will be useful in your next job, but do not repeat information in your CV as this will just bore the reader.
Personal Details
Include date of birth, marital status (you may leave this out if you want to), and driving license. If you have a clean driving license, say so.
Interests
Keep this part fairly short, but make sure you list any current positions of responsibility. If you do not currently have any management responsibility and you are applying for a management position you may want to include positions of responsibility that you have held over the last few years, e.g. Captain of a local football team.
Referees
You should include two referees, one of which should be an academic reference, e.g. your personal tutor, while the second reference could be from an employer you have worked for. The postcode should normally be included in the address.
Why are CVs rejected?
First impressions
First impressions matter; if your CV does not attract the reader's attention in the first 20-30 seconds then your chances of obtaining an interview are greatly reduced. An employer may have a hundred or more CVs to look through and probably only a couple of hours in which to make their selection. So put your work experience at the start of your CV, not personal or educational details, unless you have only just left education.
What an employer really wants to know is why they should invite you for an interview. For this reason a short summary of your capabilities and/or a list of your major achievements can often be a good idea. This should make an employer want to invite you for an interview - but please be careful that you do not oversell yourself.
Poor visual layout
The visual layout of your CV is very important. Even though the wording you use may be correct, if people cannot find the information they want quickly they will move on to someone else's CV. You should use plenty of 'white' space in your CV and appropriate headings and section breaks. Always use a word-processor / DTP package. Never use a typewriter as you will look old fashioned and out of date. Use good quality A4 paper, preferably 100gram for both your CV and cover letter.
Length of CV
It is usually best to try and keep your CV to two pages of A4, unless someone specifically asks you for a longer CV. If you cannot keep your CV to this length then you probably have not understood an employer's requirements. Employers do not want to know your whole life history - just enough to decide whether they should interview you or not.
Organising the information on your CV
If your CV is not well organized then the reader will find it hard to follow and will not be able to build up a picture of you quickly. Remember the reader will not spend very long looking at your CV - so if they cannot find what they want they will not bother to read any further.
Overwritten - long paragraphs and sentences
This makes it difficult to read quickly - try and keep your sentences short and punchy and use bullet points to break up the text under section headings.
Too little information
A lot of people do not include enough details about their previous jobs and experience and an employer therefore does not have enough information - they will therefore have to reject your application.
Not results orientated
You need to shout about your achievements. Please remember that your CV is your sales document to an employer. If it does not tell an employer why they should employ you then it has failed. An employer will only want to employ you if they can see a benefit in it for themselves. So do tell them the benefits of employing you.
CV makes you look too young/old for the job
In general being too young/old can be a real problem and a barrier to future advancement, or even to getting a job in the first place. There are a number of ways round this problem - but this depends very much on your individual circumstances and the industry/job you are applying for. There are further hints and tips throughout this website to help you.
Miss-spellings, typographical errors, poor grammar
Your CV should be carefully checked for such errors before you send it out to employers. Tiny errors in your CV can detract from an otherwise good CV and make you look lazy or careless - not the sort of qualities you want to portray to an employer. As you will probably be 'blind' to these errors you should get someone else to check your CV for grammar and spelling errors.
