What Is a CV? How to Write a CV

A curriculum vitae (Latin for “course of life”)—commonly referred to as a CV—is a job application document that describes the full breadth of your scholarly and professional career. In contrast to its close cousin, the resume, a CV emphasizes academic achievements. These include institutions attended, degrees earned, and honors received. For this reason, a CV is sometimes called an academic resume.

A curriculum vitae is most commonly used in academic job searches. These include professorships, fellowships, administrative positions, and research positions. Hiring managers and recruiters in other industries may prefer a standard resume that primarily emphasizes work history and hard skills that match a posted job description.

A CV and a resume are similar documents, and in some places, including the UK and Europe, the terms are interchangeable. However, a CV and a resume serve different purposes and use slightly different formatting.

• Emphasis: A CV emphasizes academic achievement. This includes institutions attended, degrees earned, honors received, papers published, and grants received. A standard resume emphasizes relevant work experience and hard skills.
• Format: Use bullet points on resumes to list items succinctly. Use complete sentences on a CV in the name of thoroughness.
• Length: Standard resume format calls for no more than two pages of content. Many strong resumes are only one page long. In a CV, the emphasis is on completeness rather than conciseness. CV writing means including every relevant honor, degree, and publication; resume writing means condensing your career into one to two pages.
• Purpose: A CV is mostly used by job applicants in the world of academia. Nearly all other fields prefer the resume format.
• Skills sections: Most resume templates feature a section for hard skills (such as software knowledge and job-specific talents) and for soft skills (such as personality traits). These sections are much less common in a CV template.

In general, a CV is two to three pages in length. A CV should include all relevant degrees, certificates, publications, and accolades.

The right CV template depends on the industry and particular job, but in general, the format should prioritize the most relevant experience for the position. When preparing a CV—particularly an academic CV—should include the following sections:

1. 1. Contact information: Provide your name, phone number, and email address. Personal information such as date of birth, home address, and marital status do not belong on a CV. Expect to provide those on a job application.
2. 2. Optional personal objective: Some job applicants begin their CV with a stated objective for their employment. Others find such statements to be more appropriate for a cover letter or a personal statement.
3. 3. Relevant work experience: If you have professional experience—particularly teaching experience—that qualifies you for a specific job, share that in this section. Lay out your relevant jobs in reverse-chronological order, starting with the most recent job at the top of the page. Include job titles, years of employment, and brief descriptions of your work.
4. 4. Professional affiliations: If you are a member of a professional association, list these memberships on your CV.
5. 5. Professional references: Provide two to three personal references who can attest to your work as a scholar or colleague.
6. 6. Education: A typical CV gives heavy emphasis to educational achievements. In this education section, list your undergraduate school, major, and degree earned—plus any graduate schools and degrees earned. If you earned academic honors, include those as well.
7. 7. Grants: List any work or research grants you have received.
8. 8. Personal honors and certifications: If you have received professional or academic honors not tied to a specific university degree, list those in this section. You may also use this section to list certifications or volunteer work.
9. 9. Presentations: List any papers or talks you have given at academic conferences or trade conventions.
10. 10. Works published: Standard CV format includes space to list your publications. This can include books, cited articles, chapters in larger anthologies, and published studies.
11. 11. Research areas of interest: Share your research experience and the academic topics that interest you going forward.

Consider the following writing tips when drafting a CV:

1. 1. Focus on completeness. While standard resumes require conciseness, your curriculum vitae can be as long as necessary. Include all relevant degrees, work experience, honors, publications, references, and professional affiliations.
2. 2. Use proper formatting for ATS. Many hiring managers and recruiters use an applicant tracking system, or ATS, to manage the many CVs they receive for their job listings. ATS software scans resumes and CVs and attempts to filter them to single out the best possible matches. ATS software functions better with Word documents ending in .doc or .docx, as opposed to PDFs. ATS software sometimes struggles with text found in a header or footer section, so write your entire CV in the main text section of a Word document.
3. 3. View CV examples before writing your own. Google Docs offers CV and resume templates to help you with formatting.

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