You’ve heard everyone talk about them, you’ve probably been told how important they are, you may have even written one, but what actually is a CV?
What Is a CV or Resume?
CV stands for Curriculum Vitae, loosely translated from Latin as ‘the course of my life’. In the United States, Canada and some other countries, it’s known instead as a résumé (or resume), French for ‘summary’. Both documents serve the same general purpose; they are your means to tell an employer about yourself and hopefully land you that dream job. However, there are some slight differences in style, which are covered below.
In summary, a CV or resume is a short document you send to employers to tell them about yourself. It focuses on your education and your work experiences. It should be concise, informative and engaging.
What Do You Include in a CV or Resume?
So what exactly do you need to include when drafting your CV or resume?
1. Your personal details
Start with the easy stuff: your name, email, telephone number, address etc. There’s no need to write your age or date of birth, and photographs aren’t necessary except for acting, modelling and some other performing arts jobs.
2. Your education
Next, list your education. It’s good practice to put your most recent qualifications at the top and work backwards. For example, if you have a degree, start with that, then A-levels or IB, then GCSEs etc. If you have qualifications specific to the position you’re applying for, it’s good to highlight them. This can be done by putting them in their own section under their own heading.
Participating in programmes like our Oxford summer school can enhance your education section, demonstrating a commitment to learning and improving your university applications.
3. Your work experience
Finally, the bulk of your CV should describe your past jobs and work experiences. This can often be the hardest part, particularly if you’re just starting out and haven’t got a lot of experience.
If you can show how you made a difference in a job, an academic internship, a club or society (even if it wasn’t paid), then you still have work experience and have lots of skills employers will be interested in. Attributes such as leadership, teamwork, problem solving and public speaking are vital to so many jobs, yet they’re all skills you can develop outside of the world of work. For example, if you’re captain of the school football team, you’ll be regularly leading a team of people: something that will be required at some stage in almost every job out there.
The key thing to remember is to show the reader that you are a doer – someone who makes a difference. Write about how you personally contributed to a project, and how your decisions and actions led to success.
4. Your references
It’s often good practice to include a couple of people who are happy to act as referees for your job application at the end of your CV. These are often people you’ve worked for in the past who can help add weight to your application by writing to the employer and supporting what you’ve written in your CV. Remember to ask their permission before putting their name down. It’s also acceptable to leave these out and provide them only once an employer has asked for them.
How Do I Write About Myself?
Striking the right tone in a CV can be hard. You want to avoid repeating words like ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my’ and sounding too self-interested. However, you also want to sell yourself and convince the employer that they should pick you over the next person. It has to be a balancing act.
Using action words is a good way to show personal ownership of a situation in a nuanced way. Action words often end with ‘-ed’, like ‘observed’, ‘improved’, ‘coached’, ‘managed’ etc. They show you as a person who is actively making a difference in situations, rather than someone who is sitting on the side-lines. Instead of saying ‘I was responsible for managing and ordering new stock’, you can say ‘I managed and ordered stock, closely monitoring the company’s supply needs’.
Many employers use software such as ATS resume scanners to scan a document before a human reads it. This makes it doubly important that you use the right sort of words. Reed, the UK’s top recruitment website, lists the following eight keywords to include in your CV:
- Accurate
- Adaptable
- Confident
- Hard-working
- Innovative
- Pro-active
- Reliable
- Responsible
But good keywords are no good alone unless you can back them up. Link every skill with an occasion you demonstrated it. For example, write about a time you were particularly innovative in solving a problem and tell the reader about the great results of your innovation.
What’s the Difference Between a CV and a Resume?
As mentioned above, a CV and a resume serve largely the same purpose: to tell an employer about your past skills and experiences. However, their format and tone can be a little different.
A resume is generally shorter than a CV, normally a maximum of one side of A4 rather than the two that’s typical of a CV. It is more tailored to individual applications and tends to be more fluidly written with fewer subheadings and bullet points. You can think of a resume as a sort of hybrid between a CV and cover letter. A resume must state your skills and suitability for a job, yet it must also make you stand out from the crowd and explain why you’re the best person for the role.
Resumes are generally used in the USA, Canada and other American English-speaking countries, whilst CVs tend to be used in Europe, the UK and Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand, accompanied by a separate cover letter.
By Oxford Scholastica Academy
The Oxford Scholastica Academy was founded in 2013 by Jamie and Sophie, two former University of Oxford students, who have built a dynamic education company dedicated to empowering young people to chart their path in the world and make it better.
