Curriculum vitae

A curriculum vitae (loosely translated as course of life) provides an overview of a person's life and qualifications. The CV is typically the first item that a potential employer encounters regarding the job seeker and is typically used to screen applicants, often followed by an interview, when seeking employment.

A curriculum vitae differs from a résumé in that it is appropriate for academic or medical careers and is far more comprehensive. A CV elaborates on education to a greater degree than a résumé.

In the United States and Canada, a CV is expected to include a comprehensive listing of professional history including every term of employment, academic credential, publication, contribution or significant achievement. In certain professions, it may even include samples of the person's work and may run to many pages.

In the European Union, there has been an attempt to develop a standardized CV model known as Europass (in 2004 by the European Parliament and European Commission) and promoted by the EU to ease skilled migration between member countries, although this is not widely used in most contexts.

A standard British CV might have the following points

• Personal details at the top, such as name in bold type, address, contact numbers and, if the subject has one, an e-mail address. Photos are not required at all, unless requested. Modern CVs are more flexible.
• A personal profile, written in either the first or the third person, a short paragraph about the job seeker. This should be purely factual, and free of any opinion about the writer's qualities such as "enthusiastic", "highly motivated", etc.
• A bulleted list of the job seeker's key skills or professional assets alone is somewhat unsophisticated
• A reverse chronological list of the job seeker's educational qualifications and work experience, including his or her current role. The CV should account for the writer's entire career history. The career history section should describe achievements rather than duties. The early career can these days be lumped together in a short summary but recent jobs should illustrate concept, planning, achievement, roles.
• A reverse chronological list of the job seeker's education or training, including a list of his or her qualifications such as his or her academic qualifications (GCSEs, A-Levels, Highers, degrees etc.) and his or her professional qualifications (NVQs and memberships of professional organizations etc.). If the job seeker has just left the place of education, the work experience and education are reversed.
• Date of birth, gender if you have an ambiguous first name, whether you have a driving license used to be standard - but nothing is required and you should not waste space on trivia. An employer requesting date of birth and gender needlessly could find itself on the losing side of recent anti-discrimination legislation.
• The job seeker's hobbies and interests (optional)

It is obligatory for it to be typed or word-processed, not hand-written.

There are certain faux pas for CVs:

• The CV being longer than two full sides of A4 paper. (This rule does not apply to academic positions, for which the CV normally includes a complete list of publications and major conference papers. CVs for positions in postsecondary teaching, research, and academic administration may be of any length.)
• Writing anything pejorative about other persons or businesses.
• If applying for a specific position, omitting a covering letter explaining one's suitability.
• Implying skills which one does not have.

As with résumés, CVs are subject to recruiting fads. For example,

• In German-speaking countries, a picture was a mandatory adjunct to the CV for a long time.
• Indian employers prefer lengthy résumés.
• Including a photograph of the applicant is strongly discouraged in the U.S. as it would suggest that an employer would discriminate on the basis of a person's appearance — age, race, sex, attractiveness, or the like. The theatre and modeling industries are exceptions, where it is expected that résumés will include photographs; actors refer to such photos as head shots.
• Generally only give information related to performance in the job in the résumé and work interview. Information irrelevant to the job can be seen as an attempt to prop up a poor candidate.
• In Korea, résumés always include a picture of the applicant, and other information, such as religion, Resident registration number (South Korea), family information (koseki), military information (for men), and other information often regarded as personal information in the west.
• When listing non-academic employment in the U.S., the newest entries generally come first (reverse chronological).
• The use of an "objective statement" at the top of the document (such as "Looking for an entry-level position in stores") was strongly encouraged in the U.S. during the mid-1990s but fell out of favor by the late-1990s. However, with the avalanche of résumés distributed via the Internet since the late 1990s, an "objective" and/or "skills summary" statement has become more common to help recruiters quickly determine the applicant's suitability. It is not prevalent elsewhere.
• A profiling statement (or thumbnail description) was a protocol developed by placement agencies in the late 1980s. Many candidates now open their CV with such a statement. This can be a short paragraph or a handful of bullet points delineating the candidate's most desirable skills and experiences.
• Listing of computer skills (such as proficiency with word processing software, basic skills) was a strong differentiator during the 1980s but was considered passé for most professional positions by the 1990s since many have used a computer.
• In the 1980s and early 1990s in the U.S., the trend was to not allow a résumé to exceed one page in length. In the late 1990s, this restriction fell out of vogue, with two- or even three-page résumés becoming common.
• In Canada, by Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, applicants may refuse to put down race, national or ethnic origin, colour, sex, age or mental or physical disability on the resume even if the employer instructed the applicants to do so.