CV and Resume

Accurate meaning of these two terms Unaware about the facts, people habitually make use of these terms to get a job. However, the interviewer is well versed with the difference between CV and resume and so can mark down or question you on the same. A CV or Curriculum Vitae is clarified as the course of life, whereas resume is restricted to summary. You would notice a very slight difference in both names at first glance. Yet they contain a list of facts that differentiates them from one another.

Distinction in brief

Although a CV discusses the path of life of an individual, his resume highlights a short summary of his abilities and accomplishments. The meaning of the words reflects the fundamental difference between the two:

• A CV is detailed history of an individual's professional background and a resume firmly consist of information related to specific job.
• A CV is comparatively lengthy than a resume. Usually, a CV is two or more pages long whereas a resume is limited to one page.

Attributes of a resume

You can call resume a short form of your CV. A resume needs to be shorter and precise focusing on your proficiency and achievements. Resume can miss on some personal aspects like interests and hobbies to cut down on length. While the accurate length of resume is debatable, it is expected to be of one page. Only relevant information should be included in a resume so that it becomes easier for the interviewer to assign to a specific designation. You can choose to be a bit casual while writing a resume as compared to CVs. Besides you can be creative in the limited information that you provide. There are three types of resume formats usually used:

• Sequential - This is a general type of format alike CVs.
• Functional - This involves your skills and qualifications and your complete resume is structured on the basis of it.
• Focused - This type of format is quite same like functional format in which your skills and qualifications are added along with the content targeting to a particular position or designation. It is appropriate to write your resume in one of the above formats instead of creating your own format. You can create your own format in case you are applying for any creative field like fashion designing, animation etc, where the employers actually check your assignments practically.

Attributes of a CV

CV is a description of your complete qualifications and professional history. As mentioned earlier, it is referred as 'course of life'. A CV should include every detail of your education and work life. The information in it should be written in a reverse sequence so that it becomes easier for the interviewer to refer and prioritize your recent or latest whereabouts. Therefore a CV becomes longer than resumes, yet the length probably should not go beyond two pages. To make it easy for the employers to understand your CV without consuming time, the information in a CV should be organized under subheadings. CVs are already lengthy and on top of it if you mess up with classification of details, it can become a tedious job for any reader. You can include the following sections in your CV to make it presentable:

• Objective - A definite statement that exposes your ambitions or goal of your life and matches with the employer requirement.
• Professional review - This is the most crucial subheading which highlights your achievements and recognitions. Each job should contain the role with tasks and responsibilities involved.
• Skills and capabilities - You can add all skills and capabilities that are related to the job, however you need to be careful about unreasonable data like winning a dance competition in school days.
• Education - This can be added at the end of CV as it is shadowed by the work experience. You can mention the list of qualifications with year of passing, scores and institutes you passed from.

Now that you have come to know the difference between CV and resume, you need to decide which to go for, keeping the limitations in mind. With this right beginning you will surely end up with a right job.