Writing a resume may not be that hard and so because of this, you’d think that getting any old job isn’t that hard. In fact, most of the times, you’re right. In some other jobs and in other countries, a more detailed job application is required, like a CV. This is because CVs have more information about you and it increases the chance of an employer hiring someone with a lot of relevant background work experience, rather than having to sift through hundreds of generic resumes.

Learning how to write a CV isn’t that hard either, surprisingly. It’s learning how to write an effective and convincing CV that is a little bit more trickier. The first thing you’ll need to realise is that a CV is structured slightly differently to a resume. In fact, I’ve already covered this in a previous post so click on the following link to see what I mean –> Learn what format of a CV looks like.

If you just want to know what it looks like, well have a look at this:

It’s the same CV template in the post I mentioned before, but this is just for reference. This is actually quite a general CV format. Below I’ll show you a more typical CV seen when applying for an academic position.

The major difference between the two is that the academic CV has more focus on the education section, as you’d expect. Postdoctoral training is also more relevant for the academic version.

If you do not intend to apply for either an academic role or a medical role and the employer asks for a CV, then their basically asking a a more detailed resume. Here’s an example:

So you can see, that a CV is just slightly more detailed than a resume, but at the same time, more relevant and professional. And this doesn’t just apply to CVs, you should try to be relevant and professional with all your job applications.

(Image souce – about.com)