Curriculum Vitae (CV) Template And Examples

Have you decided that you’d be better served by having a curriculum vitae instead of a professional resume in your job-search pursuits?

If this is the case and you’ve never created a CV before, you probably have a ton of questions because a CV can be very different from a resume, and then again, for some people it won’t be all that different. A CV is designed to showcase your entire professional career, in fact curriculum vitae is Latin for course of a life. While a resume is a brief explanation of the highlights of your career, a CV is more detailed and dives deep into your experience.

CVs are quite common in some countries, but they’re not often used in the United States unless you’re applying for a high-level position, a scientific or education-based position, or you’re doing research. That said, there are some people who have broad backgrounds and their experience is not well served by a simple resume. If you fall into any of these categories, then a CV is for you.

Key Takeaways:

• A curriculum vitae, or CV, contains an extensive record of your professional and academic life.

• A CV includes contact information, work history, education skills, certifications, awards, publications, membership to professional organizations, and more.

• International CVs contain personal information, however in the United States this should be excluded to comply with discrimination laws.

• CVs are usually found in international job applications and academia positions in the United States.

Why A CV Is Important And When To Use It

A curriculum vitae can be very helpful in certain situations. A CV allows a job candidate the ability to go into detail about their professional and academic achievements. The importance of a CV can be shown in the fact that sometimes people are asked to present a CV that is multiple pages long.

Usually CVs are required in international job applications. In the United States you will find CVs in academia and research-based professions. Sometimes, very high level positions also ask for CVs because they provide more detail.

In any case, be aware when an organization asks for your CV. This is not the same as your resume, and you want to make sure you provide all that is included in a standard CV.

What to Include in a CV?

This can get a little complicated because most people who use a CV are more experienced in their careers and have more to say. In these situations, their CV is going to be vastly different from anyone else’s but the following checklist to help you figure out how to write a CV:

1. Contact information

2. Work history

3. Education

4. Skills

5. Professional certifications

6. Additional training or continuing education

7. Awards or significant recognition

8. Publications

9. Membership in professional organizations

10. Extracurricular activities

11. Letters of recommendation

Remember that your job is to stand-out and get noticed for your accomplishments, work-experience, education and anything else that makes you more uniquely qualified for the job than anyone else. This means you may want to skip some of the above areas and you might want to expand upon others or add something that’s not included — perhaps the number and type of foreign languages you speak and how that relates to the position.

International Information

This bit of information is going to sound a little strange to people in the United States, but there are things that people in other countries routinely put on their curriculum vitae, it’s actually expected that it be there, that we would never include. In fact, there are times when that information is not legal to ask for or provide because of age discrimination laws and other Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Laws. These tidbits of information you might be expected to include on your CV for an international job are:

• Your date of birth

• Nationality

• Gender

• Marital status

• If you have children, how many, and their ages

• Language skills

• Religion

• Health status

• Passport Number

• A picture of you

United States Information

This is a little tricky because a CV in the United States should not, under any circumstances unless it applies directly to the position you’re applying for, include the above personal information. These are things to avoid putting on your resume. A lot of employers will simply toss that resume because they do not want to be sued for discrimination. If you’re from outside the United States and applying for a job, skip the CV and go right to a resume. In the United States, people want to quickly get to the “good stuff”. This means they want the brief and concise highlights and that’s it.

If you are applying for one of those jobs in the United States that requires a CV, then you still should avoid all of the personal information that is not allowed but you should greatly expand upon your academic and professional achievements. If needed, go into great detail about your research, publications, awards, acknowledgements, professional advances, and anything that’s related to you succeeding in your chosen profession.

Academic Information

Typically, a curriculum vitae is requirement when the position is geared to a well-educated person or someone who wants to work in academia. This means your academic information is often of utmost importance. Your advanced degrees may need to sit at the top of the CV to get the attention they deserve, and any additional coursework, training, or certifications should be mentioned also. CVs typically rely heavily on education, so make sure you stand out and shine in this arena.

Medical/Scientific Research Information

If you’re in the sciences or work in research, you’ll typically be required to submit a CV. These are the fields where a strong academic career is essential, as is experience in the field or lab. For first time CV writers, showcase the research you’ve done so prospective employers know that you’ve had real world experience. Highlight the accomplishments and maybe summarize what you learned. For seasoned researchers, there’s probably not enough room for everything you’ve worked on but highlighting the most celebrated or novel research will be sure to get you noticed.

Curriculum Vitae Template

The following CV template is simply a sample and it may bear no resemblance to your CV. Because CVs are so customized, no two should ever look alike. This is just for reference and to give you an idea of what sections you can or should have in your CV. Expect to move sections and bullet-points around to better fit your field, or even to change them for each job you apply for.

1. Contact Information. Start with your name and job title, then list your professional address, your home address, the phone numbers you can be reached at, email addresses, and you might want to include your website or professional portfolios, maybe even your LinkedIn profile.

2. Professional Objective or Work Summary. This is where you’d list what your work goal is, or if you’re a seasoned professional, where you list a summary of what you’ve been doing. If you choose the summary you can recap your entire career or just focus on one aspect.

3. Professional Experience. Typically, professional experiences are listed in reverse chronological order and there is a trend of dropping off anything that’s more than 10 years old. This may or may not be a good idea in a CV, it depends on your situation but if it’s repetitive and makes your CV more than five pages long, then older jobs should be omitted.

4. Education. You will want to list all of your higher education degrees. You also want to share your area of study, your thesis, if you graduated with honors, and any noteworthy awards or achievements.

5. Skills. If you have any skills that are relevant to the position but not included in your educational training you might want to list them. This is where you could possibly add any language skills, CPR or other emergency training, extra licenses you may hold, etc.

6. Professional Certifications. Does your professional tract include extra certifications that boost your knowledge base. For example sports trainers may have, in addition to a degree, anNCSF-CPT certification, which is a National Council on Strength and Fitness Certified Personal Trainer test that proves they’re competent in certain aspects of being a trainer. This could be very relevant to the position for which they’re applying.

7. Awards or Recognition. List professionally earned awards you’ve received or if you’ve been recognized for your work. Don’t forget to include team awards and recognition if you were on a research team or part of a group that received acknowledgement for their contributions.

8. Publications. List of your published books, articles, reviews, research, and anything else that’s relevant to the position you’re pursuing. Most people like to arrange these in reverse chronological order too, but it might be better to arrange them by the publication, depending on your experience.

9. Membership in Professional Organizations. You want recruiters to know that you’re active in your field and as professionals, that often means belonging to an organization or two.

10. Extracurricular Activities. Are you involved in any groups that are fun for you and not work related, yet they apply to your field? Do you mentor children who are interested in rocket building and you want to be a teacher? Anything you do that’s connected to your field and portrays you as the best candidate can be included.

11. Letters of Recommendation. This is entirely optional. It can make an extensive and lengthy career-driven CV look a little sophomoric unless they letters are written by very relevant people. It can also make your CV too long. This is going to be a judgement call on your part.

Sample Curriculum Vitae

Since more experienced professionals have probably already written a CV at some point or another and because their CVs are so specialized and customized to their education, skills, and position, this sample curriculum vitae will focus on the first time job seeker with an entry-level resume.

At this point in her CV, Jane Doe might want to include some letters of recommendation. These will be written by other people and they typically do not follow any set format or letter template. One thing to note, because Jane is applying for a job in the United States, she has left some things out of her resume, like her age and other personal information that shouldn’t be on a resume due to discrimination laws.

References

• Merriam-webster.com. “ Definition of Curriculum Vitae by Merriam-Webster.”

• Corporatefinanceinstitute.com. “Curriculum Vitae – Definition, What to Include, and How to Format.”

• Careers.govt.nz. “How to write a CV.”

• EEOC.gov. “U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”

Author

Kristin Kizer

Kristin Kizer is an award-winning writer, television and documentary producer, and content specialist who has worked on a wide variety of written, broadcast, and electronic publications. A former writer/producer for The Discovery Channel, she is now a freelance writer and delighted to be sharing her talents and time with the wonderful Zippia audience.