By Denise Abney
November 13, 2015
A Curriculum Vitae is a document that showcases your education background, personal qualifications and relevant examples of previous experiences. To say it plainly, a Curriculum Vitae is a resume covering every academic accomplishment you had in college.
For brevity, I will refer to a Curriculum Vitae as a CV.
When creating your CV, you want to display the skills you gained through college courses as well as list key experiences, like presentations and volunteer work that affected your educational journey in a positive way. This also highlights your personal qualities sharpened during your college career.
It is vital for all students to invest some time in creating a well structured and detailed CV. It is especially important for professional writers because the term of professional writer is relatively new and because of that not many employers and even some grad schools won’t be sure what a professional writer is and what they can do.
In this situation a professional writer will need to produce proof of the software systems mastered, the technical writing projects worked on and ability to create a usable and highly affective document plus many of their other skills.
Listing these abilities in a professional document like a CV will help a potential employer be able to see what value you can bring to their company. It will show grad schools and law schools whether or not the student is qualified and prepared to enter into their program. The stakes are high when applying for a job, grad school or law school so your CV needs to be properly formatted and excessively detailed.
Let’s explore what goes into a CV a little more.
What goes on your CV? First, you need to put your contact information underneath a header containing your contact information. Your header should show your name, address, phone number and e-mail address. A suggested order of information is listed below.
What matters the most is deciding what on your CV is most relevant to the situation you are using it for. Whatever is the most relevant should go right under your basic contact information. For example, if you are applying for a position as a tutor, it would be wise to list your experience working at the Writing Center where you assisted students in editing their papers.
A CV needs to include:
Education-This should appear first under your contact information. Be sure to only list your most recent education first. The order should be grad school (if applicable), undergrad and lastly high school.
Honors and Awards – No matter what you are listing, always list startwith the most recent. Only include academic and professional awards from your time as an undergrad. Scholarships can be included under this section.
Professional Experience- This means internships. Every student should strive to have at least one internship during their time as an undergrad.
Publications and Presentations– Have anything published? Did you give a presentation at a conference or a club when you were an undergrad? Put it on your CV!
Extracurricular and Volunteer Experience-This category refers to any club memberships you had as an undergrad. Be sure to include what position you held. Also, another important category to list here is volunteer work. Be sure to include any time you spent volunteering in the community and describe the project in detail.
Interests-Only list interests relative to the environment you’re sending your CV.
Certifications and Licenses-Certified in a program like QuickBooks or do you have a license in a professional area? Put it on your CV!
Professional Affiliations – Only if it adds credibility to your CV.
Professional Activities – Job experience relative to your academic experience. For example, if you are applying for a job as a teacher it and you spent time working as a teacher’s assistant it would be wise to include that experience under this bullet point.
Research – Work on a university research project while an undergrad? Add it to your CV.
Added Qualifications– If somehow one of the topics above doesn’t match a qualification that you think should be put on your CV, put it under this bullet point. If a student includes all the fields mentioned above, their potential employer or grad school will have a firm grip on what to expect from the student.
Remember, a Curriculum Vitae is all about marketing your educational background and skill set. Do not be afraid to show off your accomplishments off. The more relevant information you can put on your CV, the better.
Let your Curriculum Vitae show your potential employer, grad school or law school exactly how prepared you are to become an active and beneficial member of their program.
