Curriculum Vitae / Resume

This book provides an overview of strategies for writing an effective

curriculum vitae / resume. This topic is particularly important for graduate
students who are entering the job market for the first time.

The Definition of Curriculum Vitae

Curriculum vitae (CV) is, as its name suggests, an overview of our life's
accomplishments, most specifically those that are relevant to our academic realm.
Curriculum vitae is considered as a living document reflecting the developments
in our career, and thus it should be updated frequently.

The Difference between Curriculum Vitae and Resume?

The most noticeable difference between most CV's and most Resumes is
their lengths. Resumes are usually limited to a page while CV's often run to three
or more pages. Besides that, the difference can be seen from their goal. The
resume’s goal is to construct a professional identity while the CV’s goal is to
construct a scholarly identity. Thus, our CV will reflect our abilities as a
teacher/lecturer, researcher, and publishing scholar within our discipline.

The Contents of Curriculum Vitae

Our CV includes our name and contact information, an overview of our
education, our academic and related employment, our research projects, and our
departmental and community service. In addition, we may also include a reference
list, either as part of our CV, or on a separate page. To be more detailed, CV
should include our birth date, home-address, email (if any), home-telephone or
mobile-phone number and nationality. If we have just graduated, you can start our
CV with our education. In describing our education we can use chronological or
reverse order. It means that we can start showing our master’s degree or our high
school. Besides, we may also include the internships and extracurricular activities
we have already joined, foreign languages we have already mastered, lists of
certificates and/or results like TOEFL or TOEIC scores, computer skills, and our
working experiences as well.

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The Standard Format of Curriculum Vitae
One of the most important things to remember when writing our curriculum
vitae is that it should be able to introduce us and anything related to our
professional career. In other words, there is no standard format used to write
curriculum vitae. However, there are different emphases in each discipline and it
will be considered as good CV if it can describe us as professional candidates who
are needed by the company we are going to work with.

Strategies to Write Curriculum Vitae

Two common strategies which are applied to CV's as well as resumes are
gapping and parallelism. Gapping is the use of incomplete sentences in order to
present our information as clearly and concisely as possibly. By using incomplete
sentences here, we allow our reader to see quickly what we have been doing in
building our professional career. Then, Parallelism is also very important to our
CV. Generally, we will keep the structure of our phrases and/or sentences
consistent throughout our document.
Then, CV is used to introduce us to the employer of the company who has
not known us but still has time to get to know us. Usually a CV which is used for
business purposes should definitely not go over one A4 page. If we intend to use it
for academic purposes and not for a job, the CV can pass that limit, on the
condition that we use the extra space to describe academic activities, like
conferences, publications list, etc. In addition, our CV should show what is most
important first but it should contain all relevant information.

Study the following sample:

CURRICULUM VITAE
1. Name :
2. Place & Date of Birth :
3. Home address :
4. Telephone Number :
5. Sex : Female / Male
6. Marital Status : Single

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7. Religion : Islam / Christianity / Catholicism / Hinduism /
Buddhism
8. Nationality : Indonesian
9. Hobby :
10. Background of Study :
a. Graduated from Elementary School ( SD ……….) in 1996
b. Graduated from Junior High School (SMP …….. ) in 2009
c. Graduated from Senior High School (SMU…….. ) in 2012
d. Graduated from the Civil Engineering of State Polytechnic of
MALANG in 2016
11. Courses :

a. Studying English Proficiency at ……. ( ……….)

b. Learning Computer at ………………. ( ……….)
12. Job Trainings :

a. ………………………………….. ( ………………)
b. ………………………………….. ( ………………)
13. Working Experiences:

a. …………..
b. ……..……
14. Other Activities :

a. Member of Student Body at …………. ( ………………..)

b. ………………………..

Exercise
Read the following application letter carefully. Then, write the possible CV of the
applicant !

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January 17th, 2006

Recruitment Manager
Cardno ACIL Pty Ltd
854 Glenferrie Road
HAWTHORN 3122 VIC
Australia
Dear Sirs:

I was very much interested when I read your advertisement in “your E-mail
Address” that you are offering a job to the people who have relevant
postgraduate qualifications, are experienced in education planning and
management and in implementing quality education standards for teachers,
head-masters, and school systems as National Advisers.

I am fifty year old, male, married, in good health, graduated from the English
Department of IKIP Malang in 1981, from the Polytechnic Education
Development Center in 1983, from the Australian Language Center in 1987,
from the S-2 Program of English Language Education of Islamic University of
Malang in 2005 with GPA 3.73 and have been teaching English in the State
Polytechnic of Malang since 1982.

Besides, I was once appointed as the Director of the Academy of Computer

and Informatic Management (Pusat Pendidikan Komputer Indonesia Amerika)
from 1997 up to 2000 and as the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs of the
College of Foreign Languages (STIBA MALANG) from 2000 up to 2005. In
addition, I taught English in Junior High School (SMP NU Malang) from 1977
– 1984. In social and religious activities, I have been asked to be an academic
advisor in my Elementary School (SD Islam Klojen Kidul Malang) since 1990,
the head of Takmir Masjid al-Amien Tidar Permai Malang (1990 – 2005) and
the Vice General Head of Yayasan Masjid Al-Amin Tidar Permai Malang since
2005. The last but not least, I was also chosen as the Head of Institute for

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Human Resources Studies and Development LAKPESDAM - DPC NU
KODYA MALANG (2000 – 2004).

If you want to know my character and ability, you may contact the following
people, who have known me for at least five years:

1. Drs. H. Moh Thamrin

Consultant Basic Education
IAPBE AusAID
PO BOX 6610 Malang

2. Prof. Dr. H. Mujia Rahardjo, MS

Vise Rector for Academic Affairs
State Islamic University of Malang
Jl. Gajayana Malang

Finally, I hope you will be interested in having a job interview with me. If I am
accepted in your office, I will take a long leave from my office.

Faithfully yours

Drs. Ahmad Muhammad, M.Pd

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