CV and Resume writing

By Nabiha Qasim
CV
CV stands for ‘’Curriculum Vitae’’, a Latin word which means ‘’course
of life’’. It is a detailed account of not only your career history but
also your education, awards, special honors, grants, work experience
or scholarships, research or academic projects, and publications. A
CV may also include professional references, coursework, fieldwork,
descriptions of research projects or dissertations, hobbies and
interests and a personal profile that lists your skills and positive
attributes. Generally, a CV is chronological and starts with your
educational experience.
How to write a CV
Most CVs include the following information:

Contact information
Academic history
Professional experience
Qualifications and skills
Awards and honors
Publications
Professional associations
Grants and fellowships
Hobbies and interests (Optional)
References
1. Contact information
Full name
Address (including city, state and zip code)
Phone number
Email address
2. Academic history (in reverse-chronological order starting with
the most recent)
Post-doctoral program
Graduate school
Intermediate school
School
3. Professional experience
Organization or institution
Job title/position
Dates employed
Details about duties, experience and achievements
4. Qualifications and skills
Hard skills
Soft skills
Accreditations and certifications
5. Awards and honors
Award name
Year awarded
Organization that gave award
Award details (how often the award is given, how many people
receive the award, etc.)
6. Publications and presentations
Publication citation (including authors, date, topic, volume, page)
Presentation details (including title, date and place of
presentation)
7. Grants and scholarships. 
Provide the name of the grant or scholarship
Date awarded and the institution that provided the award.
8. Professional associations and affiliations
Name of organization
Geographic location or chapter
Dates of active membership
9. Your personal interests and hobbies
Areas and disciplines of your interest.
What you do in your spare time.
10. Professional references
List the name and contact of your professional contacts.
The organization or institution they are a part of.
Resume
The term resume originates from the French word résumé, which
means “abstract” or “summary.”
A resume is a document that summarizes your career history,
skills and education relevant to the job you are applying for. A
resume can list relevant professional associations or volunteer
work and may include an objective statement that shares your
professional goals.
Often people list their professional experience on a resume in
reverse-chronological order, starting with their current or most
recent job. If you are a recent graduate with little or no
professional history, you would start with your education and
then list any relevant internships or trainings.
How to write a resume
Contact information
Start writing with your full name, the city where you live, your
email address and phone number.
Objective statement/ Resume summary
A resume starts with one’s personal objective statement which quickly
describes his relevant qualifications and skills. It is a short description,
advertising your skill set and professional goals related to the job or
post. One or two sentences is a good length to state your objective
statement.
There are two ways of writing it
In the form of a headline: Customer service professional with 3+ years
experience delighting clients in the retail industry.
In the form of a Summary: Experienced in resolving client concerns via
chat, email and phone; routinely recognized by management and peers
for assertive and enthusiastic spirit. Excited to continue my career in
ecommerce.
Work experience
- Once you’ve written your resume summary, the next section to
take on is your work experience. (Note: in some cases, your
education may be listed before your work experience depends
on what industry or field are going for).
- While listing out your experience, do not write down everything
you’ve done in your career. Instead, you want to only include
the details of your past work that are especially relevant to the
work you want to do next.
- Give importance to most recent and relevant work and
accomplishments in your resume.
- Company is interested in what you’ve achieved, not just what
you’ve done. So focus on accomplishments and not on what
tasks you performed in your previous work.
The education section
In the education section of your resume, list all of the relevant
degrees or certifications that make you qualified for this job. If
you have attained a degree, list your degree type and field of
study followed by the name of your educational institution and
the city and state. List honors, if you have them.
List your highest level of education first.
The skill section:
In your skills section, you want to list the professional skills you
have that make you qualified for the jobs you’re applying for.
There are two types of skills, hard and soft skills. Soft skills
include things like interpersonal communication, organization,
management or attention to detail. Hard skills are more often
tied to specific tools, technical, software or knowledge (speaking
a foreign language, creative writing). Hard skills will vary by
industry or job type while soft skills tend to be more universal.
Differences
The CV and resume are both forms of a document but they differ
in length, purpose and layout.

Length: In order to achieve conciseness, a resume briefly

summarizes your professional and academic skills in no longer
than a page or two. A CV can run several pages in length. A CV is a
thorough listing of your professional and academic experiences
that’s why it includes more information than a resume.
Ability to customize: A CV is a static document that does not
change. You may add new information to a CV throughout your
professional career, but the information will not change based on
where you’re applying. A resume, on the other hand, is often
tailored to highlight specific skills or experience relevant to the
position or industry you are applying for.
Layout: A CV has a clear chronological order listing the whole
career of an individual. Whereas, the order of information can be
shuffled around to best suit the requirements of the job and post.
The recent and most relevant stuff will be written first, which can
change for some other job.

Purpose: The purpose of the CV is to give a full record of your

education, achievements and career history in chronological order.
Whereas, the purpose of resume is to advertise oneself that he is
the most eligible person for the job. A resume intends to make an
individual stand out for the competition and that’s why give a brief
summary of the targeted skills and achievements.