PREPARING A
EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM VITAE
The
curriculum vitae, commonly referred to as a CV, Vita, or Vitae, is a detailed
biographical description of one’s educational and work background (Acy and Kathleen, 2003). Curriculum vitae is Latin which means
“the course of one’s life” and it is seen as a comprehensive statement of your
educational background, teaching and research experience, professional and
other academic qualifications and activities ( www.career.virginia.edu ).
Get a free e-book on effective CV writing here.
Get a free e-book on effective CV writing here.
Primary
Elements of Curriculum Vitae
Naturally, there are some common experiences that
students and professionals in a wide range of occupations share and which
should be reflected in a CV (i.e. primary elements of a CV or résumé).
Good organization
and an effective use of section headings guide your audience in assessing your
qualifications There is general format for CV writing which contains the
primary items or elements of a CV or résumé.
This general format includes:
·
Identification
·
Personal biodata or information
·
Career objective
·
Education
·
Professional qualifications/affiliations
·
Relevant (work) experience
·
Other experience; with reference to where you are applying, your
experience in instrumentation, leadership, community development service or
volunteer service among others, will be very relevant.
·
Publications, creative works and major achievements
·
Personal competencies and skills indicative of the level of
proficiency
·
Hobbies/interests
·
References
An expanded version of these elements may include all the
following in an academic field whether for research, study, work or scholarship
purposes
(Acy and Kathleen, 2003);
•
Professional/Career/Vocational/Research Objectives
• Education
• Coursework
• Honors/Achievements/Awards/Kudos
• Thesis/Dissertation Abstract
• Research Interests
• Research and/or Laboratory
Experience
• Teaching Interests and Experience
• Instrumentation Experience
• Specialized Skills
•
Publications/Presentations/Works-in-Progress
• Work Experience
• Professional
Associations/Learned/Scientific Societies
• Background
• Community Service
• Co-curricular Activities
• Interests
• Travel
• References/Letters of
Recommendation
These components are not finite and
therefore should be tailored to meet your needs. Adapt them to fit your
experiences—use them, in fact, as a basis for creating components that more
precisely fit your own situation.
The specific objective for which you
are preparing your CV, as well as the order in which these broad components
might appear on your CV, should reflect the degree of importance you attribute
to them. Arrange them so that the most
important information appears at the beginning of your CV and the least
important at the end.
Use the following four guidelines as
you prepare the initial draft of your curriculum vitae.
1. Do
not feel compelled to complete all the worksheets at one sitting. Begin with those
that request routine information and then move on to those that might require
reflection and detailed organization.
2. Initially,
focus solely on content. Describe experiences in detail and later refine them
through careful revision.
3. Ignore
any overlap among components because some duplications or redundancies will be
eliminated as you work through the drafts. Others can be edited or revised in
consultation with your academic advisor, professor, or mentor.
4. Consider
using one of the two options discussed below to organize the information in
each component.
-
The first option is the self-teaching
résumé, which can be used for curriculum vitae and provides templates for use
with standard word-processing programs. The templates are detailed structural
outlines of documents that provide a starting point and some graphic assistance
in visualizing a finished product. These self-teaching templates also provide
explicit instructions about the nature of the material to be entered in a
particular section or location, along with instructions that link the various
parts to form a focused, coherent, and concise document. Your résumé should not
look exactly like the templates and must be customized in the curriculum vitae
format.
-
The second option is to use any
word-processing program to delineate the components, which allows for more
flexibility and makes revising the document much easier throughout the whole
process.
This work shall be addressing curriculum
vitae for different purposes among the major ones are; job-seeking in
non-academic and academic fields, and scholarships. By the end of this section, you will find out
which one to write for yourself.
Identification (as this section opens your CV, omit the heading)
Include your name
(set apart prominently at the top of the first page, using boldface,
capitalization and a larger font size at your discretion), address, complete
telephone number/s, and e-mail address. Some people include both personal and
department addresses to emphasize their current academic affiliation.
Personal information
Include your
citizenship, date and place of birth, marital status, height, weight among
others upon request. In some fields, this information is customarily included,
most frequently for funding considerations (e.g. for a grant-funded
postdoctoral position). In other fields it would be viewed as inappropriate.
Follow the norm in your field.
Note: In Nigeria, this
is customary and must be included unless otherwise stated by the provisions of
the job you are applying for!
Professional/Career/Vocational/Research
Objectives
The first component of a CV states
your objective(s), or the reason(s), you are distributing your CV. Your
objective can be as brief as one sentence, stating a general goal, or as long
as a brief paragraph, expressing both short-term and long-term goals. Be sure
to research carefully all graduate and professional programs and areas of
employment that interest you. Connect your goals, which should be logically and
clearly stated, to those of the program or position for which you are applying.
Next, avoid vague or obscure language that fails to express precisely what you
would like to do. Finally, use the worksheet that follows to prepare
preliminary, revised, and final drafts of your objectives.
Education
The objective of this component, as
well as the component that describes your coursework, is to provide graduate
and professional schools and prospective employers with a brief but thorough
understanding of your academic background. In this section you should indicate
the following:
•
degrees and the dates they were received
•
diplomas
•
certificates
•
names of universities, colleges, professional schools, or other institutions
you have attended
•
your majors and minors along with your grade point average for each
•
your cumulative grade point average for each institution attended as well as
for each degree
Place all graduate degrees, as well
as all completed coursework toward a graduate or professional degree, before
your undergraduate degrees. Highlight significant academic achievements,
such as strong grade point averages in specific courses, as well as any
extensive background you might have in areas of study outside your major and/or
minor. If you are an undergraduate and a candidate for honors or high honors in
your major, indicate as much in this component.
List all
institutions, degrees, and graduation dates in reverse chronological order.
If you attended an institution but did
not earn a degree, you do not need to list it on your CV unless the training
you received was vital to your career – language courses taken abroad, for
instance. Some postdoctoral researchers include their postdoctoral training
here, others include it under their research section; follow the norm in your
field.
When listing your
degrees, incorporate in-view to degrees that are not yet obtained but are
on-going. For instance;
2012 – 2013: Masters degree
in product engineering (in-view), Department of
Mechanical
Engineering, University of Tuskegee, Alabama, America.
Professional Qualifications
List all
professional bodies or institutions you belong to or affiliated with and your
position in such institution. Example of
such bodies in Nigeria are Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria
(ICAN), Nigeria Institute of Management (NIM), International Project Management
Professionals (IPMP), Onshore Offshore Oil and Gas Professionals (O3G),
Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Certified Environmentalists(cEnv),
Nigerian Institute of Food Science and Technology (NIFST), Institute of
Strategic Management of Nigeria (ISMN) among others.
Relevant
(Work) Experience
Listing of positions (part-time,
full-time, volunteer, temporary and permanent) related to the work sought.
Include: department, firm, agency, or organization; complete name; city and
state; job/position title; and dates. Also include a brief description of your
activities/duties, using strong action verbs. This section can be broken down
into subcategories of related experience such as Research Positions, Teaching
Experience, etc. List these in reverse chronological order.
Other Experience
Groupings of other experiences
(including volunteer work and/or internships) can enhance your CV. Your
experience can also be broken into other categories such as: Counseling,
Administration, Volunteer, Community, Internship, leadership and so on. Entries
within each section should be in reverse chronological order.
Publications/
Creative works
Include bibliographic citations of
articles, research reports, and book reviews that you have published. If
applicable to your field, poems, musical recitals, or art exhibits may be
included in this section. Depending upon your discipline, as you gain
experience, you will further separate these items into different categories,
such as “book review,” “articles in refereed journals,” books,” etc. Use the
form of citation appropriate to your field. In order to list something as
“forthcoming” in this section, you should have a reasonably firm sense of when
the publication will appear in print, unless otherwise directed by your
advisor. In your work experience, you
can also list projects, inventions, innovations or list other creative work(s)
done or ongoing. Your major achievements in previous workplace(s) if necessary
in your prospective job, should also be listed here.
Personal
skills and competencies
Having discovered and identified
your skills and competencies, you can employ them to constructing a powerful,
mind-blowing, employable, irresistible and promoting CV. You may not have those gigantic professional
certifications but that skill you obtained in the Information Communication and
Technology, technical, graphical and art, fashion and designing,
quick-service-sector among others, can place you in that job or position of
your dream.
Hobbies/Interests
These are the activities that
interest you or that you enjoy partaking in.
They are source of joy and excitement to you. Besides, they are the things that keep your
mind in good working condition. Your hobbies in a CV should display your ability
to adapt and work in the environment provided by the job. Why most people loose their job opportunities
is because of this. For instance,
somebody applying for a job in a bank, project firm, chemical and petroleum industry
has nothing to do with hobbies like cooking, dancing, singing, fashion and
designing. In the same vein, these
hobbies can go in a hotel management firm, restaurant and other related firm. Directly put, your hobbies should determine
the job and company you are applying for (to) if you are really working to
learn and not to earn. A well packaged
presentation of your hobbies has the potential to display your passion, zeal
and will to work in a particular company with ease. Anybody that his hobby is travelling at least
three times in a week is likely not to be employed in food processing firm
while such a person can be seen as a veritable tool in the marketing and
project firms.
References
This can be at the tail-end of your CV
or can be on a separate sheet. It is a
list of the people that can easily provide information to your prospective
employer when contacted. So, it is
therefore necessary that you must know the people you are including in your
CV. In your references, you are not expected
to use your family members, relatives and friends (in some cases) because your
references are seen as independent entities that have nothing to loose whether
you are employed in the work or not.
Some of the people you might use are your academic supervisors/advisers,
professors, managers of where you have previously worked among others. It is on this that I will advise that your
relationship with people should be harmonious and not thunderous. Your social and hardworking life should
strike a balance in your place of work and your relationship with people.
This
is a vital and indispensable key in information dissemination!
List the names, titles, and academic
affiliations of your references. List your references in order of importance
(e.g. your dissertation director/advisor first, followed by other members of
your committee or other advisors who know your work well). It is customary to
list the mailing and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of your references.
Follow the standard practice in your field.
For academic or research work and scholarship
purposes, they following will be included.
Coursework
Using your most recent transcripts,
provide complete course titles, with brief descriptions where appropriate, so
that prospective employers have a clear indication that course content is
congruent with job requirements. You might also find it advantageous to list
the grades you have received in some courses if you want to highlight academic
performance or describe a trend in that performance.
Do not include course numbers or
abbreviations because they are irrelevant and institution-specific.
Honors/Achievements/Awards/Kudos
List and briefly describe all
special recognitions you have received, including study group participation,
community and institutional service, departmental awards, athletic awards
and/or lists, dean’s awards, scholarships, fellowships, community awards, professional
awards, academic awards, and memberships in academic organizations.
As a general rule, do not list high school awards or
achievements since they might diminish the importance of undergraduate and
graduate honors, achievements, awards, and kudos. If, however, you have
significant high school awards or achievements you want to highlight, discuss
with your academic advisor, professor, or mentor whether or not to include
them.
Thesis/Dissertation
Abstract
Summarize your thesis or
dissertation in a brief abstract. Include the full title and date or term of
completion. Consult your academic advisor, professor, or mentor regarding the
appropriate wording of this statement. Some disciplines (for example, chemistry
and psychology) have specific editorial formats for abstracts.
Research
Interests
Be as specific and precise as
possible regarding the description of your research interests. Strike a balance
between being specific enough to ensure congruence between your objectives and
those of the program and/or employment option for which you are submitting your
CV and being general enough not to preclude options that you might pursue if
your research objectives are flexible. This delicate balancing act makes this
component extremely complex and often requires that it be developed in
consultation with your academic advisor, professor, mentor, representatives of
graduate and professional schools, and/or a selected group of prospective
employers.
Research
and/or Laboratory Experience
Provide detailed descriptions of
your research and laboratory experiences. Include information about the ways in
which your research fits into a given profession or into a particular
laboratory’s ongoing research. Be sure to give the title of each project as
well as information concerning its actual or potential publication. Also, list
the names and titles of professors or other individuals who have supervised or
are currently supervising your research.
Teaching
Interests and Experience
For this component, describe only
those teaching interests and experiences that can be documented. However, you
might also include tutoring experience as well as any group learning experience
in which you were a leader, such as laboratory or writing center experience.
Instrumentation
Experience
If you have used standard
instruments in a laboratory— for example, computer hardware, photographic, or
audiovisual equipment—describe that use. You will probably not need to provide
extensive details regarding the devices themselves. On the other hand, if you
have used state-of-the-art instruments, it is appropriate to describe both the
instruments and the extent to which you have used them.
Specialized
Skills
Describe in detail any
interpersonal, leadership, organizational or analytical skills you have as well
as their applications and the contexts in which you have used them. Do the same
for specialized skills involving any languages, computers/technology, computer
software, and so on.
Students
who intend to pursue a graduate degree should clearly describe their levels of
proficiency in their intended field of study. Vague descriptions might be
interpreted as a marginal degree of competency.
Publications/Presentations/Works-in-Progress
If you have authored or coauthored
publications, provide appropriate bibliographic descriptions. List unpublished
manuscripts only if they are actually being considered for publication. Artists
and musicians, for example, should provide complete descriptions of
works-in-progress. Provide detailed descriptions of presentations, particularly
those made before academic societies and professional associations.
Documentation should include title of the presentation, name of the
organization, location of the meeting, and date.
Although classroom presentations
would ordinarily not be included here, there are occasions when students are
selected or encouraged to give a presentation because of superior performance
in class or because they have researched a topic that is being studied in
class. In these instances, such experiences should be listed. If you want to
highlight significant classroom presentations, you might consider establishing
a separate component for them.
Work
Experience
In this section, list all of your
work experiences, including internships, summer jobs, and campus employment.
Give brief but detailed descriptions of your responsibilities. Use action verbs
to describe those responsibilities.
Provide the following information:
titles, names of the organizations or businesses, locations of the organizations
or businesses, and dates of employment.
Background
This component anticipates the
section on graduate and professional school applications where applicants are
asked to provide additional background or information that might not have been
requested in other sections of an application. In addition, this component
might include information regarding citizenship, prolonged residence abroad,
and/or unusual educational or work experiences.
Community
Service
This component includes volunteer
work, contributions to a community, and/or membership on university-wide
committees. There might be some overlap for undergraduates between this
component and co-curricular activities.
Co-curricular
Activities
List and describe campus programs
and activities in which you have been an active
participant, such as student government, athletics, sororities,
fraternities, academic clubs, and language clubs.
Interests
This component includes avocations
such as bird-watching, stamp collecting, chess, rugby, antique collecting, and
music. List interests as a separate component even though they may appear
elsewhere in your CV.
Travel
Include extended international
travel as a result of academic study abroad; however, do not include brief
visits abroad as a tourist. If, on the other hand, you have had extensive
domestic travel that is related to your objectives, mention it here. When
appropriate, list cities, states, regions, or countries alphabetically with
descriptions of experience and length of visits.
References/Letters
of Recommendation
This component is entirely optional;
however, if you choose to include references on your CV, list only the names and titles of individuals you have asked to write recommendations for you. Including
letters of recommendation depends on the preference of the employing
institution or university to which you are applying. Some institutions maintain
placement files and/or dossiers for students; therefore, requests for
recommendations are generally referred to undergraduate institutions or to the
institution of your most recent attendance. If appropriate, you may simply
indicate one of the following on your CV:
1. Placement
credentials available from the name of the institution or the name of the appropriate
office.
2. References
available upon request.
Professors, deans, chairs, and those
who supervise your work are frequently asked to be references. Be sure to ask
these individuals in advance for their permission to use them as references.
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Thanks for reading our update. If you find this informative, please do share with your friends. For more information and support, contact us on bntconsortium@gmail.com or call +2347062628598.