Carrier Guidance

Understanding about writing a Curriculum Vitae and Cover Letter

Curriculum Vitae vs Resume

Graduate College of UOL (2012) mentions that CV and resume differs from each other when it comes to the audience that its written. 
CV mainly flashes out to an academic audience, thus it contains mostly your academic details, accomplishments and intellectual achievements, while resume flashed out to an organizations which hire employees, which basically means to a non-academic audience Graduate College of UOL (2012). Your resume is only reviewed for about 15 second because of the vast quantity of applicants for a job, therefore your resume should be written in a way that it would stand out from rest  Graduate College of UOL (2012).

Curriculum Vitae

CV contains the details of ones life, basically it's ones life story that would help he/she in getting a proper position in the industry, therefore it must be clear cut showing your achievements at different stages of your life. Keeping your CV up to date is very essential as the world is growing fast and people should adopt to that, hence the achievements made by an individual varies rapidly.

Simple format of a CV

Contact information

• Full Name
• Postal address which is permanet
• Mail Address
• Phone numbers

When providing your contact information it is a need that you provide with a permanent mailing address and the phone number you provide should work regularly, this will ease the process of contacting you by the company which hired you.

Sections of a CV

• Objective
• Education
• Honors & Awards
• Professional Experience
• Publications/ Presentations
• Extra-curricular & Volunteer Experience
• Interests

Optional

• Certifications  License
• Professional Affiliations
• Professional Activities
• Research
• Added Qualifications

General set-up features 

• Font: Time new Roman
• Regular paper: White
• Font size: 12 points
• No underlining but can bold or use caps to stand out things
• Single sided
• 1" margin in all around
• Number the pages
• No graphics
• Full name on every page

Cover letter 

The letter written by an individual in order to introduce your self, to prove the facts written in the CV are true, to show why you produce this CV and the show the eagerness of obtaining this job, in addition showing you capacity and the capability on how you can help the company to produce better results by hiring is favorable. 

Structure of a cover letter 

• Your address  and date
• Recipient name and address
• Salutation
• Body of the letter
• Reason for writing
• Point out qualifications
• Call attention to resume, reiterate interst
• Complimentary close and signature
• Title of respect
• Return address and  zip code

Ensure that your cover letter does not contain any grammar mistakes and spelling, therefore proofreading by another person is vital. 

Author understands that CV and resume has a vast difference, thus an individual should be able to differentiate and produce what is expected by the employer. Updating the CV is very essential with the fast growing world, thus your CV should be up to date as some people might forget the important milestones in their lives when the time passes. 

Reference

Graduate College of UOL, 2012. Graduate College of UOL. [Online]
Available at: http://www.grad.illinois.edu/careerservices/cvorresume
[Accessed 17 01 2013].