FROM: Peter Newfield,
Career-Resumes.com®
By Peter Newfield,
President of Career-Resumes.com®
According to the dictionary, a resume
is “a summary, as of one’s employment, education, etc.,
used in applying for a new position.” Conversely, a curriculum
vitae (C.V.) is noted as “a regular or particular course of
study of or pertaining to education and life.”
In other words, a RESUME is a
career and educational summary meant to highlight your skills and
experience and a C.V. is a list
mean to document every job and degree you’ve ever received
in your life.
When professionals working abroad decide that they want to seek
out job opportunities in the U.S. and send out their C.V.s to American
companies, they have no idea what Human Resource and Personnel Directors
are looking for when reviewing these documents. In a typical C.V.,
the first category is Education, listing preparatory/college/university
information and dates right up front. If the mechanical engineer
or CEO sending this document graduated from university in 1974,
that is not the most important piece of information that a headhunter
or H.R. Director needs to know about this person.
The C.V. continues with Work Experience, often listing jobs going
back to college days, and often listing them in chronological order
(starting with 1976 for example, and ending with the 1997-Present
position somewhere down on page 2 or 3). The C.V. is quite simply
a listing of company names, job titles, dates of employment, and
job responsibilities. Just the potatoes, without the meat and gravy,
so to speak. A professional resume does not require that you include
every job you’ve ever held since being a counselor at Camp
Thanksalot.
The C.V. is written in a paragraph style, not broken up with bulleted
or italicized information to highlight any skills, accomplishments,
or achievements for each specific position. Each paragraph lists
the responsibilities from a first person perspective “I”
and “my” which is just not done in a professional resume.
On this side of the Atlantic, a resume is written in the third person
so as to appear more objective and factual.
The next faux pas of the C.V. is to include personal information
in the document. The applicant lists marital status, nationality,
height and weight, date of birth, and other information which is
just not necessary or warranted when applying for a job in the U.S.
Hobbies and Personal Interests are also often listed on C.V.s. Whether
you play acoustic guitar or spin wool for cardigan sweaters, it
does not belong on a resume.
A strong, professionally written resume, however, starts out with
a brief Summary of Qualifications, next is a key word section listing
your Areas of Strength or Industry Expertise, then Professional
Experience where your career experience for the past 10-15 years
is focused on and any experience prior to that may be summarized.
The information listed under Professional Experience is written
in reverse chronological order (most recent/present job first and
going back from there) and includes a balance of responsibilities
and accomplishments for each position.
After the work experience, Professional Affiliations, Computer
Skills, and Education sections should appear. The best strong, to
the point resumes, should be 1-2 pages long. Oftentimes, C.V.s go
on for 3-4 pages.
Keep in mind that resumes are intended to present a summary of
highlights to allow the prospective employer to scan through the
document visually or electronically and see if your skills match
their available positions. A good resume can do that very effectively
-- a C.V. cannot.
For a free critique/price quote, email Career Resumes® at Peter@career-resumes.com.
Peter Newfield is President of Career-Resumes.com®,
one of the premier resume writing services in the United States.
He is The Resume Expert for BlueSteps.com, ExecutiveRegistry.com,
NETSHARE.com, DirectEmployer.com and the former Resume Expert for
Monster.com, Spencer Stuart Talent Network and the Career Center on AOL. View samples at: www.career-resumes.com
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